DA DE
Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 into a family of Dissenters (a protestan sect which
refused the authority of the Church of England). He was educated at Newington
Green. His father wanted a religious career for him, but he became a journalist and
his greatest achievement was “The Review''. He became a famous and well-paid
intellectual by writing political essay and pamphlets but the queen did not like his
ideas and for fear of being executed decides to become conservative (this is one of
the characteristics of middle-class because this type of man does not get carried
away by ideals, thus implementing a political opportunism).He later decided to write
some realistic novels, always using a journalistic style, the most important of which is
the Robinson Crusoe.
PLOT:Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman from the town of York in the seventeenth
century, the youngest son of a merchant of German origin. The hero of the novel is a
middle-class man. He, at the age of nineteen, decides to leave his family in order to
look for adventures and to make his own fortune. His first voyage leads him to
Guinea and then back to England.The second voyage does not prove as fortunate: the
ship is seized by Moorish pirates, and Crusoe is enslaved to a potentate in the North
African town of Sallee. While on a fishing expedition, he and a slave boy break free
and sail down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picks them up, buys the
slave boy from Crusoe, and takes Crusoe to Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe establishes
himself as a plantation owner and soon becomes successful. Eager for slave labour
and its economic advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West
Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad, where he remains for 28
years. After twelve years of solitude, he finds a human footprint on the shore, and
later observes cannibalistic savages eating prisoners. Once Robinson decides to on
the Christian religion. For some years the two live happily. Then, another ship of
savages arrives with three prisoners. Together Crusoe and Friday are able to save two
of them. Finally he is rescued and brought back to England, where he discovers that
his plantation has made him rich.
ANALYSE: The island is the ideal place where Robinson can improve his qualities,
to demonstrate that he deserved to be saved by God's Providence. The protagonist
organises a primitive empire and it became the prototype of the English coloniser.
Robinson wanted to find his own identity as an alternative to the idea of his father. In
fact, the story begins with the protagonist who wanted to run away from his father
(act of transgression) and also wants to improve his financial condition (a bourgeois
attach them and saves a young savage whom he names Friday. Friday is extremely
grateful and becomes Robinson's devoted servant. He learns some English and takes
man wants to improve his condition and explore new lands thanks to trade and
colonialism) . These two points will be his true sin and for this God will punish him
leaving him alone on an island (during the period of isolation he recreates English
society and seeks comfort in religion). With his novel, Defoe showed that God is the
prime cause of everything. Robinson has a pragmatic and individualist outlook. He
has got an objective and rational approach to reality (typical feature of the
