Robinson Crusoe

1. Author & Work: Daniel Defoe (1659/1661 [?] -

1731) was an English writer, journalist, and spy,
who gained enduring fame for his novel The life
and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson
Crusoe: of York, mariner(1719). Defoe is notable
for being one of the earliest practitioners of the
novel and helped popularize the genre in Britain. In
some texts he is even referred to as one of the
founders, if not the founder, of the English novel.
A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than
five hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on
various topics (including politics, crime, religion,
marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He
was also a pioneer of economic journalism. During
his lifetime Daniel Defoe produced, at a
conservative estimate, 318 publications in many
formats and on an extraordinary range of topics.
Perhaps best known today as the author
of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe is considered to have
fundamentally shaped the novel as an emerging
genre of English literature.
2. Story summary: Alone on a desert island, Crusoe
manages to survive thanks to his pluck and
pragmatism. He keeps himself sane by keeping a
diary, manages to build himself a shelter, and find a
way of salvaging useful goods from the wrecked
ship, including guns.
3. Story:
 3.1 Setting: Crusoe begins his journey in September
1659 and travels to Africa, Brazil, and a lost
island in the Atlantic. He moves primarily
through and around the Atlantic Ocean. In this
sense, the setting of the novel is a transatlantic
one.
3.5 Point of view: The point of view is called “first
person” because Robinson Crusoe narrates the story and
speaks about himself using first-person pronouns, such
as “I” and “me.” For instance, the book begins, “I was
born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good
family.” The term “limited” means that Crusoe, as a
narrator, doesn’t have access to the thoughts or feelings
of any other characters. Soon after he meets Friday, for
example, Crusoe indicates that they can only
communicate by gestures: “He came and kneeled down
to me, and embracing my knees, said a great many
things I did not understand.”
4. Figures of speech: As far as the devices are
concerned, the author is dexterous in the use
of metaphors and extended similes along with rhetorical
devices of pathos, ethos, and logos. The use of
navigational jargon and maritime vocabulary has also
played a role in lending credence to Robinson's story.
5. Literacy devices: Robinson Crusoe is a fictional
autobiography written from a first-person point of view,
apparently written by an old man looking back on his
life. The story also includes material from an
incomplete diary, which is integrated into the novel.