Robinson Crusoe: A Man's Discovery of Himself, Civilization, and God.
Just about everyone can recite the highlights of Robinson's adventures: A man is shipwrecked without resources on a desert island, survives for years by his own wits, undergoes immeasurable anguish as a result of his isolation, discovers a footprint in the sand that belongs to Friday, and is finally rescued from his exile. Unfortunately, all of this is wrong. But more significant than any of these details is that our overall perception of Robinson Crusoe is wrong. The single most important fact about this boy's adventure book is that it is not a boy's adventure book at all. It is, rather, a grown-up tale of a man's discovery of himself, civilization, and God.
As Defoe's book begins, Robinson Crusoe of York commits what he calls his "Original Sin”—he spurns his father's advice to join the family business and instead heads out to sea. Robinson is self-willed, arrogant, and hungry for exploits. Catastrophes ensue—storms, shipwrecks, and slavery—but the lad continues in his follies. "I was," he confesses, "to be the willful Agent of all my own Miseries."
Then providence gives him a second chance, shipwrecking him on an Atlantic island, whose features roughly match those of the Juan Fernandez group in the Pacific Ocean where Robinson's real-life prototype, Alexander Selkirk, passed seven years in solitude. Robinson's island is a pristine land of surpassing beauty. To its forlorn first inhabitant, it seems nothing short of Eden: "the Country appear'd so fresh, so green, so flourishing, every thing being in a constant Verdure, or Flourish of Spring, that it looked like a planted Garden."
In this paradise Robinson builds a new home—without Eve...
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...ledge the enormity of our task; for when before has a secular culture rebuilt itself on sacred foundations? We need solutions as ingenious as any devised by our industrious hero. Like Robinson, we must never despair; like Robinson, we must find strength in prayer. It helps to bear in mind that it is we who have uprooted God from our homes, schools, books, arts; we have cast ourselves adrift. God, the master mariner, never abandons his children. We do well to remember, too, that Robinson found salvation in a plight more desperate than ours. Then, perhaps, we can relish the truth in Walter de la Mare's heartfelt remark about Defoe's finest creation: "Even to think of his admirable hermit is to be cheerful and to take heart of grace."
Bibliography
Zaleski, Philip. “The Strange Shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe.” First Things 53 (May 1995): 38-44.
If you were stranded on an island alone, what actions would you take to survive and maintain your sanity? Would your actions be deemed admirable? This predicament faced Robinson Crusoe in the novel appropriately titled, Robinson Crusoe. Set in the mid to late 17th century, Robinson Crusoe, is an epistolary novel following the early life of the main character Robinson Crusoe. What begins as an account of the voyages and business ventures of a rebellious, young man, soon transforms into a twenty-eight year struggle for survival when Crusoe is stranded on a deserted island. While it is unanimously agreed that Crusoe survived his stay on the island, a divergence in opinion occurs when asked whether he was an admirable man by the end of the book. Some readers find his actions and character admirable, while others do not.
When prisoners were asked if there was anything to like about Alcatraz Willie Radkey, former inmate, responded by saying that there was. He said he enjoyed the privacy of having his own cell. He also said that he found the guards to be respectful most of the time. Overall he said that his time at Alcatraz was better than at any other prison he had been in.
As the story goes on, Gilgamesh begins to talk about going into to the woods to murder the creature Humbaba. As he and Enkidu are planning for the battle, Enkidu talks about his worries in which Gilgamesh replies with "Here you are, even you, afraid about death… If I fall on the way, I'll establish my name: 'Gilgamesh, who joined fight with fierce Humbaba'"(26) his statements gives the reader the idea that Gilgamesh is now more tolerating...
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).
Perceptions of exceptionalism are embedded throughout countless works of literature, encouraging readers to take strides against the institutions holding them back and to develop a stronger sense of individualism. Order and rebellion, and the balance between them, play significant roles in molding exceptional individuals apart from the society that shaped them. The ideal “exceptional individual” is depicted through characters such as Robinson Crusoe in Daniel Defoe’s novel, Robinson Crusoe, and Jim Hawkins of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. These characters dare to disobey others, seek greatness, and challenge the suffocating societies they came from. Both Crusoe and Jim manage to defy societal and class expectations and achieve their
...t, Stephen, gen. ed. “Paradise Lost.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 2012. Print. 36-39.
The divorce act demands the sole grounds for divorce as breakdown of marriage, and provides for three basic ways of proving it:
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.
middle of paper ... ... Answerable Style Essays on Paradise Lost. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1953. Print.
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.
The more the Robinsons explored the woods, the more they found things that would make life easier. They soon discovered some kind of wax berries which they melted and made into candles. They even found a huge salt cavern! The cavern was big enough for them and their supplies, so they moved in, for the rainy season was coming fast. They built stables for their animals, a canoe, and a loom for Mother. The Robinsons were very creative. They made the worst situation into something good and before they knew it, they had spent ten years living on that deserted island! They knew the island like the back of their own hands and Father and Mother watched their sons grow into manhood, as they too got older.
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.
When Robinson Crusoe gets shipwrecked and stranded on a desolate island “I am cast upon a horrible desolate island void of all hope of recovery” p.91, in the Caribbean he first considers it a place of captivity holding him back from his dreams and wishes like a prison, but when he is finally able to leave it some twenty-eight years later to return home to England he yearns to return back to the island. Why? You may ask yourself, read on and I will answer that question. Crusoe grows to enjoy being the ruler of his own world, he also becomes antisocial, and starts to enjoy being alone. When he returns home to England he finds no one waiting for him, and he feels lost.
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.