- first published on 25 April 1719, a travelogue.
- Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer) – a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, roughly resembling Tobago, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called “Más a Tierra” (now part of Chile) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.: 23–24
- Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel. Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television, and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade. A film based on the same name was released.
- Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century. In the novel, Crusoe sheds light on different aspects of Christianity and his beliefs. The book can be considered a spiritual autobiography as Crusoe’s views on religion change dramatically from the start of his story to the end.
- “He is the true prototype of the British colonist. … The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity.” – Irish novelist James Joyce
- There were many stories of real-life castaways in Defoe’s time. Most famously, Defoe’s suspected inspiration for Robinson Crusoe is thought to be Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years on the uninhabited island of Más a Tierra (renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966): 23–24 in the Juan Fernández Islands off the Chilean coast. Selkirk was rescued in 1709 by Woodes Rogers during an English expedition that led to the publication of Selkirk’s adventures in both A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World and A Cruising Voyage Around the World in 1712. According to Tim Severin, “Daniel Defoe, a secretive man, neither confirmed nor denied that Selkirk was the model for the hero of his book. Apparently written in six months or less, Robinson Crusoe was a publishing phenomenon.”
- The author of Crusoe’s Island, Andrew Lambert states, “the ideas that a single, real Crusoe is a ‘false premise’ because Crusoe’s story is a complex compound of all the other buccaneer survival stories.”: not cited [full citation needed] However, Robinson Crusoe is far from a copy of Rogers’ account: Becky Little argues three events that distinguish the two stories:
- Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked while Selkirk decided to leave his ship thus marooning himself;
- The island Crusoe was shipwrecked on had already been inhabited, unlike the solitary nature of Selkirk’s adventures.
- The last and most crucial difference between the two stories is Selkirk was a privateer, looting and raiding coastal cities during the War of Spanish Succession.
- Plot:
- Robinson Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name “Kreutznaer”) sets sail from Kingston upon Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his desire 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 (the Salé Rovers) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is en route to Brazil. Crusoe sells Xury to the captain. With the captain’s help, Crusoe procures a plantation in Brazil.
- In the Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa, but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island near the Venezuelan coast (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on 30 September 1659.: Chapter 23 He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on this island. Only he, the captain’s dog, and two cats survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society.
- More years pass and Crusoe discovers cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. He plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion “Friday” after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe teaches Friday English and converts him to Christianity.
- After more cannibals arrive to partake in a feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and save two prisoners. One is Friday’s father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday’s father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.
- Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship’s captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship. With their ringleader executed by the captain, the mutineers take up Crusoe’s offer to be marooned on the island rather than being returned to England as prisoners to be hanged. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming.
- Crusoe leaves the island 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in his father’s will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England from Portugal to avoid traveling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route, they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.
- Characters:
- Robinson Crusoe: The narrator of the novel who gets shipwrecked.
- Friday: A Caribbean tribesman who Crusoe saves from cannibalism, and subsequently named “Friday.” He becomes a servant and friend to Crusoe.
- Xury: Servant to Crusoe after they escape slavery from the Captain of the Rover together. He is later given to the Portuguese Sea Captain as an indentured servant.
- The Widow: Friend to Crusoe who looks over his assets while he is away.
- Portuguese Sea Captain: Rescues Crusoe after he escapes from slavery. Later helps him with his money and plantation.
- The Spaniard: A man rescued by Crusoe who later helps him escape the island.
- Robinson Crusoe’s father: A merchant named Kreutznaer.
- Captain of the Rover: Moorish pirate of Sallee who captures and enslaves Crusoe.
- Traitorous crew members: members of a mutinied ship who appear towards the end of novel
- The Savages: Cannibals that come to Crusoe’s Island and who represent a threat to Crusoe’s religious and moral convictions as well as his own safety.
- Literary adaptation:
- Robinson Crusoe marked the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Its success led to many imitators, and castaway novels, written by Ambrose Evans, Penelope Aubin, and others, became quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of these have fallen into obscurity, but some became established, including The Swiss Family Robinson, which borrowed Crusoe’s first name for its title.
- Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, published seven years after Robinson Crusoe, may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe’s optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man, Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned about refuting the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe’s novel seems to suggest. In Treasure Island, author Robert Louis Stevenson parodies Crusoe with the character of Ben Gunn, a friendly castaway who was marooned for many years, has a wild appearance, dresses entirely in goat skin, and constantly talks about providence.
- In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s treatise on education, Emile, or on Education, the one book the protagonist is allowed to read before the age of twelve is Robinson Crusoe. Rousseau wants Emile to identify himself as Crusoe so he can 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.
- Robinson Crusoe bookstore on İstiklal Avenue, Istanbul
- In The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, Beatrix Potter directs the reader to Robinson Crusoe for a detailed description of the island (the land of the Bong tree) to which her eponymous hero moves. In Wilkie Collins’ most popular novel, The Moonstone, one of the chief characters and narrators, Gabriel Betteredge, has 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, reads it over and over again, and considers a man but poorly read if he had happened not to read the book.
- French novelist Michel Tournier published Friday, or, The Other Island (French Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique) 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. Likewise, in 1963, J. M. G. Le Clézio, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, published the novel Le Proces-Verbal. The book’s epigraph is a quote from Robinson Crusoe, and like Crusoe, the novel’s protagonist Adam Pollo suffers long periods of loneliness.
- “Crusoe in England”, a 183 line poem by Elizabeth Bishop, imagines Crusoe near the end of his life, recalling his time of exile with a mixture of bemusement and regret.
- J. G. Ballard’s 1974 novel Concrete Island is a modern rewriting of Robinson Crusoe.
- J. M. Coetzee’s 1986 novel Foe recounts the tale of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of a woman named Susan Barton.
- In the novel” Concrete Island” by J.G. Ballard he is able to use Robinson Crusoe as a sort of inspiration for his own story about isolation. Although notable Ballard switches out the deserted island scenario and replaces it with a concrete island below a high speed highway. The novel features many of the classic castaway elements as well. Our protagonist Robert becomes unable to leave this concrete island and he eventually discovers that he is not alone.
- Andy Weir takes the classic Crusoe tale and gives in a innovative modern twist with him famous novel, The Martian. Andy Weir takes the chance to completely change the deserted island setting. Instead of Mark Watney being stuck on a deserted island he is in fact the first man to become stranded in space. He manages to overcome incredible odds and like Crusoe uses his ingenuity and skills to overcome his daunting situation
- In 1954 William Golding came out with his ever-famous novel Lord Of The Flies. This is a novel about a group of schoolboys who find themselves stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. There are no adults to tell them what to do and quickly the boys are plunged into a world of chaos and terror.
Robinson Crusoe (1719) – Daniel Defoe
About the Author: Abirlal Mukherjee (Mukhopadhyay)
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