“ROBINSON CRUSOE” DANIEL DEFOE

Plot summary:
In Robinson Crusoe, the title character recounts his life and adventures, starting from his
youth in York, a city in the north of England. There, young Cruse grows up in a comfortable
middle-class family. His father cautions him against aspiring for more, declaring the "middle
state" of life to be the best state, a situation that is "the most suited to human happiness."
However, motivated by sheer restlessness, Cruse disregards his father's advice and joins a sea
voyage to London, from whence he hopes t o travel farther. Throughout the novel, Crusoe
seems to be running from something rather than being actively drawn toward something new.
After Crusoe survives seasickness and one storm, the ship encounters a second storm and
founders. The captain and crew, including Crusoe, barely escape with their lives. Undeterred,
Crusoe proceeds to London where he signs up for another voyage, this time to Africa. After a
successful voyage, Crusoe makes enough money in trade to set himself up as a merchant. He
might have continued on this pathi n London, but he opted to take another voyage to Africa.
This time, pirates capture the ship and enslave Crusoe. Enlisting the help of a fellow slave, a
boy named Xury, Crusoe escapes when his master sends them out on a fishing trip. Crusoe
and Xury steal the boat and sail south along the west African coast where they encounter wild
animals and native tribes that both frighteningly fascinate them. Near Cape Verde,
aPortuguese ship rescues them,and the captain agrees to take them with him to Brazil.
Once in Brazil, the Portuguese captain buys Crusoe's boat and offers to buy Xury as well.
After consulting with Xury, Crusoe agrees to the captain's offer on the condition that the
captain will free Xury in 10 years if he becomes a Christian. Crusoe uses his money to buy a
small plantation and spends the next four years there before sailing back to Africa to buy
slaves to expand his own plantation and those of his neighbors.
During the voyage, a storm overwhelms Cruse's ship,and it finds itself near an island in the
southern Caribbean. Only Robinson Crusoe, a dog, and two cats survive; Crusoe finds
himself on an island where he will live for the next 28 years.
During his years on the island, Cruse lives out the progress of human history. He begins by
sleeping in a tree, and then moves into a cave that enlarges, fortifies,and expands. He makes
his own tools, builds furniture, makes his own clothes, plants corn and rice, and domesticates
wild goats. During his explorations, he discovers a valley with fruit trees and builds a second
settlement there. For the bulk of his time on the island, Crusoe's only companions are his
pets: the dog, cats, and later, goats and a few domesticated parrots.
Early in his stay on the island, Crusebecomes terribly sick and almost dies. During his fever
he dreams that God intends to kill him, a frightening visions that spurs him to a religious
conversion that guides his thoughts and actions for the rest of his life. He believes he did
wrong by disobeying his father's wishes and that the sufferings of his past and his
confinement on the island are God's punishment. At the same time, he feels grateful for being
saved and for the bounties his island provides.
For more than half his time on the island, Crusoe encounters no other humans, but this
changes when he spots a human footprint in the sand. The mystery of the footprint and the
fear of being discovered by natives whom he believes are cannibals occupy his thoughts. He
does not see the natives until his 23rd year when he spots them around a fire. His worst fears
are confirmed when he finds human remains among the ashes they leave behind.
A year later, Crusoe encounters more natives with prisoners they plan to kill and eat. Crusoe
helps one of the prisoners escape. He names him Friday and teaches him English and
Christianity. The next year,Cruseand Friday rescued two more prisoners, a Spanish sailor and
Friday'sfather. Thesailor is part of a Spanish crew whose ship was wrecked and who reside
alongside Friday's tribe on a larger island nearby. Together, the Spaniard and Cruse devise a
plan to bring the rest of the Spaniards to the island and, from there, escape back to
civilization.
After Crusoe sends the Spaniard and Friday's father back to the mainland for the others, an
English ship appears. The crew brings three prisoners to the island whom Cruse and Friday
rescue. One is the ship's captain who explains he has been the victim of a mutiny. Crusoe and
Friday help overthrow the mutiny, and the captain agrees to take them back to England. Some
of the English mutineers are left behind on the island.
Back in England, Cruse learns that his father has died and that his own fortunes are
diminished. Avisit to Lisbon reunites
him with the Portuguese captain, who informs him that his plantation in Brazil has been very
prosperous. Crusoe sells the plantation and becomes a wealthy man. He settled in England for
several years, long enough to marry and have children, but he eventually returns to his island
where he finds that the Spanish sailors, English mutineers, and some of the natives have
established a colony. He hints at further adventures during this voyage back to the East Indies
and promises to detail them in another story.

Character list:
- Robinson Crusoe is a merchant, adventurer, and landowner who spends 28 years
shipwrecked on an island. His last name is Kreutznaer, but has been shortened into
Crusoe by the English. Even though his father wanted him to study law, Robinson is
an adventurous spirit who ignores his father's advice to stay at home and enjoy the
"middlestation" in life. Instead, he goes to sea and experiences many adventures,
including a 28-year stay on a deserted island. While he is not the classic hero, he
possesses many admirable qualities, including persistence, courage, and
inventiveness. When his ship sinks on his first voyage, he resolves to continue
pursuing his dream of a life at sea. He learns the skills to survive when he is cast
ashore on a remote island.When cannibals visit the island, he summons the courage to
rescue their hostages. DespiteCruse's admirable virtues, he possesses other
less-desirable qualities. He has no qualms in being a slave trader. And after he rescues
Friday from the cannibals, the first word he teaches him is to call him "master."
Throughout the novel, Crusoe remains a complex and contradictory character.
- Friday is Robinson Crusoe´s native companion and servant on the island. Friday is a
native who is saved from the cannibals by Robinson Crusoe. He became a willing
servant, eager to learn English and do Crusoe's bidding. He also stands in emotional
contrast to Crusoe. Whereas Crusoe shows little emotion, never seeming to miss his
parents or wanting close ties to others, Friday displays strong emotions. He jumps and
cries and laughs when he finds his father. And he becomes closely attached to Crusoe,
volunteering to die for Crusoe whenever he bids. Friday is also intelligent and learns
quickly. He is brave and willingly follows Cruse into combat with the cannibals.
 - Robinson Crusoe's friend urges him to join the voyage to London, thereby setting
Crusoe upon his life of adventure.
- Robinson Crusoe´s wife marries Crusoe after he returns from Brazil, and she bears
three children.
- The English captain helps Robinson Crusoe return from the island to England after
Crusoe helps him overthrow a mutiny on his ship.
- Friday´s father was rescued from a group of cannibals by Friday and Robinson
Crusoe.
- The Moor, whose name is Ismael, is a man whom Robinson Crusoe tricks into
helping supply the long boat and whom Crusoe then pushes into the water as he and
Xury escape from slavery.
- Mr. Crusoe is Robinson´s father who warns him against wandering.
- Mrs. Crusoe is Robinson´s mother who urges him to listen to his father and stay
home.
- The pirate is a Moroccan sea captain who takes Robinson Crusoe into slavery.
Lasting literary legacy of the novel:
Better known by its abbreviated title Robinson Crusoe, Defoe's The Life and Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe enjoyed unprecedented popularity upon its publication in 1719. It went
through nine printings in its first year alone. The Amazing success of the novel inspired
Defoe to publish two sequels in short order: The Further Adventures of Robinson Cruse,
which appeared in 1719, and Serious Reflections of Robinson Cruse, which he published in
1720. Neither sequel sold as well as the original,b u t Defoe's success as a novelist was
already secure and enduring. Since its first publication,Robinson Crusoe has been translated
into more than 100 languages and adapted in a number of ways--including children's books
and graphic novels. It has remained in print continuously since 1719. The novel is commonly
regarded as one of the most influential books of all time because of its thoughtful portrayal of
a protagonist whom readers readily identify as an ordinary man who is on an incredible
adventure.
In the years since its publication, Robinson Cruse inspired many other literary works. The
first were Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels in 1726. And the work's influence has been
consistent, with noticeable impact on such popular novels as Johann David Wyss's The Swiss
Family Robinson (1812) and William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954). S o u t hAfrican
novelist J.M. Coetzee used RobinsonCrusoe as a jumping-off point for his 1986 novel Foe, an
exploration of the powers of language and narrative. The novel has seen a number of film
adaptations and influenced numerous films and television series, including Lost (2004-10),
Cast Away (2000), and The Martian (2015). The classic television comedy Gilligan's Island
(1964-67), the continuing saga of seven hapless tourists stranded on an island near Hawaii,
directly mentions Robinson Crusoe in its theme song.
Colonization and racism in the novel:
Some modern readers may be taken aback by the attitudes and language of Robinson Crusoe
about native culture. In many ways, Robinson Cruse epitomizes English colonialism, the
practice of acquiring foreign lands, inhabiting the lands with settlers, and exploiting native
people and resources for the economic gain of England. The practice began in the late 16th
century and continued into the 20th century, affecting many regions of the world, including
the Americas, India, and Africa, among others. Robinson Crusoe's island becomes a
microcosm of the British Empire.Crusoe rules the area through a lens of cultural superiority
as he brings to the island and its people his language, system of naming, habits, and religion
in an attempt to westernize the area. His use of terms such as savages and creatures also
conveys this attitude of superiority,and works to dehumanize and subjugate the native people.
Author Biography:
Daniel Defoe was born in London on September 13, 1660. As a young man he studied to
become aPresbyterian minister, but he abandoned the clergy in favor of making his fortune as
a merchant. The business allowed Defoe to travel widely and he
enjoyed some success initially, although it was never consistent. By 1692 the business
faltered badly, and he
declared bankruptcy.
Fortunately, along with his interest in business, Defoe had a lifelong interest in politics and
religion. This interest led him to become a political writer, journalist, and pamphleteer. He
published his first political pamphlet in 1683,and his output over his lifetime was prodigious.
Politics and religion were closely connected topics during Defoe's heyday, and he tackled
these subjects fearlessly. On more than one occasion his writing caused sufficient
controversyt o land him in jail. The bulk of his political writing appeared in his journal, the
Review, which he single-handedly wrote and published from 1704 to 1713. TheReview
started its life as a weekly, but eventually Defoe published the periodical three times a week.
Defoe's interests in religion, politics, and trade come together seamlessly in Robinson Crusoe
(1719). The novel explores these themes in implicit and explicit ways. Defoe is considered
the father of the English novel because Robinson Crusoe was the first novel written in
English to use the prose narrative form throughout-a fact that explains the episodic, recursive
structure of the novel, as well as the odd gaps and omissions at the end. The boundaries
between nonfiction and fiction were blurry during this period, and Defoe draws on the
conventions of travel literature, memoirs, and conversion narratives. Defoe and his
contemporaries would have been shocked, for example, at the controversy surrounding James
Frey's heavily fictionalized memoir AMillion Little Pieces because such narrative liberties
were routinely used in purportedly "true" accounts. Defoe's choice to move back and forth
between a straightforward narration of events and Cruse's journal entries some of which go
backward to cover episodes he has already narrated) is another marker of how genre
conventions for the novel had not yet solidified. Nonetheless, the novel earned him
immediate and international fame. Hepublished two sequels toRobinson Crusoe,but neither
achieved the popularity of his first novel. Other works that cemented his reputation as a
novelist are MollFlanders and Journal of the Plague Year, both published in 1722.
Defoe married Mary Tuffley in 1684, and the couple had eight children, two of whom died
before adulthood. They Remained married until Defoe's death in London on April 24, 1731.
More details about the impact of the novel:
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Cruse (1719) is one of the most important novels oft h e eighteenth
century, and of English literature. Its success inspired Defoe to write sequels and others to
write imitations, so much so that there is a sub- genre known as the 'Robinsonnade', the most
famous of which is probably Johann Wyss's Swiss Family Robinson (1812). Robinson Cruse
has clearly become an important part of popular culture. The story has become so pervasive
that many readers will be familiar with the setting for most of the story - a deserted island -
even if they have not read Defoe's novel itself. Hoping to attract tourists, the government of
Chile in 1966 renamed two islands, one after Robinson Crusoe, and the other after Alexander
Selkirk, who had been stranded on that island, and whose subsequent narrative provided
inspiration for Defoe. Apparently, many readers are intrigued by the back-to-nature chal-
lenges faced by someone- someone else, that is- being stranded on a deserted island. It may
be difficult, then, in the face of such familiarity to return to the novel, and to consider how it
is informed by historical and philosophical developments of the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries. Nonetheless, that is what we propose here, because part of Robinson
Crusoe's influence can be traced to its relationships to contemporary events, to its context.
These relationships shape the details within the story and thereby affect not only its
contribution to the development of the novel in English but also to the cultural imagining of
modernity itself. Some readers, for example, have made elaborate analogies between
Robinson Crusoe and free-market economic theories in the experience of someone thrown
back on their own individual resourcefulness (overlooking how much material help Crusoe
was able to retrieve from his damaged ship). Perhaps more important than that is the novel's
Lockean premise that it is possible to begin anew, both personally and politically, with a
blank slate of nature.
Readers familiar with the iconic image of a man alone on an island may be disappointed to
learn that in Defoe's narrative it is nearly one-quarter of the way through the novel before
Cruse lands on his island. What precedes his ship wreck is a surprising combination of
adventure and religious reflection. When Crusoe does begin to tell the story of his time on the
island, there is less adventure than reflection on religion. The question many readers face,
ofcourse, is how to reconcile the disparate elements of the novel, or to see how they might
have been reconciled at the time. In this, it is particularly important to remember that
Robinson Cruse begins with a claim that we are about to read a history. According to the
'Preface', the story to follow is 'a just history of fact; neither is there any appearance of fiction
in it' (Rohinson Cruse, ed. Ross, p. 25 [A]). As was the case with Aphra Behn's Oroonoko,
Robinson Crusoeis a history in both senses: a story (an 'histoire') and a record of recent
events. In the former sense, the novel focuses on the life story of a northerner, born in York as
the third son of a German immigrant father and a Yorkshire mother, who leaves home to find
his fortune traveling the Atlantic colonial trade routes.
Robinson Cruse's birth to an immigrant complements Defoe's argument in the "True Born
Englishman', that England has always been composed of immi- grants. The fact that Crusoe
is the third son is important as well, because, as he explains, he was consequently 'not bred to
any trade' (p. 27). The assumption had been that his older brothers, because more likely to
inherit, would have needed to be educated. Looking back on the novel, it would seem that
one implication is that the English colonial trade found its workers among those who had not
been bred to anything else. On the other hand, though, it must be remembered that Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe comes from what Crusoe's father calls the middle state, or what might be
called the upper station of low life' (p. 28). While it could be another comment on the type of
people among whom the colonial enterprises would find their participants, this reference to
the middle state is also an important development in itself. Although it might be possible to
achieve a middle station without being middle-class, it is difficult not to see this novel as
referring to and initially defending the advantages of the English middle class. Despite the
transatlantic
colonial similarities between them, Robinson Cruse's focus on the middle state is a sharp
contrast with Behn's focus on royalty throughout Oroonoko. At least at the beginning, in this
discussion with Robinson's father, it seems that the middle class had a story written about
them and for them. Subsequent novels will follow Defoe's lead, representing middle class life
and issues to middle-class readers, creating in the process a sense of what it means to be the
class in the middle and maybe even a sense that there was a genre for such readers - the
novel.
Cruse decides to go against his father's advice that he stay in the comfor- table middle state,
and, we are told, 'on the first of September 1651 I wento n board a ship bound for London' (p.
31). That ship encounters a violent storm, which Crusoe interprets as the judgment of Heaven
for my wicked leaving my father's house' (p. 31). The fact that - so early on - there is a
concern about the risks of 'leaving my father's house' turns the novel into a religious allegory.
about making a choice that results in being ejected from a comfortable, prior middle state (see
Paradise Lost). Crusoe's religious terms align him with the Dissenters, the name used in the
eighteenth century for a diverse group who, although they were Protestant (and in this way
were like the state's official Anglican Church) refused to swear allegiance to Anglicanism.
There are many reasons for their Dissent, and it is a position with roots in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, but generally Dissenters believed that the Anglican Church retained
too many ceremonial and structural elements of the Roman Catholic Church. Rather than the
formal, ritual aspects of religious observance that characterize both the Anglican and the
Catholic churches, Dissenters advocated a personal relationship with God. Crusoe's constant
confessional mode is characteristic of this personal relationship with God favored generally
by the Dissenters.
In 1659, in the process of trying to import African slaves into Brazil illeg- ally, or without the
A' siento* (p. 59; see p. 223 above), Robinson Crusoe wrecks his ship on the island that will
be his home for the next 28 years. Thrown into the water by a storm, Crusoe tells us, 'the
wave that came upon me again, buried me at once 20 to 30 foot deepi n its own body' (p. 64).
Later, after being dragged out to sea and thrown on the beach by a couple of waves, a wave
finally 'dashed me against a piece of rock, and that with such force as ti left me senseless, and
indeed helpless as to my own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and breath, beat the
breath as it were quite out of my body' (p. 65). Crusoe is describing the physical act of being
caught in the storm- tossed waters. But his being buried in the body of the wave recalls the
biblical story of Jonah in the whale. It also sets up an analogy between his being born and his
being deposited on the beach: like a newborn,Cruse is released from the body, 'helpless as to
my own deliverance, and unable to breath. Asimilar sense of rebirth can be seen in Book V
ofThe Odyssey, but in this case, Crusoe's rebirth is imbued with Christian symbolism. As he
thanks God for his being saved, we are looking at someone whobelieveshimself to be born
again', in a Dissenting Christian sense of the phrase, ie., as personally saved by God's grace.
Crusoe has been on his land alone more than twenty-five years before Friday arrives. Crusoe
adopts Friday as a slave, believing in fact that Friday offers himself to Crusoe as a slave
specifically. Why Crusoe should think that Friday meant to be his slave is an interesting
question, with a range of related answers. Particularly important in this question, as
throughout this novel, is the work of John Locke. In his Second Treatise of Government,
published within two years of Behn's Oroonoko, Locke expanded on a developing
seventeenth- century theory of contractual government. Focusing on protection of property,
Locke distinguishes between four types of value: intrinsic, use, exchange and overplus (see p.
271). In Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe invokes use of value, mentioning that money is worthless
on a desert island (paradoxically, because it cannot be exchanged). Crusoe contends that all
the good things of this world are no farther good to us than they are for our use (p. 140). If we
take Crusoeat his word, if everything in the world is good only if it is useful, the point would
apply to humans as well, and could justify slavery, as it treats people for their usefulness,
without regard to what Locke calls intrinsic value.
If Crusoe's successful experience of starting over in a state of nature represented by the island
reflects John Locke's Second Treatise, Crusoe's discussion of government after a Spanish
captain joins Crusoe and Friday on the island reflects another work by Locke: A Letter
Concerning Toleration. 'We had but three subjects', Crusoe notes, and they were of three
different religions ... However, Allowed liberty of conscience throughout my dominions' (p.
241). In allowing liberty of conscience, Crusoe's position is similar to that articulated by
Locke in his Letter. That however' is interesting, because with it Crusoe contrasts his island
with the situation in England, where toleration, such as it was, left Dissenters still unable to
be elected to office. At the same time, Crusoe's use of the word 'subjects' indicates that he has
created not just any kind of government, but a monarchy in particular: 'My island was now
peopled, and I thought myself very rich in subjects; and it was a merry reflection which I
frequently made, how like a king I looked' (p. 240). That is, on this formerly deserted island
that has become his colony, Crusoe recreates the English class system. It is as if the political
map has preceded the territory, carried to the island by someone from England's middle state
who puts himself in a new position on the formerly deserted island, this new world. There is
also a sense that those who joined in the eighteenth-century English colonial expansion
believed they could achieve in the colonies something they could not in England - not only a
religiously tolerant government, but also a change in their class position. On the other side of
the Atlantic, Crusoemovesfrom the middle state to the top, from the middle class to being the
monarch, albeit a tolerant one, himself. Given the history in England's American and West
Indian colonies, it is interesting that slavery helps to make Crusoe's new
class position possible. It is as if the colonies allow a feudalism whose operation is beginning
to be diminished in Britain.
Seen from this perspective, Defoe's Crusoe is exactly the kind of person Behn's narrator so
disliked in Oroonoko: a colonial plantation owner who not only owns slaves but who also
puts himself in a position he could not have had in England. This also points to another
defining feature of the eighteenth- century English novel: dialogue. Usually, the dialogism of
the novel is asso- ciated with the plurality of voices contained within any particular novel's
capacious form. In the eighteenth-century English novel, the dialogue also occurs across
novels. The period is known for pairs of novelists responding to each other, e.g., Defoe to
Behn, and also Swift to Defoe, and Fielding to Richardson. Between Oroonoko and Robinson
Cruse, part of the implicit dialogue has to do with their shared claim to 'history'. In Robinson
Crusoe, the history, at least in the sense of a record of important events, is indicated by the
key dates: departure in 1651, shipwreck in 1659 and return to England in 1687. That is,
Crusoe leaves England at the beginning of the Interregnum, runs aground on the island just
before the Restoration and stays there until just before the Glorious Revolution. Where Behn
publishes a novel in which the narrator worries about the frightful spectacle of a mangled
king in 1688, Defoe, by contrast, publishes one in which the protagonist returns to England a
wealthy landowner in 1687. Defoe's history is much more positive about the Glorious
Revolution's transfer of power in 1688 than was Behn's. Thus, the central metaphor of
Robinson Cruse might be said to represent a Dissenter's sense that life in England during the
Restoration or prior to the Glorious Revolution was like being stranded on a deserted island.
In this way, Defoe's Robinson Cruse offers a Whig vision of the history of the second half of
the seventeenth century, celebrating theGlorious Revolution, connecting it to the democratic
moment of the 1640s, and creating a lineage between that decade's range of Puritans and
early eighteenth-century Dissenters.
Robinson Cruse's date of publication, 1719, provides another angle on the novel's status as
history. At the time, the South Sea Bubble was fully inflated (see pp. 223-4). As Defoe
himself recounted in his weekly journal, The Review, what was later known as the Bubble
was related to the South Seas Company, formed to sell slaves to Spanish colonies after the
Asiento had been granted as part of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The company sent
thousands of slaves to South America for several years in the decade. Consequently, its stock
became popular, and wildly popular by the end of the decade. The problem was that in fact
the company was having trouble getting Spanish colonial administrators to recognise the
Asiento of the Treaty. Therefore, slaves were often left in South America, neither sold nor
welcome. Rather than determine an effective plan in South America, the company let there
sale of stock drive the company's value up. By 1719, insiders knew that there was trouble at
the Company. It is an interesting question as to whether Defoe's Robinson Cruse might have
been intended to demonstrate the financial advantages of a South Sea trade. Regardless, the
novel was still not sufficient to save the company, which collapsed, of course, in the South
Sea Bubble of 1720.
The outlines of the story of Robinson Crusoe- a man who travels by sea, and spends
twenty-eight years stranded, unable to get home, and who has many adventures along the
way- connects Robinson Crusoe To Homer's Odyssey, where, again, a man traveled across
the sea, and took twenty years to return home. It may be a coincidence, but both stories are
eponymous, meaning that they take their names from their central character. The relationship
between the two stories is also a relationship between two genres: epic (The Odyssey) and the
novel. That is, Robinson Cruse makes a connection between the epic and the novel that has
come to be seen as defining the novel as a genre. Both genres focus on the adventures of an
often-wayward central protagonist, usually have a connection to a story of national origins
and are lengthy. Some scholars have called the novel the modern epic; others see the novel a
prose epic. While it is difficult to tell which was the first novel, even in English, to make the
connection between the novel and the epic, Robinson Cruse is easily the best known, and
illustrates the connection nicely. Still, Robinson Crusoe's origins in the middle state also offer
an important contrast between the modern and the ancient epics: the difference in the ages of
the protagonists. In the ancient epic, Odysseus has a son at home who is at least twenty years
old, and, although we are not told how old Odysseus is, we can assume he would be at least
thirty-eight or forty when we first see him in The Odyssey. In the modern epic, the
protagonists are younger, and often grow up during the novel itself(a process sometimes
referred to by the German name of a novelistic genre - Bildungsroman). Thus Robinson
Crusoe begins his narrative with his childhood in his family home, but ends decades later
with his return to England as a wealthy man.