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critical analysis essay
critical theory essay
critical analytical essay
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Daniel Defoe tells tale of a marooned individual in order to criticize society. By using the Island location, similar to that of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Defoe is able to show his audience exactly what is necessary for the development of a utopian society. In The Tempest, the small society of Prospero's island addresses the aspects of morality, the supernatural and politics in the larger British society. In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, the island's natural surroundings highlights the subject of man's individual growth, both spiritually and physically. Nature instantly exercises its power and control over man in the tropical storm that leads to the wreckage of Crusoe's ship. "The fury of the sea" (Defoe, 45) thrusts Crusoe to the shores of the uninhabited "Island of Despair" (Defoe, 70). Isolated on the island, Crusoe is challenged to use his creativity in order to survive. Crusoe accepts the challenge to survive, but not only does he survive, but he also expands and discovers new qualities about himself. In the beginning of his time on the island, Crusoe feels exceedingly secluded. He fears savages and wild beasts on the island, and he stays high up in a tree. Lacking a "weapon to hunt and kill creatures for his sustenance" (Defoe, 47), he is susceptible. Defoe believed that "the nature of man resides in the capacity for improvement in the context of a material world" (Seidel, 59), and this becomes apparent in his novel. The tools that Crusoe possesses from the ship carry out this notion, improving his life on the island dramatically. He progresses quickly, and no longer feels as isolated as he did before on the island. Crusoe uses his tools to build a protective fence and a room inside a cave. He then builds a farm where he raises goats and grows a corn crop. Later, his ambitions take him to the other side of the island where he builds a country home. Also, with the weapons that Crusoe creates, he saves Friday from cannibals, and makes him his servant. Because of his tools, his supply becomes more than sufficient for survival. He comes to learn that if he works with his surroundings instead of wallowing in the fact that he has no longer got what he thinks he needs, he able to find and use everything he needs in order to carry out life.
Not only did Crusoe not fall victim to the hardships of nature and the cannibals, he made two structurally sound homes, one he called his summer home, and the other his castle. He also tamed some goats, taught his pet parrot, Polly, to say a handful of sentences, built a canoe, a wall, and a tobacco pipe, and planted a highly successful garden with a variety of grains and vegetables to keep him fed. Crusoe did not merely survive for twenty-eight years, he thrived for twenty-eight years. He affectionately said while looking back at his island from afar, “Now I looked back upon my desolate, solitary island as the most pleasant place in the world and all the happiness my heart could wish for was to be but there again,” (Defoe 64). Crusoe made the best of his situation through hard work and perseverance, which in and of itself are very admirable
The Tempest is dominated with water imagery, the most significant being “the tempest”, which foreshadows the transformation in Prospero. Water imagery “But doth suffer a sea change” is prolific in The Tempest in order to illustrate the extended metaphor that the island is the catalyst for the transformation of Prospero. “The tempest” also represents the shift in power that the island invokes, causing Prospero’s discovery of the fragility of his own authority. The inversion of Boatswain ordering the nobles “To cabin, silence! Trouble us not” is representative of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ being overturned, contextual to the Elizabethan era where this chain was representative of the hierarchy. This inversion of power is demonstrated when Prospero, who was “the Duke of Milan and A prince of power”, was subjected to the island without his power but then regained his power through the usurpation of the native Caliban. The assumption of control over the island “This island's mine, Which thou takest from me” is ironic as he has been a victim of the very actions he himself perpetrates. The overthrowing of the natives is contextual to the colonisation period is Great Britain at the time the text was written. The discovery of his own complicity in Caliban’s behaviour “this thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine” is symbolic of his acceptance of the
Shakespeare's play, The Tempest tells the story of a father, Prospero, who must let go of his daughter; who brings his enemies under his power only to release them; and who in turn finally relinquishes his sway over his world - including his power over nature itself. The Tempest contains elements ripe for tragedy: Prospero is a controlling figure bent on taking revenge for the wrongs done to him, and in his fury he has the potential to destroy not only his enemies, but his own humanity and his daughter's future.
Shakespeare creates in The Tempest an idealized world of imagination, a place of magical rejuvenation like the forests of A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It. Yet the journey is no escape from reality, for the island shows men what they are and what they ought to be. Even its location juxtaposes "real" world with idealized landscape: like Plato's New Atlantis or Thomas More's Utopia, Shakespeare's island is to be found both somewhere and nowhere. (xvii)
Prospero, the protagonist of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, remains the same cruel and merciless man throughout the entirety of the play. However, Shakespeare distorts reality therefore causing the reader to gradually sympathize with Prospero as the play progresses. Prospero begins the play as the perpetrator of the storm that causes the passengers of the ship to be scattered across the island. In addition, Prospero acts as the cruel master of Caliban. As the novel progresses, however, more is learned about Prospero. Prospero’s cruel actions develop to the point where they are perceived to be warranted and justified despite the unreasonable actions that he may use to achieve his goal.
Shakespeare’s enchanted island in The Tempest is a restorative pastoral setting, a place where ‘no man was his own’ and a place that offers endless possibilities to the people that arrive on it’s shores. Although the actual location of the island is not known, the worlds of Seneca aptly describe it’s significance to the play – it represents the ‘bounds of things, the remotest shores of the world’. On the boundary of reality, the island partakes of both the natural and supernatural both the imaginative and the real. It allows the exploration of both man’s potential and his limitations, his capacity for reform through art and his affinity for political and social realities. It is constructing this opposition between art and reality and in giving Shakespeare’s romance the freedom to explore mankind free from the concerns of everyday life that the setting of The Tempest is crucial to it’s overall dramatic design.
"Daniel Defoe achieved literary immortality when, in April 1719, he published Robinson Crusoe" (Stockton 2321). It dared to challenge the political, social, and economic status quo of his time. By depicting the utopian environment in which was created in the absence of society, Defoe criticizes the political and economic aspect of England's society, but is also able to show the narrator's relationship with nature in a vivid account of the personal growth and development that took place while stranded in solitude. Crusoe becomes "the universal representative, the person, for whom every reader could substitute himself" (Coleridge 2318). "Thus, Defoe persuades us to see remote islands and the solitude of the human soul. By believing fixedly in the solidity of the plot and its earthiness, he has subdued every other element to his design and has roped a whole universe into harmony" (Woolf 2303).
The Tempest by William Shakespeare, is full of symbolism, imagery, and point of view; throughout the play Shakespeare uses these literary devices to convey a message of betrayal, forgiveness, and lessons learned. In the first act, Prospero uses his magic to create a storm that shipwrecks the King of Naples on the island. Like the storm, Prospero's anger is apparent; yet he never wants to do any real harm to the crew. The crew is safely washed ashore on to what seems to be the ideal utopia. Prospero is not an evil guy, he may be controlling and bitter, but only because he lost his dukedom, to his own family. The purpose for his actions essentially lead to forgiveness and a lesson learned by Antonio and Alonso. In the end everyone seems to get what they deserve.
If the book is not holding the reader's attention because of the suspense, then it is held by the profound spiritual insight that Defoe includes within the pages of his work. This was the biggest surprise to me of all. For example, in chapter 12, Robinson Crusoe states: "From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it is possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken solitary condition, that it was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world, and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place." Crusoe was convinced that the reason for all of his calamities was the result of his disobeying the counsel of his father. The theological discussions with Friday are wonderful. Indeed, every Christian can relate to Crusoe's wrestling with faith and fear. I finished the book with the conclusion that this book should be standard reading for every Christian, particularly preachers. Preachers will find a wealth of sermon illustrations in Robinson Crusoe.
As boys grow into men they go through a series of changes, leaving them doubting both themselves and their beliefs. One specific author who explores this is Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. In this publication, Defoe writes about a man who emerges from a series of catastrophes as a symbol of man’s ability to survive the tests of nature. Because of the many hardships that Defoe encountered throughout his life, writing about a man whose thoughts and internal struggles mirrored his own helps to give the publication a sense of realism. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is a fictional narrative that introduces prose fiction and proposes multiple themes that dabbles on various serious topics, such as religion.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Thomas Keymer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print. Oxford World's Classics.
Daniel Defoe has frequently been considered the father of realism in regards to his novel, Robinson Crusoe. In the preface of the novel, the events are described as being “just history of fact” (Defoe and Richetti ). This sets the tone for the story to be presented as factual, while it is in of itself truly fiction. This is the first time that a narrative fictional novel has been written in a way that the story is represented as the truth. Realistic elements and precise details are presented unprecedented; the events that unfold in the novel resonate with readers of the middle-class in such a way that it seems as if the stories could be written about themselves. Defoe did not write his novel for the learned, he wrote it for the large public of tradesmen, apprentices and shopkeepers (Häusermann 439-456).
Daniel Defoe wrote his fictional novel Robinson Crusoe during the 18th century, a time of colonization, and the British agricultural revolution. In the novel Robinson Crusoe desires civilization and comforts during his years on the island, so much that he alters the ecology of the fictional “island” in order to fulfill his craving. Consequently, Robinson Crusoe changes the ecology of the island, with the introduction of invasive species, European crops, and enclosures. Crusoe uses the practices of the British agricultural revolution to colonize the island, and to better his life during his stay.
The roots of the novel extend as far back as the beginning of communication and language because the novel is a compilation of various elements that have evolved over the centuries. The birth of the English novel, however, can be centered on the work of three writers of the 18th century: Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) and Henry Fielding (1707-1754). Various critics have deemed both Defoe and Richardson the father of the English novel, and Fielding is never discussed without comparison to Richardson. The choice of these three authors is not arbitrary; it is based on central elements of the novel that these authors contributed which brought the novel itself into place. Of course, Defoe, Richardson and Fielding added onto styles of the past and writing styles of the period, including moralistic instruction and picaresque stories. Using writing of the time and the literary tradition of the past, Defoe first crafted the English novel while Richardson and Fielding completed its inception.
face are Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. himself. The type of