DANIEL DEFOE

Robinson crusoe

LIFE AND WORKS

Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 into a family of Dissenters, a Protestant sect which refused
the authority of the Church of England. He was educated at Newington Green, in one of the
best Dissenting academies, where he studied practical subjects such as modern languages,
economics and geography, besides the traditional ones. His father wanted a religious
career for him, but Defoe began working as an apprentice, and then went into business on
his own. He suffered two bankruptcies, which he faced both with legal and illicit means. He
started to write in Whig papers; as a journalist his greatest achievement was The Review,
the periodical which he published three times a week from 1704 to 1713. He became a
famous and well-paid intellectual by writing political essays and pamphlets till the reign of
Queen Anne. The queen did not like his critical attitude and had him arrested, tried and
imprisoned. He even made three appearances in the pillory, which were meant to degrade
him publicly but which turned into triumph when some of his friends threw flowers at him
instead of rocks or rotten eggs. He denied his Whig ideas so as to be freed and became a
secret agent for the new government. When he was about 60, he started to write novels
which were very successful. In 1719 he published his first novel, Robinson Crusoe, which
was followed by Captain Singleton in 1720, the voyage story of a captain who becomes a
pirate. In 1722 he published Moll Flanders, which is about the adventures of a woman who
was born in Newgate prison in London, and Colonel Jack, which tells the story of a
pickpocket who repents and ends up leading a prosperous and respectable life. Defoe's last
novel was Rozana (1724), which deals with the adventures of a high-society woman who
exploits her beauty to obtain what she wants. Thanks to the money he earned with these
works, he could afford a comfortable standard of life, but his old creditors haunted him and
led him into numerous adventures till his death in 1731.

DEFOE’S NOVELS

Defoe is generally regarded as the father of the English novel, the representative of a new
social class that wanted to see their life and ideals portrayed in literature. His narrative
technique was original and became the basis for the development of the realistic novel.
His novels are fictional autobiographies always pretending to be true stories through
the biographical details and memories provided by the protagonist. They are also
preceded by a preface by the author which emphasizes their authenticity. The structure
of the novels is characterized by a series of episodes and adventures held together by the
unifying presence of a single hero. The lack of a coherent plot is due to the fact that Defoe
neither planned his works nor revised them; his main aim as a writer was to produce a large
and effective output not intended for a critical audience. Defoe used retrospective
first-person narration, and the author's point of view mainly coincided with the main
character's. The characters are presented from the inside and through their actions rather
than from the outside. They usually appear in isolation, either physically like Robinson
Crusoe, or socially like Moll Flanders, in their struggle for survival or for their daily bread.

THE FATHERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL

Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) are generally regarded as the
fathers of the English novel, though they did not constitute a literary school. The
18th-century novelist was the spokesman of the middle class; the novel was primarily
concerned with everything that could affect social status and it was mainly directed to a
bourgeois public.

THE WRITER’S AIM

The plots which had traditionally formed the backbone of English literature for centuries
plots taken from history, legend and mythology were abandoned. The writer's primary aim
was no longer to satisfy the standards of patrons and the literary elite, but to write in
a simple way in order to be understood even by less well-educated readers. Since it was the
bookseller and not the patron who rewarded the writer, speed and copiousness became the
most important economic virtues.

THE MESSAGE OF THE NOVEL

The story was particularly appealing to the practical-minded tradesman, who was self-made
and self-reliant. The sense of reward and punishment, which was the 'message' of the
novel itself, was related to the Puritan ethics of the middle classes, yet some hints at social
justice can be found in Defoe.

THE CHARACTERS

The writer aimed at realism; he tried to portray different human experiences, and not
only those suited to one particular literary perspective: the realism of the novel was linked
not to the kind of life presented, but to the way a life experience was presented. The subject
of the novel was always the bourgeois man' and his problems. He was a well-defined
character and the hero of the narrative; he was generally the mouthpiece of his author and
the reader was expected to sympathize with him. All the characters struggled either for
survival or social success and they could be divided into two groups. The former was
composed of people who believe in reason, like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe; the latter by
those who cannot control their passions and subordinate reason to their desires, like Defoes
Moll Flanders. The fact that characters were given contemporary names and surnames was
something new and served to reinforce the impression of realism.
THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

The writer was omnipresent. He chose either the third-person narrator, who was omniscient
and never abandoned his characters, or the first-person narrator, who was the main
character in the story. A chronological sequence of events was generally adopted by the
novelists. Characters seemed to be very much rooted in a temporal dimension and
references were made to particular times of the year or of the day.

THE SETTING

Great attention was paid to the setting. Where the action happened became a question of
much concern and was the logical complement to time: time and place were considered two
different aspects of the same reality. In previous fiction the idea of place had been vague and
fragmentary; but in the new novels, specific references to names of streets and towns,
together with detailed descriptions of interiors, helped render the narrative even more
realistic.

ROBINSON CRUSOE

PLOT

The main character in Defoe's novel is Robinson Kreutznaer, anglicized Crusoe, born
in York in 1632 of a German father and an English mother. At the age of 19 he decides to
leave his home, his family and the prospect of a comfortable life as a member of the trading
middle class in order to travel around the world and make his fortune. His first voyage
leads him to Guinea and then back to England. During his second voyage he is captured by
Moorish pirates but manages to escape; he is finally rescued by a Portuguese ship and
brought to Brazil. There he becomes the owner of a plantation and, needing more labour,
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. The rest of the novel tells how he
gradually re-builds the same kind of society as exists in his country. He writes a diary
where he records his experiences and debates contemporary ideas addressing himself, the
reader and even God. After 12 years of solitude he finds a human footprint on the shore. As
time goes by, he also finds some human bones and flesh left by cannibals. Once Robinson
decides to attack them: they escape and leave one of their captives, whom he calls Friday,
after the day of his rescue. When other cannibals land on the island, Robinson and Friday
attack them and free two of their prisoners, one of whom turns out to be Friday's father. The
novel ends with Robinson's return to England and his discovery that his plantation in Brazil
has prospered and made him very rich.

ROBINSON’S ISLAND

The setting of most of the story, the island, is the ideal place for Robinson to prove his
qualities, to demonstrate that he deserved to be saved by God's Providence. Robinson
organizes a primitive empire on the island, thus becoming the prototype of the English
colonizer: his stay on the island is not seen as a return to nature, but as a chance to
exploit and dominate nature.

CHARACTERS

The hero, Robinson, belongs to the middle class, he is restless and wants to find his
own identity as an alternative to the model provided by his father. Actually the
story begins with an act of transgression, of disobedience, which places the character in a
situation of separation that will culminate with his isolation on the island after the shipwreck.
Robinson's life on the island develops the issue of the relationship between the individual
and society, between the private and the public spheres. The society Robinson creates on
the island is not an alternative to the English one; on the contrary, it can be read as an
exaltation of 18th-century England and its ideals of mobility, material productiveness and
individualism. Defoe shows that, though God is the prime cause of everything, the individual
can shape his destiny through action. Man can overcome doubt and modify reality through
his work and the interpretation of his achievements in the light of the Bible and God's will.
Robinson has a pragmatic and individualistic outlook. His objective and rational approach to
reality is demonstrated by his journal-keeping. His progress re-invents the learning
processes of baking, ship-building, carpentry and farming. Friday is the first native character
to be portrayed in the English novel, he is attractive and lively. The moment Robinson
rescues him, he teaches him the word 'master', Western culture and to read the Bible; so
Friday becomes the symbol of the colonized.

STYLE

The novel shows an objective approach to the events through clear and precise details.
Defoe concentrates his description on the primary qualities of objects, especially their
solidity, extension and number, rather than on the secondary ones (color, texture, flavor).
The language is simple, matter-of-fact and concrete to reinforce the impression of reality
conveyed by the first-person narration.
 I WAS BORN OF A GOOD FAMILY (text)

The opening of Daniel Defoe’s masterpiece ‘Robinson Crusoe’, it’s about Robinson narrating
in first-person about himself. He was born in 1632 in the city of york. His father settled first at
Hull then moved to York where he married his mother, and their relationship’s name was
Robinson, so when he was born they named him Robinson Kreutznaer, but because of
corruption of words everybody called him Crusoe. He had two elder brothers: one of which
was a lieutenant-colonel in Flanders and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk. And what
became of his second brother he never knew. His father designed him for the law but all he
ever wanted was going to the sea. So he led himself against the will of his father, mother and
friends. One day his father expostulate very warmly with him telling him that his social state
was the best, he called it: ‘the upper station of low life’, the type of social position that all
other people envied because it’s were it is human happiness, not exposed to the miseries
and hardships.

MAN FRIDAY (text)

Robinson wrote a description of a native that he has rescued from a group of cannibals
who came to the island to perform their rites. Robinson says that the native was tall with
strong limbs, he was around 26 years old. He says that the native had all the sweetness and
the softness of an european in his countenance especially when he smiled. His hair was
long and black and not curled. His skin color was of a bright kind of a dun olive-color
The day after saving him Robinson called him Friday because it was the day he saved the
native. Friday showed him his submission in every possible way and so he became
Robinson’s fellow, Crusoe also started to teach him how to speak to him, gave him clothes
and food. When they arrived where Friday almost died, he showed to Crusoe that they could
find them and eat them, but Robinson expressed his abhorrence of it and beckoned with his
hand to him to come away, so he did immediately with great submission.