Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Defoe’s Life and literary Career:

•        Born in London as a son of a butcher
•        He became a hosier after schooling and traveled a lot in the Continent.
•        Being a merchant, he experienced ups and downs in his business.
•        The pamphlet Hymn to the Pillory made him a hero in 1703 and marked a turning point  in his literary care

Valuable experience to cultivate his abilities:

                   1) Loved short, crisp, plain sentences. 

                 2) Capacity for observing, grouping and memorizing details.

                 3) Skills in use of circumstantial detail.

                 4) Faculty of creative imagination.

 Plot:              

              Robinson Kreutznaer (who in England becomes known with the surname “Crusoe”) is a young man from a rich middle-class family. His main purpose is to travel by sea, but his parents disagree with Robinson because they want him to become a lawyer as his father. At first, he tries to accomplish his father’s desire, but his passion for adventures is too strong, so after having talked to him, he leaves for a little journey from York to London with a friend. During this journey, there is a little storm and Robinson is very scared about it, because he thinks that it is a sign of God’s punishment for having disobeyed to his parents’ wants. When he comes back home, he decides to ignore this little premonition and leaves again to go to Guinea, in Africa. This voyage ends again  in a disaster: his ship is attacked by Moor pirates and Robinson becomes a prisoner. One day, the pirates’ chief orders Robinson, a moor and a friend to go fishing in the sea with a little boat. When they were in the middle of the ocean, Robinson throws the moor in the water and the two men arrived on the shore. After a few days, a Portuguese ship saves them, and Robinson arrives in Brazil. There, he learns how to grow some plants, so, with the help of some natives, he sets up a plantation and becomes very rich. Unfortunately, he feels very unhappy because he wants to travel abroad again, so when the other planters invite him to go to Guinea with him, he accepts. This journey ends in a terrible shipwreck, where everyone dies except for him who, with his last efforts, swims to the nearest shore. On the following day, he realizes what has happened and  decides to fetch as many things as he can on the wreck of the ship before it sinks.

There, he takes a lot of tools and provisions that he considers useful to survive on the island, including weapons and food. At first Robinson is desperate because he knows that nobody will come and save him, but later on he realizes that his shipwreck was a sign of God’s benevolence because all the crew died apart from himself so he starts to settle down in the island as best as he can.

      Thus he decides to attack but not to kill them, because it was not his right to do that but it was God’s. Among them he saves an escaped prisoner and calls him ‘’Friday’’, after the day when he found him on the island. Robinson teaches him few English words (like “yes”, “no”, “master”) and to read the Bible. 

      Friday’s submission represents the great English Colonization because Robinson is the prototype of the English colonizer. In fact their friendship is, as a matter of fact, a master-servant relationship.

Theme : 

                    The theme is the central idea or statement about life that unifies and controls the total work.Theme is not the issue, or problem, or subject with which the work deals, but rather the comment or statement the author makes about that issue, problem, or subject.he theme may be less prominent and less fully developed in some works of fiction, such as in detective, gothic, and adventure fiction, where the author wants primarily to entertain by producing mystification, including chills and nightmare.

To Sum Up:   

Crusoe to prisoners..

•“I AM THE GOVERNOR OF THIS ISLAND”

•As the governor of this island I have power to hang you. Have you any thing to say as to why I should not?(this shows his possessive nature

•Thus he left the island on nineteenth of December in the year 1686

•The ship reached england after long voyage on the 11th June 1687

•By the grace of God I was home once more after the thirty five years.

Reference:

Nimesh Dave's Presentations ...

http://www.slideshare.net/davenimeshb/robinson-crusoes-journey