The Bottle Imp
"The Bottle Imp" is an 1891 short story by the Scottish author
Plot
Keawe, a poor
Of course, there is a catch. The bottle must be sold, for cash, at a loss, i.e. for less than its owner originally paid, and cannot be thrown or given away, or else it will magically return to him. All of these rules must be explained by each seller to each purchaser. If an owner of the bottle dies without having sold it in the prescribed manner, that person's soul will burn for eternity in Hell.
The bottle was said to have been brought to Earth by the
Keawe buys the bottle and instantly tests it by wishing his money to be refunded, and by trying to sell it for more than he paid and abandoning it, to test if the story is true. When these all work as described, he realizes the bottle does indeed have unholy power. He wishes for his heart's desire: a big, fancy mansion on a landed estate, and finds his wish granted, but at a price: his beloved uncle and cousins have been killed in a boating accident, leaving Keawe sole heir to his uncle's fortune. Keawe is horrified, but uses the money to build his house. Having all he wants, and being happy, he explains the risks to a friend who buys the bottle from him.
Keawe lives a happy life, but there is something missing. Walking along the beach one night, he meets a beautiful woman, Kokua. They soon fall in love and become engaged. Keawe's happiness is shattered on the night of his betrothal, when he discovers that he has contracted the then-incurable disease of
Keawe begins this quest by attempting to track down the friend to whom he sold the bottle, but the friend has become suddenly wealthy and left Hawaii. Keawe traces the path of the bottle through many buyers and eventually finds a Haole in Honolulu. The man of European ancestry has both good and bad news for Keawe: (a) he owns the bottle and is very willing to sell, but (b) he had only paid two cents for it. Therefore, if Keawe buys it, he will not be able to resell it.
Keawe decides to buy the bottle anyway, for the price of one cent, and indeed cures himself. Now, however, he is understandably
His wife suggests they sail, with the bottle, to Tahiti; on that archipelago the colonists of French Polynesia use centimes, a coin worth one fifth of an American cent. This offers a potential recourse for Keawe.
When they arrive, however, the suspicious natives will not touch the cursed bottle. Kokua determines to make a supreme sacrifice to save her husband from his fate. Since, however, she knows he would never sell the bottle to her knowingly, Kokua is forced to bribe an old sailor to buy the bottle for four centimes, with the understanding that she will secretly buy it back for three. Now Kokua is happy, but she carries the curse.
Keawe discovers what his wife has done, and resolves to sacrifice himself for her in the same manner. He arranges for a brutish boatswain to buy the bottle for two centimes, promising he will buy it back for one, thus sealing his doom. However, the drunken sailor refuses to part with it, and is unafraid of the prospect of Hell. "I reckon I'm going anyway," he says.
Keawe returns to his wife, both of them free from the curse, and the reader is encouraged to believe that they live happily ever after.
Background
The theme of the bottle imp can be found in the German legend Spiritus familiaris by the
The novel reflects Stevenson's impressions gained during his five-month visit of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1889.
The story could be considered as both a continuation of and a rather light-hearted counterpoint to the theme of
Publication
"The Bottle Imp" was published in the missionary magazine O le sulu Samoa (The Samoan Torch) in 1891, with the title "O Le Tala I Le Fagu Aitu". According to Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal (both quoted by Amazon.com) "this tale was originally published, in Samoan, in 1891".[8] The Locus Online Index to Science Fiction similarly states "The Stevenson story was first published in Samoan in 1891, appearing later that year in English."[9] The Project Gutenberg text of the story has a note by Stevenson[10] which says "...the tale has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience..." which also suggests initial publication in Polynesia, not in the United States.
Bottle Imp paradox
The premise of the story creates a logical paradox similar to the unexpected hanging paradox. Clearly no rational person would buy it for one cent as this would make it impossible for it to be sold at a loss. However, it follows that no rational person would buy it for two cents either if it is later to be sold only to a rational person for a loss. By backward induction, the bottle cannot be sold for any price in a perfectly rational world. And yet, the actions of the people in the story do not seem particularly unwise.[11]
The story shows that the paradox could be resolved by the existence of certain characters:
- Someone who loves the bottle's current owner enough to sacrifice their own soul for that person.
- Someone who believes they are inevitably destined for Hell already.
- Someone who believes there is someone else willing to make an irrational decision to purchase the bottle.
Since the exchange rates of different currencies can fluctuate with respect to one another, it is also possible that the value of the bottle could increase from one transaction to the next even if the stated price decreases. This leads to an
Adaptations
The Witch's Tale, a horror anthology radio series, adapted the story as "The Wonderful Bottle" in 1934.
Käthe von Nagy was the star in the German film Love, Death and the Devil (1934) and the French film The Devil in the Bottle (1935).
A West German
An Italian TV adaptation "Il diavolo nella bottiglia" aired on Rai2 on 23 Jun 1981 as part of the horror anthology series "I giochi del diavolo".[13]
The Imp In The Bottle, was episode number 143 of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, adapted in 1974.
The Devil Inside, an opera based on Stevenson's short story written by the novelist Louise Welsh and the composer Stuart MacRae, premiered at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow in January 2016. The opera was a co-production between Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales.[14]
The story has inspired the trick-taking card game Bottle Imp, designed by Günter Cornett. It was first published in 1995 by Bambus Spieleverlag,[15] and has been republished several times since under the name "Bottle Imp".[16]
See also
References
- ^ 85. Spiritus familiaris. In: Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm: Deutsche Sagen. Zwei Bände in einem Band. München 1965, pp. 121-123.
- ISBN 0-8248-1397-9
- ^ cf. his letter to Charles Baxter (Honolulu, 10 May 1889): "I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day, living with a native ..."
- ^ cf. The Bottle Imp: "Thither he went, because he feared to be alone; and there, among happy faces, walked to and fro, and heard the tunes go up and down, and saw Berger beat the measure, and all the while he heard the flames crackle, and saw the red fire burning in the bottomless pit."
- ^ Hawaiian Dictionaries
- ^ cf. his letter to Sidney Colvin (Honolulu, June 1889): "I am just home after twelve days journey to Molokai, seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only say that the sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights."
- ^ vgl. The Bottle Imp: "Now there was an old brutal Haole drinking with him, one that had been a boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict in prisons."
- ISBN 0-395-72101-6
- ^ "Books, Listed by Author". The Locus Index to Science Fiction. Locus Magazine. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
- ^ Stevenson, Robert Louis (1905). "Island Nights' Entertainments". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
- S2CID 170958274.
Sorensen calls this "Sharvey’s Bottle Imp paradox" or "Sharvey’s paradox", see- Sorensen, Roy A. (1986). "The Bottle Imp and the Prediction paradox". S2CID 170536471.
- Sorensen, Roy A. (1987). "The bottle imp and the prediction paradox, II". Philosophia. 17 (3): 351–354. S2CID 189836440.
- Sorensen, Roy A. (October 1988). "Blindspotting and Choice Variations of the Prediction Paradox". American Philosophical Quarterly. 23 (4). University of Illinois Press: 337–352. JSTOR 20014159.
- Sorensen, Roy A. (1986). "The Bottle Imp and the Prediction paradox".
- ^ "Internet Movie Database". IMDb. Retrieved 31 July 2008.
- ^ "IMDb". IMDb.
- ^ "The Devil Inside". Scottish Opera. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
- ^ "Flaschenteufel". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 11 October 2007.
- ^ "The Bottle Imp". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
External links
- Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson at Project Gutenberg
- The Bottle Imp public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- The Bottle Imp title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database