The Bottle Imp
A Hawaiian sailor buys a bottle that grants every wish but damns its owner to hell unless he sells it for less than he paid, and the falling price becomes a trap.
A bottle will give you anything you ask, yet to die owning it is to burn forever. You may only escape by selling it cheaper than you bought it. When the price has fallen to a single cent, who will take it off your hands?
What happens
Keawe, a poor Hawaiian sailor, visits San Francisco and meets a sorrowful rich man who sells him a strange bottle containing an imp that grants wishes. The catch is severe: the owner is bound for hell if he dies still holding it, and he can only be rid of it by selling it for less than he paid. Keawe wishes himself a beautiful house and falls in love with a girl named Kokua, but then discovers he has contracted leprosy and needs the bottle back to cure himself. He buys it again at a low price, is healed, and marries Kokua, but now the price is so small that he can scarcely sell it onward without damning whoever buys it last. Kokua secretly arranges to take the curse upon herself by buying it back through an intermediary at the lowest possible coin. Their love drives each to try to bear the damnation for the other. In the end a dissolute old boatswain, indifferent to hell and eager only for drink, takes the bottle for good, freeing them both.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- 1 The bargain
Keawe buys the wishing bottle from a melancholy rich man in San Francisco and is warned of its terrible condition.
- 2 The test
Keawe tries to throw the bottle away, finds it returns to him, and proves its power before selling it on to a friend.
- 3 The house and the love
Keawe wishes for a grand house at Kona, then meets and falls in love with Kokua.
- 4 The affliction
Keawe discovers he has leprosy and must reclaim the bottle to be cured, this time at a much lower price.
- 5 The trap of the price
Cured and married, Keawe realizes the price has fallen so low he can barely sell the bottle without condemning the buyer.
- 6 The secret sacrifice
Kokua quietly buys the bottle back through an old man so that she, not Keawe, will bear the curse.
- 7 The drunkard's bargain
A reckless boatswain who scorns hell buys the bottle for the last coin, releasing Keawe and Kokua from the curse.
Characters and how they connect
Keawe
Protagonist
A poor but bright Hawaiian sailor whose ambition leads him to buy the bottle, and whose love for Kokua later forces him to risk his soul.
Kokua
Wife and rescuer
Keawe's devoted bride, whose courage and secret self-sacrifice match and exceed his own when she takes the curse upon herself.
The melancholy man
First seller
A sorrowful rich man in San Francisco who sells Keawe the bottle and explains its grim condition.
Lopaka
Friend
Keawe's friend who covets the bottle, witnesses its power, and buys it once the house has been built.
The boatswain
Final buyer
A drunken, careless old sailor who scoffs at damnation and willingly keeps the bottle, ending the chain of fear.
Character map who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
- Keawe → Kokua loves and is rescued by
- The melancholy man → Keawe sells the bottle to
- Keawe → Lopaka sells the bottle to
- Kokua → Keawe secretly takes the curse from
- The boatswain → Kokua finally relieves of the bottle
Themes what the story is really about
The price of desire
Every wish the bottle grants extracts a hidden cost, dramatizing how the things we crave can carry consequences we do not see until they bind us.
Self-sacrificing love
Keawe and Kokua each try to take the damnation upon themselves so the other may be saved, making love a willingness to be lost for another's sake.
Salvation and damnation
The story frames a literal economy of souls, asking what a person will trade for safety and whether grace can be bought, sold, or given away.
The corruption of wealth
Wealth flows from the bottle but never without dread; the comfortable house and easy money are shadowed by the constant nearness of hell.
Symbols & motifs
The bottle
An unbreakable vessel holding an imp, it embodies temptation that cannot simply be discarded and must instead be passed to another at a cost.
The falling price
The ever-shrinking sale value figures the shrinking margin of escape, turning ordinary commerce into a countdown toward inescapable doom.
Leprosy
Keawe's disease is a visible mark of corruption that severs him from love and forces him back into the bargain he thought he had escaped.
The bright house
Keawe's gleaming home is the dream fulfilled, but its very brightness sits atop a buried dread, a happiness undermined from within.
Recurring motifs
Buying and selling. The narrative is structured by transactions, each purchase advancing the moral stakes and reminding readers that every gain has a seller and a buyer.
Secrecy between lovers. Both Keawe and Kokua act in concealment to protect each other, and the recurring hidden bargains create suspense and deepen their devotion.
The smallest coin. Repeated attention to the lowest denomination of money marks the approach of the trap, where no smaller price remains to pass the curse along.
Conflicts
Person vs self
Keawe wrestles with fear of damnation and the temptation to use the bottle again, weighing his soul against his comfort and his life.
Person vs supernatural
The imp's binding rules force the human characters to outmaneuver a devilish contract that seems designed to ensnare every owner.
Person vs society
The closing scenes turn on currencies, exchange rates, and what coins exist in foreign ports, making worldly money the field on which souls are wagered.
Literary devices
- Folktale framing
- Stevenson borrows the cadence and logic of a Polynesian-inflected fairy tale, with rules, repetitions, and a clear moral economy.
- Dramatic irony
- Readers grasp the danger of the lowering price before the characters fully reckon with it, sharpening the dread of each new sale.
- Foreshadowing
- The melancholy of the first seller silently predicts the burden Keawe will carry and the sorrow ownership brings.
- Situational irony
- The cure Keawe needs can only come from the very object that threatens to damn him, trapping him in the source of his fear.
- Parallel structure
- Keawe's and Kokua's secret sacrifices mirror each other, the second deepening and answering the first in a balanced design.
Important quotes
“If a man chooses, he can have all the wishes of his heart.”
“He that dies in the possession of this bottle goes to hell, and to a hell of fire.”
“It cannot be sold at all, unless sold for less than you paid for it.”
“I would rather be damned right now than that you should fall ill.”
Trapped by a price too low to pass on safely, Keawe and Kokua each secretly buy the bottle back to spare the other from damnation, until the curse rests with Keawe and only the lowest coin remains. Their escape comes not through cleverness but through a careless old boatswain who has already given himself up for lost. Because he genuinely does not fear hell and would rather keep the bottle than be free of it, he refuses to sell it onward, and the chain of fear that bound every previous owner is broken at last. The ending suggests that the curse depended on dread itself, and that the only person it cannot trap is one who has stopped bargaining for his soul. Keawe and Kokua are saved by another's recklessness, a sober reminder that their rescue is grace they did not earn.
Common misreadings
MythThe bottle simply grants wishes for free.
ActuallyEvery wish is shadowed by the condition that dying as owner means hell, so nothing the bottle gives is truly free.
MythKeawe defeats the imp through cunning.
ActuallyHe and Kokua nearly destroy themselves; their salvation comes from the boatswain's indifference, not from a winning trick.
MythThe story is a simple cautionary tale against greed.
ActuallyIts richer subject is sacrificial love, as both spouses risk damnation to save the other, complicating any tidy moral about wealth.
Test yourself
1. What condition binds every owner of the bottle?
The owner is damned if he dies holding it, and can only escape by selling it cheaper than he bought it.
2. Why does Keawe buy the bottle a second time?
Stricken with leprosy and unable to marry Kokua, Keawe reclaims the bottle to heal himself.
3. Who finally keeps the bottle and frees the couple?
An old boatswain who scorns hell happily keeps the bottle, ending the chain of fear.
A poor sailor named Keawe buys a magic bottle that grants any wish, but there is a horrible catch: if you die owning it, you go to hell, and you can only get rid of it by selling it for less money than you paid. Keawe uses it to get a beautiful house and a wife named Kokua, but the price keeps dropping until it is almost impossible to sell without dooming whoever buys it. He and Kokua each secretly try to take the curse so the other will be safe, because they love each other that much. In the end, a drunk old sailor who does not care about going to hell keeps the bottle forever, and the couple is finally free.
Ask the story
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Compare & connect the story universe
An Outpost of Progress
Both stories show ordinary men corrupted and undone by a system of exchange that promises gain but delivers ruin.
The Tell-Tale Heart
Each turns on a private dread that grows unbearable, though Stevenson resolves the fear where Poe lets it consume the narrator.
The Black Cat
Both link a cursed object or omen to damnation and guilt, dramatizing how a soul can be marked for hell.
Heart of Darkness
Both probe the cost a man pays for desire and ambition, weighing material gain against the loss of the soul.
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- What is the curse of the bottle in The Bottle Imp
- How do Keawe and Kokua escape the bottle imp
- What does the bottle symbolize in Stevenson's story
- How does The Bottle Imp explore the theme of the price of desire?
- How does The Bottle Imp explore the theme of self-sacrificing love?
- What is the central conflict in The Bottle Imp, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how Robert Louis Stevenson develops the theme of the price of desire in The Bottle Imp. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the bottle in The Bottle Imp. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does Robert Louis Stevenson use folktale framing to shape the reader’s experience of The Bottle Imp?
- Some readers assume that the bottle simply grants wishes for free. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- What is the curse of the bottle in The Bottle Imp
- How do Keawe and Kokua escape the bottle imp
- What does the bottle symbolize in Stevenson's story
- Why can the bottle only be sold for less than you paid
- What is the theme of love and sacrifice in The Bottle Imp
- How does the boatswain free Keawe at the end
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. Quotations are from Robert Louis Stevenson's The Bottle Imp (1891), which is in the public domain.