In order to gain someone’s true feeling regarding a certain situation, one looks at many factors about them. The most key is the person’s attitude. They may show a strong positive attitude or flipped around, they may show a strong negative feeling for whatever the matter is. In Daniel Defoe’s fictional novel, Robin Crusoe, the protagonist, Robin Crusoe, manages to show his attitudes concerning the non-Europeans, more specifically his servant, Friday, the Portuguese captain, and nature in general.
This novel began with Crusoe telling us how much of a desire he had for sailing and how he gave into going sailing with his companion to London. His yearn for sailing also suggests how much he wanted to get away from England. It is obvious to see his feelings for England were not very strong nor was his family relationship. The lack of names in his family showed us he did not want us to become familiar with them and therefore showed he did not have a strong relationship with them. This first journey made way for more to come, one including Crusoe becoming a slave and another involving a Portuguese captain who willingly took him to Brazil.
Although he is unnamed, like his family, he gave the reader more description and sounded more interested in him than his English family. His attitude toward the Captain is a very strong relationship because when Crusoe finally gets off the island, he goes back to the captain as old companions.
This then led to another expedition to Guinea where after two devastating storms, Crusoe became shipwrecked alone on an island near South Africa. Years passed and one key point was his isolation to people and society in general. Again years passed but finally Crusoe spotted a foot print in the sand. Crusoe wa...
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...inal situation arose when he returned to England and was not satisfied. Constantly he thought about his island. He revisited and saw that his “colony” was civilized and prospering.
Overall in his attitudes to both the non-Europeans and nature, Crusoe had significant adjustments. He was in complete fear of Friday and the other cannibals just as he was with the island, but as he changed and saw different views of both, Crusoe developed not only a lifelong friendship but a colony of his own that soon grew. His new way of thinking and acceptance helped him succeed with Friday and his survival on the island. Both attitudes were negative but soon adjusted to positive thoughts in order for him to survive. His attitudes in the beginning were assumptions but as time passed, he realized what everything was about and therefore made two glasses half full rather than half empty.
In the beginning of the book, William Moraley starts by talking about what it was like to be a part of the upper class in England. His father had money and he thought he was going to inherit it someday rather than working for it. He was born in London in 1699 and was trained in law but saw his legal education interrupted by a financial crisis. His family moved to Newcastle where he was apprenticed to his father, a watchmaker. However, when his father died, things changed because nothing was willed to him by his father. His mother remarried and refused to give him any of the money that he was supposed to inherit. He had limited resources and ran into debt rather than getting imprisoned he made a plan to set out to America to become an indenture servant for four years as a clock maker. For most, signing an indenture and leaving one’s home and family was a last resort. Like William Moraley, many were influenced by rough circumstances. “I might have expected a better fate than to be forc’d to leave my Native country; But adverse fortunes is become familiar to me, by a series of misfortunes...” (50, 52). Indentured servants from England arrived in North America by ship. The passage was long and arduous; most ships made many stops alo...
“In this great American Asylum” Crèvecoeur’s diction reflects his opinions with the first words. Using the words great and asylum to describe America revels the author’s feelings. “Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, can that man call England or any other kingdom his country?” Crevecoeur’s commiseration is displayed towards, “the poor of Europe.” Having an undertone of disgust, the reader sees wretch and can tell how Crevecoeur looks upon England, “A country that had no bread for him, who met [him] with nothing but frowns of the rich, [he] owned not a single foot of surface.” However, the main view focuses on, “the poor of England” and why America is where they ventured. Crevecoeur’s language is fascinating, “Everything is
In the first section of the letter, Crevecoeur mainly appeals to pathos and logos. By appealing to pathos, Crevecoeur evokes emotion, specifically evoking a sense of pride. He also appeals to logos in order to show his reasoning and thoughts about why America is a better place to live than England. In the middle of the section, Crevecoeur says, “Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, whose life is a continual scene of sore affliction or pinching penury; can that man call England or any other kingdom his country?”.
When Crusoe meets Friday, he is joyous for having found someone he could finally make his slave as he had been previously. Although not fully envious of Robinson Crusoe, Friday is found stuck in between two worlds. One, where he thinks of Robinson as his friend and the other where he wonders why he is being treated as a slave, and not for his own personal benefit. Robinson’s views are purely of self-profit as he describes his dreams: “to think that this was all my own, that I was King and Lord of all this Country indefeasibly, and had a Right of Possession” (Defoe 72). This passage explains the belief of Robinson Crusoe in the feudal system and the use of hierarchy to promote bourgeois values upon a population. The character of Robinson Crusoe is then used in Green Grass, Running Water in a satirical manner when Thought Woman explains to Crusoe that Robinson Crusoe himself would not enjoy his own company as he is seen as a white supremacist with no place on native land: “But I don’t want to be Friday, says Robinson Crusoe. No point in being Robinson Crusoe all your life, says Thought Woman. It wouldn’t be much fun” (King 295). Furthermore, this remarks insists that Friday was never a true friend to Crusoe when he also states: “it has been difficult not having someone of color around whom I
James Joyce on Robinson Crusoe: “…the man alone, on a desert island, constructing a simple and moral economy which becomes the basis of a commonwealth presided over by a benevolent sovereign” (Liu 731).
From the beginning of some life, people make many choices that affect their personal growth and livelihood, choices like what they should wear and/or what they should do. Even the littlest choices that they make could make a big difference in their lives. In the book, Robinson Crusoe retold by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, while on the island, made many choices, big and small, that affected his personal growth and contributed to why he survived for so long. On the island he made a lot of smart decisions of what to do in order to stay a live. On his second day he made a choice to go back to the ship to explore what was there. He spent a lot of time building his home when he could have done something more important. He also took a risk and helped out a person that he did not know. These were some of many choices that Robinson Crusoe made throughout his many years on the island.
I would like to comment about how Crusoe lived with himself after he became the master in a heirarchy where he was once the slave. He is so unhappy with his role of slave he takes the first opportunity given to him to escape. He also takes the first opportunity given to him to become the master of those left on the boat. This is unforgivable. He throws a man over board because he does not believe he can trust him, but he knows he can trust the first boat that sails his way. Does this sound funny to anyone else? He also offers to give all of his possetions to the captain of the boat that saves him: "I immediatlely offered all I had to the Captain of the Ship..."(204) How did he know the captain was not going to kill him and keep his possetions anyway. The captain turns down the opportunity to take Crusoe's desperate offer. However, he does offer him money for a boat that does not belong to Crusoe and the poor Boy Xury, who does not belong to anyone. How soon Crusoe forgets the horrible life of being a slave!! It is humorous how it is only those who are in the possition of master who think slavery is a good idea. Crusoe then meets Friday. He saves his life, much the way the captain saved Crusoe's life. Friday offers all he has (which is not much) to Crusoe, much like Crusoe did for the captain. However, Crusoe is too selfish to turn Friday down on his offer as the captain did. He takes advantage of the man and immediatly introduces him to slavery. Crusoe is an example of the downfall of man. Humans are sometimes so obsessed with power they only focus on who can be controlled. Whether it is separated by class, gender, color, or as Courtney said religion one group must always feel as if it has power over another. This is common theme in litersature and in life.
This paper is an attempt to examine the seeming opposition of religion vs. self-interest with respect to the character of Robinson Crusoe. I will venture to demonstrate that in the novel, Defoe illustrates the contradictions with which Crusoe must contend as he strives to please God while ensuring his own survival in the world. In part, I will endeavor to show that a distorted sense of Puritanism as well as the existing colonial mindset exacerbated this opposition, and resulted in what I propose to be Defoe's (possibly retroactive) imposition of a religious justification for Crusoe's actions.
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is considered to be the first novel of incident. Before I read the novel I knew something about poor Robinson Crusoe--shipwrecked on a desert island, lived on the island for a lot of years, and acquired a friend by the name of Friday. As I began to read, I had the preconceived notion that Robinson Crusoe was just an adventure book. However, I read no more than a few pages before my mind was greatly enlightened. Robinson Crusoe does not suffer just one shipwreck, but two of them. He is captured by Moorish pirates, escapes, and goes to Brazil to become a planter. After his second shipwreck, Crusoe gives details about his techniques for survival. Also, the ending of the novel is quite surprising with a setting that is quite a contrast to the desert island. Arguably, one of the funniest scenes in all of literature is recorded in the final chapters.
A common theme often portrayed in literature is the individual vs. society. In the beginning of Robinson Crusoe , the narrator deals with, not society, but his family's views on how he was bound to fail in life if his parents' expectations of him taking the family business were not met. However, Defoe's novel was somewhat autobiographical. "What Defoe wrote was intimately connected with the sort of life he led, with the friends and enemies he made, and with the interests of natural to a merchant and a Dissenter" (Sutherland 2). These similarities are seen throughout the novel. "My father...gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design," says Crusoe (Defoe 8-9) . Like Crusoe, Defoe also rebelled against his parents. Unlike Crusoe, however, Defoe printed many essays and papers that rebelled against the government and society, just as Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, did in England by depicting society languishing in social malaise (Marowski 231). It were these writings that eventually got Defoe charged with libel and imprisoned (DIScovering Authors). In Defoe's life it was the ministry that his father wanted him to pursue (Sutherland 2), but, instead, Defoe chose to become a tradesman (DIScovering Biography). The depth of the relationship between Crusoe and his parents in the book was specifically not elaborated upon because his parent's become symbolic not only of all parents, but of society. In keeping this ambiguous relationship, Defoe is able to make Crusoe's abrupt exodus much more believable and, thus, more humane.
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.
Whoooooo! The winds were ferocious and howling too! A terrible storm comes out of the blue and leads the ship off course. Everyone is praying that their souls be spared! Crash! The next thing Crusoe knows, the sip is wrecked on a deserted island with no land anywhere near. He also realizes he is the only survivor of the deadly shipwreck. He leaves the boat and finds no sign of life anywhere. He returns back to the wreck twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other important equipment. He finds goats on the island to eat along with a few familiar birds. He decided to set up a large wooden pole and started to make small v shaped cuts on it every day, so as not to lose track of time. The dreaded day he landed on the island was September 1st 1659. He never forgets that day. He started to build a shelter that is like a home and because he thought his gun powder might get wet he builds an underground cellar. He later expands the cellar so he could stay there in case of an emergency. I wouldn’t be able to imagine living on an island and not being afraid of everything. I...
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.
Overall, Robinson Crusoe’s ship crashing on the island forever changes the ecology, and biodiversity. Robinson colonized the island by introducing invasive species, European crops, and enclosing areas of the island. This colonization would lead to the islands decent in, wildlife habitation, and biodiversity. Although, these concerns would change the ecosystem on the fictional island they are the signs of colonization, and improvement in the lives of the inlands inhabits.
Through realistic literary elements of the novel and the themes of individuality, isolation, society and being content versus being ambitious, readers of Robinson Crusoe can relate to many experiences that Crusoe faced. Crusoe’s story represents the genre of the middle class; it is the narration of middle-class lives with the help of realism elements and prominent themes that reflect on middle-class issues and interests. Crusoe represents mankind in the simplest form, he stands on middle ground no higher or lower than any other. He represents every reader who reads his story; they can substitute him for themselves. His actions are what every reader can picture himself or herself doing, thinking, feeling or even wishing for (Coleridge and Coleridge 188-192)