Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe

The man who was born to be his own destroyer

The characters

• Robinson Crusoe, the novel's main character and narrator

• Friday, Crusoe's only friend and servant for a span of time on the island

• Xury, a slave who escaped with Crusoe from the turkish

• The Portuguese captain, the man who saved Crusoe and Xury's lives after they escaped from the turkish

• The widow, a loyal woman who keeps Crusoe's pounds safe in England while he is missing

• The Spaniard, his ship wrecked on Crusoe's island and his friends are kept by some cannibals on another island

Setting

This story boasts many different settings in three different continents: Europe, South-America and Africa and four ships. The most famous location is the South-Atlantic island near Brazil on which Crusoe becomes stranded after his ship wrecked and where he spent 24 years of his life. The other settings are: Englan, which is Robinson birth place and the location where the story begins, North Africa (specifically Guinea) where he get enslaved and finally South America (Brazil), the continent where he became a rich plant owner and from where he started the fatal voyage that drove him to the island.

Daniel Dafoe was an English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist. He was born in 1660 in LOndon and died in the same city in the 1731. During his 20s, after he attended an academy in Newgton Green, he became an educated London merchant and after that an acute economic theorist and began to write eloquent and witty tracts on public affairs. The audacity of his piece resulted in his imprisonment in 1703 causing the fall of his business. He also worked as a government secret agent while continuing to work on his writings and in the late years of his life he turned to fiction, achieving the literary immortality with the novel "Robinson Crusoe", his most famous one. Other notable works are: Journal of the Plague Year” “Colonel Jack” “Hymn To The Pillory” “Legion’s Memorial” and “Moll Flanders”.

The auctor

Robinson was the youngest out of three brothers, born in the year 1632 in York from a wealthy family of trader. Robinson'dream has always been to travel across the sea, but this implied ignoring his father's advices and wishes: the misfortunes of our protagonist start here. He manages to escape from his family by joining a friend who was about to sail to London from Hull, but the travel got worse than expected and their boat was severly damaged by a storm; saved by an altruistic boat they still managed to reach London. Robinson lingered there for a while and after some trips to Guinea he became both a merchant and a sailor until another misfortune struck him and his crew: a Turkish boat approached and assaulted them causing the enslavement of Robinson by the captain of the pirates. Hopefully Robinson got a chance to escape and took it without esitation.

York, Hull and London

Guinea

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Robinson and Xury, the boy who escaped with him, arrived on an inhabited land and without knowing where they were located the continued to travel alongside the coast. After some days of travelling they encountered some indigenous people who gave them something to eat but they soon came into contact with two beasts coming down to the coast from a near mountain, chasing themselveswith fury: Robinson killed one strange leopard by shooting it in the head, the other, frightened, ran back up to the mountain frow where he first came. The two boys arrived at Capo Verde when they finally saw a ship: it was a portuguese ship and its captain welcomed both of the fugitives who were then brought with the crew in Brazil. After selling everything he got, including Xury, Robinson bought as much land as he could and settled there. After four years, he took again a trip to Guinea with some friends who were interested by the cheap prices of Guinea slaves. Unluckily Robinson and company suffered two storms of wich the second proved fatal and swallowed their boat: Robinson got thankfully threw on a shore by the mighty sea. He then sadly acknoweldged that he was on a small island with basically nowehre to go and so he tryed his best to survive with the resources he retirved from the wreck of his former ship.

During this miserable life, Crusoe managed to cultivate grain and even rice, created tools like pickaxes and hatchets and strengthened his housing until both earthquake shocks and an hurricane targeted the island forcing him to shelter inside a local cave. Time passed and our main character began to feel ill and feverish and suffering strong attacks of headaches just made things worse untill after one of these attacks he fell in a terrible dream: a religious illumination that made him reconsider his life, since he only now understood that in the previous years he had lost his faith in God. He made amens for his sins by praying to God and by reading the Bible and thanks to these acts, God delivered him from sickness, or so he thought.

After this harsh period, Robinson is now interested in exploring and exploiting the island: he finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes (resulting in raisin for the winter), where he builds a shady retreat, beginning to feel more optimistic about being on the island, and describing himself as its “king.” He trains a pet parrot named Poll, takes a goat as a pet, and develops skills in basket weaving that he once learned in his childhood village, pottery and both flour and bread making. In the end, after some struggles, he actually created bread and after that he learnt how to get puddings and cakes from rice.

Now pleased with his life, the idea of creating a canoe flashed in Crusoe's mind and without a second thought he cut down a cedar tree and in a month he shaped it like a boat but only in the end he realised that he wasn't able to bring it to the sea and so he abandoned the plan. 4 years had now passed and Crusoe had recently done a goat-skin suit, a hat and an umbrella and now his thougts returned to the canoe: he had built a smaller canoe than the previous one and closer to the sea in order to be capable to move it to the sea easily. Two years after he finally set out on a voyage around the island as a patrol and, foolishly, he set out again but as he was rowing around the island he nearly perishes when as he get swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore he decided to return home on feet; he hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved once again. He spends several years in peace.

One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides it must belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region. Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that the shore has been strewed with a human carnage, apparently the remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed and another one, waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills by cutting his head with a sword. Well-armed, Crusoe defeats most of the cannibals onshore. The victim, an handsome young man who was probably european, vows total submission to Crusoe in gratitude for his liberation. Crusoe names him Friday, to commemorate the day on which his life was saved, and takes him as his servant.

Finding Friday cheerful and intelligent, Crusoe teaches him both some English words, thanks to this he manages to have a conversation with him learning that he was in the island of Trinidad, and some elementary Christian concepts. Friday, in turn, explains that the cannibals are divided into distinct nations and that they only eat their enemies. Friday also informs Crusoe that the cannibals saved the men from the shipwreck Crusoe witnessed earlier, and that those men, Spaniards, are living nearby. Friday expresses a longing to return to his people, and Crusoe is upset at the prospect of losing Friday. Crusoe then entertains the idea of making contact with the Spaniards, and Friday admits that he would rather die than lose Crusoe. Twenty-seven years has passed an now the two fellows have a boat to visit the cannibals’ land together. Before they have a chance to leave, they are surprised by the arrival of twenty-one cannibals in three canoes: the cannibals are holding three victims, one of whom is in European dress. Friday and Crusoe kill most of the cannibals and release the European, a Spaniard. Friday is overjoyed to discover that another of the rescued victims is his father. The four men return to Crusoe’s dwelling for food and rest. Crusoe, who was feeling like the king of the island, prepares to welcome them into his community permanently.

Robinson had a serious conversation with the Spaniard which involved a plan to rescue the other spaniards who were living a miserable life in the savages' country: 6 months later he sent Friday's father and the Spaniard out in a canoe to explore that land but eight days later, the sight of an approaching English ship alarms Friday. Crusoe is suspicious as he sees eleven men take three captives onshore in a boat. Nine of the men explore the land, leaving two to guard the captives. Friday and Crusoe overpower these men and release the captives, one of whom is the captain of the ship, which has been taken in a mutiny. Shouting to the remaining mutineers from different points, Friday and Crusoe confuse and tire the men by making them run from place to place. Eventually they confront the mutineers, telling them that all may escape with their lives except the ringleader. The men surrender: Crusoe and the captain pretend that the island is an imperial territory and that the governor has spared their lives in order to send them all to England to face justice. Keeping five men as hostages, Crusoe sends the other men out to seize the ship. The ship finally set out and Crusoe, after 28 years of captivity, is set free from the island.

On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship to return to England. He was a perfect stranger to the society: in Yorkshire, he found his family deceased except for two sisters and two of the children of one of his brothers, his faithfull widow friend has kept Crusoe’s money safe, and after traveling to Lisbon, Crusoe learns from the Portuguese captain who saved him in Africa that his plantations in Brazil have been highly profitable However, those lands, believing that he was dead, were shared by the king and the st.Augustin monastery but Crusoe thanks to the captain managed to get them back and then arranges those lands. Wary of sea travel, Crusoe attempts to return to England with Friday by land but is threatened by bad weather and wild animals in northern Spain. Finally arriving back in England during winter, Crusoe receives word that the sale of his plantations has been completed and that he has made a considerable fortune. He got married and had two sons and a daughter but soon after, his wife died. After donating a portion to the widow and his sisters, Crusoe finally departs for the East Indies as a trader in 1694. He revisits his island, finding that the Spaniards are governing it well and that it has become a prosperous colony.

Personal review

Robinson Crusoe is the tale of a man through the peak loneliness that a man can achieve; this theme really caught my attention making me think about "what does it mean to be alone?". The human kind has often shown fear to the status of loneliness which can be proved dangerous towards the life of a single individual and in order to avoid this dreaded situation we managed to group our self and create comunities, villages, cities and kingodms; during the modern era, marked by the tecnhology and the innovations of the new millenium we are able to be connected to other people 24/7 creating the conditions for a comfort zone where it's impossible to be alone. The ease of the technology has exitinguished the tought of loneliness once and for all and we can't even imagine what beign abandoned to our own self actually is. This story throw us directly in this plight and we are forced to experienceRobinson captivity and ow he coped with it. It's a thrilling adventure where we follow a rollercoaster of emotions, empathy above all, that keep us readers entertained and at the same time anxious for what the destiny of our protagonist will be; this is one of the main topics and the one whcih i liked the most but the wole story was an enjoyable and interesting one. Another element that i really found interesting are the detailed and realistic description of the settings and the emotions felt by the characters.