ROBINSON CRUSOE

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Plot

Style

Born in York in 1632 of a German father and an English mother, Robinson Kreutznaer, anglicised Crusoe, leaves home at the age of 19. He travels around the world to make his fortune. His first voyage leads him to Guinea and then back to England. He becomes the owner of a plantation in Brazil and sets out on a voyage to Africa to get more slaves. During this journey he is shipwrecked on a desert island where he will remain for 28 years. When he returns to England, he discovers that his plantation in Brazil has made him very rich.

The novel is a fictional autobiography told through a retrospective first-person narration. The author’s point of view coincides with the main character’s. The episodes and adventures are narrated through clear and precise details. The language is simple, matter-of-fact and concrete. The characters are presented from the inside and through their actions.

The island

Characters

It is the ideal place for Robinson to prove his qualities. Robinson organises a primitive empire. It is not a return to nature, but a chance to exploit and dominate nature. The society Robinson creates on the island is an exaltation of 18th-century England, its ideals of mobility, material productiveness and individualism. Though God is the prime cause of everything, the individual can shape his destiny through action.The novel is full of religious references to God, sin, providence, salvation (spiritual autobiography).

Robinson shares restlessness with classical heroes of travel literature. He has a pragmatic and individualistic outlook, and a rational approach to reality. He appears in his physical isolation. He meets the Friday, the first native character in the English novel, who is lively and attractive, the symbol of the colonised. Robinson rescues him, teaches him the word ‘master’, western culture and to read the Bible.

Author

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) studied modern languages, economics, geography. He worked as a journalist. Queen Anne did not like his critical attitude and he was imprisoned. He denied his ideas and became a secret agent for the new government. He started to write novels when he was about sixty.