Everything about Robinson Crusoe totally explained
Robinson Crusoe is a
novel by
Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the
first novel in English. The book is a
fictional autobiography of the
title character, an
English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote
tropical island near
Venezuela, encountering
natives, captives, and
mutineers before being rescued. This device, presenting an account of supposedly factual events, is known as a "
false document" and gives a realistic
frame story.
The story was most likely influenced by the real-life experience of
Alexander Selkirk, a
Scottish castaway who lived more than four years on the Pacific island that was called
Más a Tierra (in 1966 its name was changed to
Robinson Crusoe Island),
Chile. However, the description of Crusoe's island was probably based on the island of
Tobago, since that island is near the mouth of the river
Orinoco, and in sight of the island of
Trinidad. It is also likely that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of
Abubacer's
Philosophus Autodidactas, an earlier novel also set on a
desert island. Another source for Defoe's novel may have been Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon," Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons (Publishers to the University), 1911.
Plot summary
Crusoe leaves
England, setting sail from the Queens Dock in
Hull on a sea voyage in September, 1651, against the wishes of his parents. After a tumultuous journey that sees his ship wrecked by a vicious storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by
Salé pirates, and Crusoe becomes the slave of a
Moor. He manages to escape with a
boat and a boy named Xury; later, Robin is befriended by the Captain of a
Portuguese ship off the western coast of
Africa. The ship is enroute to
Brazil. There, with the help of the captain Crusoe becomes owner of a
plantation.
He joins an expedition to bring
slaves from Africa, but is
shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an
island near the mouth of the
Orinoco river on
September 30,
1659. His companions all die; he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He then gets battered by huge waves as he struggles to make it to an unknown island. He proceeds to build a fenced-in habitation and cave. He keeps a
calendar by making marks in a wooden cross he builds. He hunts, grows
corn, learns to make
pottery, raises
goats, etc. He reads the
Bible and suddenly becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society.
He discovers native
cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat
prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for their abomination, but then he realizes that he's no right to do so as the cannibals have not attacked him and don't knowingly commit a
crime. He
dreams of capturing one or two
servants by freeing some prisoners, and indeed, when a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared, and teaches him
English and converts him to Christianity.
After another party of natives arrive to partake in a grisly feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised where the Spaniard would return with Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.
Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears;
mutineers have taken control of the ship and intend to
maroon their former
captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal, in which he helps the captain and the loyalist sailors retake the ship from the mutineers and that they intend to leave the worst of the mutineers on the island. Before they leave for England, Crusoe shows the former mutineers how he lived on the island, and that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island December 19th, 1686, and arrives back in England June 11th, 1687.
Reception and sequels
The book was first published on
April 25 1719. Its full title was
The Life and strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself
The positive reception was immediate and universal. Before the end of the year, this first volume had run through four editions. Within years, it had reached an audience as wide as any book ever written in
English.
By the end of the 19th century, no book in the history of
Western literature had spawned more editions, spin-offs, and translations (even into languages such as
Inuit,
Coptic, and
Maltese) than
Robinson Crusoe, with more than 700 such alternative versions, including children's versions with mainly pictures and no text. There have been hundreds of adaptations in dozens of languages, from
The Swiss Family Robinson to
Luis Buñuel's
film adaptation.
J.M. Coetzee's 1986 novel
Foe and the 2000 Hollywood film
Cast Away are both recent examples of reimagining, retelling, and reevaluation of the story. The term "
Robinsonade" has even been coined to describe the various spin-offs of
Robinson Crusoe.
Defoe went on to write a lesser-known sequel,
The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. It was intended to be the last part of his stories, according to the original title-page of its first edition, but in fact a third part, entitled
Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe, was written; it's a mostly forgotten series of moral essays with Crusoe's name attached to give interest.
Real-life castaways
There were many stories of real-life
castaways in Defoe's time. Defoe's initial inspiration for Crusoe is usually thought to be a Scottish sailor named
Alexander Selkirk, who was rescued in 1709 by
Woodes Rogers' expedition after four years on the uninhabited island of
Más a Tierra in the
Juan Fernández Islands off the
Chilean coast. Rogers' "
Cruising Voyage" was published in 1712, with an account of Alexander Selkirk's ordeal. However,
Robinson Crusoe is far from a copy of Woodes Rogers' account. Selkirk was marooned at his own request, while Crusoe was shipwrecked. The islands are different. Selkirk lived alone for the whole time, while Crusoe found companions. Selkirk stayed on his island for four years, not twenty-eight. Furthermore, much of the appeal of Defoe's novel is the detailed and captivating account of Crusoe's thoughts, occupations and activities which goes far beyond that of Rogers' basic descriptions of Selkirk, which account for only a few pages.
Tim Severin's book
Seeking Robinson Crusoe (2002) unravels a much wider and more plausible range of potential sources of inspiration, and concludes by identifying castaway surgeon Henry Pitman as the most likely. An employee of the Duke of Monmouth, Pitman played a part in the
Monmouth Rebellion. His short book about his desperate escape from a Caribbean penal colony, followed by his shipwrecking and subsequent desert island misadventures, was published by J. Taylor of Paternoster Row, London, whose son William Taylor later published Defoe's novel. Severin argues that since Pitman appears to have lived in the lodgings above the father's publishing house and that Defoe himself was a mercer in the area at the time, Defoe may have met Pitman in person and learnt of his experiences first-hand, or possibly through submission of a draft.
Severin also discusses another publicised case of a marooned man named only as
Will, of the
Miskito people of Central America, who may have led to the depiction of
Man Friday.
Interpretations
Despite its simple narrative style and the absence of the supposedly indispensable
love motive, it was well received in the literary world. The book is considered one of the most widely published books in history (behind some of the sacred texts). It has been a hit since the day it was published, and continues to be highly regarded to this day.
Colonial
Novelist
James Joyce eloquently noted that the true symbol of the
British conquest is Robinson Crusoe: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist… The whole
Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity".
In a sense Crusoe attempts to replicate his own society on the island. This is achieved through the application of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the 'king' of the island, whilst the captain describes him as the 'governor' to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is explicitly referred to as a 'colony'. The idealised master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of
cultural imperialism. Crusoe represents the 'enlightened' European whilst Friday is the 'savage' who can only be redeemed from his supposedly barbarous way of life through the assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nevertheless, within the novel Defoe also takes the opportunity to criticise the historic Spanish conquest of
South America.
Religious
According to
J.P. Hunter, Robinson isn't a hero, but an
everyman. He begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he doesn't understand; he ends as a
pilgrim, crossing a final mountain to enter the
promised land. The book tells the story of how Robinson gets closer to
God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature with only a
Bible to read.
Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was himself a
Puritan moralist, and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing books on how to be a good Puritan Christian, such as
The New Family Instructor (1727) and
Religious Courtship (1722). While
Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide, it shares many of the same themes and theological and moral points of view. The very name "Crusoe" may have been taken from Timothy Cruso, a classmate of Defoe's who had written guide books himself, including
God the Guide of Youth (1695), before dying at an early age — just eight years before Defoe wrote
Robinson Crusoe. Cruso would still have been remembered by contemporaries and the association with guide books is clear. It has even been suggested that
God the Guide of Youth inspired
Robinson Crusoe because of a number of passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel; however this is speculative.
The Biblical story of
Jonah is alluded to in the first part of novel. Like Jonah, Crusoe neglects his 'duty' and is punished at sea.
A central concern of Defoe's in the novel is the Christian notion of
Providence. Crusoe often feels himself guided by a divinely ordained fate, thus explaining his robust optimism in the face of apparent hopelessness. His various fortunate intuitions are taken as evidence of a benign spirit world. Defoe also foregrounds this theme by arranging highly significant events in the novel to occur on Crusoe's birthday.
Moral
When confronted with the cannibalistic Indians Crusoe wrestles with the problem of
cultural relativism. Despite his disgust he feels unjustified in holding the natives morally responsible for a practice so deeply ingrained in their culture. Nevertheless he retains his belief in an absolute standard of morality. Not only does he condemn cannibalism as a 'national crime' but he also forbids Friday from practicing it. Modern readers may also note that despite Crusoe's apparently superior morality, in common with the culture of his day, he accepts slavery as a basic feature of colonial life.
Economic
Karl Marx made an analysis of Crusoe in his classic work
Capital. In Marxist terms Crusoe's experiences on the island represents the inherent economic value of labour over capital. Crusoe frequently observes that the money he salvaged from the ship is worthless on the island, especially when compared to his tools. For the literary critic
Angus Ross, Defoe's point is that money has no intrinsic value and is only valuable insofar as it can be used in trade. There is also a notable correlation between Crusoe's spiritual and financial development as the novel progresses, possibly signifying Defoe's belief in the
Protestant work ethic.
In the
Austrian School of economics and
praxeology, “Crusoe economics” is used as an abstraction for understanding “...the basic truths of interpersonal relations, truths which remain obscure if we insist on looking first at the contemporary world only whole and of a piece.”
Cultural influences
The book proved so popular that the names of the two main protagonists have entered the language. The term "Robinson Crusoe" is virtually synonymous with the word "castaway" and is often used as a metaphor for being or doing something alone. Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my man Friday", from which the term "
Man Friday" (or "Girl Friday") originated, referring to a dedicated personal assistant, servant, or companion.
The success of the book spawned many imitators, and castaway novels became quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of these have fallen into obscurity, but some became established in their own right, including
The Swiss Family Robinson.
In
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's treatise on education,, the one book the main character, Emile, is allowed to read before the age of twelve is
Robinson Crusoe. Rousseau wants Emile to identify himself as Crusoe so he could rely upon himself for all of his needs. In Rousseau's view, Emile needs to imitate Crusoe's experience, allowing necessity to determine what is to be learned and accomplished. This is one of the main themes of Rousseau's educational model.
In
Wilkie Collins's most popular novel,
The Moonstone, one of the chief characters and narrators,
Gabriel Betteredge, places implicit faith in all that Robinson Crusoe says, and uses the book for a sort of divination. He considers 'The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' the finest book ever written, and considers a man but poorly read if he'd happened not to read the book.
Nobel Prize-winning (2003) author
J. M. Coetzee in 1986 published a novel entitled
Foe, in which he explores an alternative telling of the Crusoe story, an allegorical story about racism, philosophy, and colonialism.
Jacques Offenbach wrote an
opéra comique called
Robinson Crusoé which was first performed at the
Opéra-Comique, Salle Favart on
23 November 1867. This was based on the British pantomime version rather than the novel itself. The libretto was by
Eugène Cormon and
Hector-Jonathan Crémieux. The opera includes a
duet by Robinson Crusoe and Friday.
French novelist
Michel Tournier wrote
Friday (French ) published in 1967. His novel explores themes including civilization versus nature, the psychology of solitude, as well as death and sexuality, in a retelling of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe story. Tournier's Robinson chooses to remain on the island, rejecting civilization when offered the chance to escape 28 years after being shipwrecked.
The theme song of
Gilligan's Island, a television series about castaways, has a line that refers to this novel ("
Like Robinson Crusoe, it's as primitive as can be"). The same line is used in
"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "
Amish Paradise".
The Nintendo Wii's contest channel had a competition to make an avatar of Robinson Crusoe.
There is a bookstore on
İstiklal Avenue,
İstanbul named after Robinson Crusoe.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Robinson Crusoe'.
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