Daniel Defoe and Robinson Crusoe.

DANIEL DEFOE

• He was born in London in 1660;
• He is considered the father of the modern novel;
• He was a writer and a journalist;
• In 1704 he founded a periodical in two editions: The Review. This is why he is considered the father of modern journalism;
• He is regarded as a part-time writer and a part-time businessman;
• Some of his great works are: Moll Flanders from 1722, Captain Singleton from 1720 and A Journal of the Plague Year also from 1722;
• In 1719 he published his most important and well-known modern novel: Robinson Crusoe;
• He died in 1731 in London.

ROBINSON CRUSOE:

plot

The young Robinson Crusoe, despite his father's opposition, wants to follow his passion: traveling. For several years he is both a merchant and a sailor. But the ship he embarks on is shipwrecked on a remote island, where a wild and unspoiled nature forces him to rely only on his wits, his resourcefulness and his courage. Fortunately, Friday will arrive, a prisoner saved by Crusoe, to keep him company in his exploits.

Info

The plot

Some curiosities

• The novel is set in the second half of the 17th century;
• It is an adventure novel;
• It is narrated in the first person;
• It centers on the character of Robinson crusoe, (hence the title), a middle-class English boy;
• The work celebrates the advent and rise of the modern bourgeois class and their ideals of entrepreneurship, dynamism, confidence in their own means.
• Robinson is the prototype of the bourgeois man;
• Religion plays a very important role;
• The Bible is young Robinson's moral guide;
• The English writer dwells on the modes of action of Providence, affirming that it acts in uncertain times and ways.

ROBINSON AS A MERCANTILE HERO

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Robinson is the representation of the mercantile spirit that colonizes deserted places. He is the archetype of the pioneer, armed only with his strength, his intelligence, a gun and the belief that God is with him.

ROBINSON AS THE ARCHETYPAL COLONIST

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Robinson, especially in the final part of the work, looks like a real settler. The relationship that he undertakes with the slave Friday is proof of this: in fact, it represents the colonist-native relationship. Robinson (the settler) has three major advantages over Friday (the colonized):

1. Technical advantage: Robinson has weapons and tools;
2. Linguistic advantage: Robinson's language is the only one used;
3. Cultural advantage: the young man transmits the values of the Christian religion to Friday.

Also, just as happens during a colonization, Robinson covers up his subject's nakedness by giving him European clothes.

Themes

Thanks for your attention

MARIAPIA MARTINO, 4BL