Angelica Lorena Rodríguez Cod: 20102165075

ESSAY ROBINSON CRUSOE

Robinson Crusoe is the story of an adventurer. From an early age his desire was to
travel the world but with a wealthy family his dreams were of a vagabond. When he
finished school he decided to follow his desire and became a mariner even when
his father warned him about the chaotic life he will live if he disobey his advice to
get a degree in law and become a great man. his journey took him to places he will
never imagined but most importantly Robinson Crusoe suffered a life
transformation on each adventure that allow him to question the most essential
matters of human existence and experience.

First of all the style Defoe uses to narrate the story is one in particular. He used
first person to deliver the story which is already telling us the intentions of the
author. Mainly we can say that Defoe wants the reader to feel more in touch with
the main character, as in the first line of the work – “I was born in the year 1632, in
the city of York, of a good family”- (Defoe) In this way the author is setting an
specific atmosphere to the reader making it more acquainted to it and therefore
make his fictional world more tangible or believable.

The main Character that Talks in first person is as the title of the work Robinson
Crusoe, who was born in the mid 1600´s when the age of reason of enlighten
started in Europe. This will give the character a particular way of thinking, because
he not only lived in the age of enlighten but there was still a “moral” movement,
particularly in Britain “in the first half of the eighteenth century Anglican hegemony
and ‘court’ government, as opposed to legal equality for all religions creeds and the
rule or ‘parliamentary’ interests, received vital support from the Newtonian
assumption th- if we may called it that- at the deity instilled hierarchy, order and
place, that spiritual forces controlled nature just as kings and oligarchs managed
their state” (Jacob.2006). We can observe that throughout the entire story for
example when he find out that some seeds had grown in the island of the
shipwrecked “-It is impossible to express the astonishment and confusion of my
thoughts on this occasion[…]I had very few notions of religion in my head[…]But
after I saw barley grow there, in a climate which I knew was not proper for corn,
and especially that I knew not how it came there, it startled me strangely, and I
began to suggest that God had miraculously caused His grain to grow without any
help of seed sown, and that it was so directed purely for my sustenance on that
wild, miserable place.”- Crusoe was always living between reason and the idea of
the power of God as the era he lived in. This is one of the reasons why Robinson
Crusoe is so important; not only Defoe is writing a novel but he as many other
good writers is materializing his era his words fade over things, transforming
actions into rituals and events into ceremonies (Sartre, 1967). He writes a novel
not only because he wants a stylistic approach to language but because there was
not sufficient words in other manifestations of art to portray his society.

This contradicted man did not trust in God at first, He had many reasons to do not
believe in such. What moves this character is emotion. from the beginning he sails
into the sea to follow it, opposite to what his father advised him and consequently
to God’s will to- obey father and mother-(exodus 20:12) but later on he believes
that his misfortunes are because of his disobedience; this change of mind happens
when he started to read the bible that he found on the ship he ‘arrived’ to the island
his only book give him hope and create in him an idea: God could do anything and
everything he does has a purpose. Crusoe had lost his faith before, traveling with
sailors; even though he was a man educated in the word of God his companions
make fun of him until he stopped demonstrating his faith. This renovated hope turn
his misery into a miracle. Now, it did not matter that he was alone, with no
possibilities of a rescue and probably he will face dead at any moment as he often
thought, rather he was grateful of his condition and he was certain that all of this
was caused by himself and that God put him there for a reason. “I may say, being
glad I was alive, without the least reflection upon the distinguished goodness of the
hand which had preserved me, and had singled me out to be preserved when all
the rest were destroyed, or an inquiry why Providence had been thus merciful unto
me” (Defoe)

The author still carries the tradition of tragedy in one of his Greek form, for Aristotle
the character had to feel fear and pity to achieve purification of such feelings his
fear of dead, of never been found, and the pity of being alone was the chariot for
his constant questioning of such matters that were produced manly because of fear
and pity to himself he needed those to achieve such purification of feelings in a
circle that constantly drove him through his self

There was a reason he could reflect in all of this he was alone far away from
society; first Crusoe feels hopeless but then realises that this isolation open new
possibilities for him the fact that he was self-sufficient make him repelled all
‘society’ customs; he did not need more than he could produce and that was a
blessing, now his soul was tranquil “the nature and experience of things dictated
to me, upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good
to us than they are for our use; and that, whatever we may heap up to give others,
we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more” In fact the word reflect(tion)
appears in the work 42 times proving how Robinson concerns never leaved him.

This character that is far from being rescued finds one day a footprint in the sand,
you might think the event will produce happiness but rather petrifies him, and for a
good reason, that footprint was of a cannibal and there were a few more that came
to the island every once in a while. Being an emotional character his first thoughts
are directed towards annihilation erasing any faith he had in providence as he
called the designs of God sometimes. “Thus my fear banished all my religious
hope, all that former confidence in God” But Robinson did not killed them why? He
analyse again his future actions and also compares them to the “monstrous”
actions of Spanish colonisers. How could he played the role of God? Defoe is
clearly making a reference to inquisition not far away in time, in the Americas this
practice continued until the early 1800’s. Even though later Crusoe thinks in the
possibility of having a slave for himself and get it his name (given by Crusoe)
Friday typical idea from a regular European man in the era of colonization.

This work is clearly a reflection of the man in the age of enlighten it portrays the
disjunctive of it, How two ideals, ways of life lived in the same time and space.
Most importantly Daniel Defoe talks to all men kind from one man’s misfortunes,
the power of the writer is creation that endures trough the past of time and lives in
imaginary and therefore in memory. Several time we can find Crusoe talking not
only for himself but to the reader

“And now I’m going to enter into the melancholic tail of a silent life, like no one
have heard in the world” – he believes he had something to say to the world

“how, when we are in a quandary as we call it, a doubt or hesitation whether to go

this way or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go
that way: nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business has called
us to go the other way, yet a strange impression upon the mind, from we know not
what springs, and by we know not what power, shall overrule us to go this way;
and it shall afterwards appear that had we gone that way, which we should have
gone, and even to our imagination ought to have gone, we should have been
ruined and lost.” he tells something that can fits all the audience it deals with
human nature of choice and at the same time our indecisions.

“There are some secret springs in the affections which, when they are set a-going
by some object in view, or, though not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by
the power of imagination, that motion carries out the soul, by its impetuosity, to
such violent, eager embracings of the object, that the absence of it is
insupportable” again he generalizes the whole concept to speak to us.
Finally I think this remarkable work is still up date because Daniel Defoe questions
human nature and its relation with God or a superior deity.

REFERENCES

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe, 1719.

C. Jacob Margaret, The Radical Enlightenment. 2006, p 9, Cornerstone Book.

Sartre. Jean-Paul, Les Mots, 1964, p 34.

New World transcription of the Holy Scriptures, 1987.

Aristotle, poetics, 1996, part 6.