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DANIEL DEFOE
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. Early life Defoe was born in London in 1660 to a family of Presbyterian Dissenters, and educated at a dissenting academy in Newington Green. He became a merchant, dealing in different commodities including hosiery. In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley (1665–1732); six of their eight children lived into adulthood. After expanding into the import-export business for goods such as tobacco and alcohol, Defoe made some unwise investments and in 1692 declared bankruptcy. He was twice briefly imprisoned for his debts, negotiating his freedom with the aid of recognisants (guarantors) and becoming an accountant and investment advisor to the government and private business owners. During this time he began writing political pamphlets and, later, poetry, such as The Pacificator (1700), a satirical comment on the literary criticism of the age. The True-Born Englishman (1701) defends King William III, who was Dutch, against xenophobia with the reminder that there was no such thing as a purely English person: ‘from a mixture of all kinds began / That het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman’. Defoe as religious dissenter and journalist Throughout his lifetime Defoe was a vocal supporter of freedom of religion and the press. He played an important part in the ‘occasional conformity’ conflict in England in the late 1690s and early 1700s; this called attention to Dissenters’ occasional participation in ceremonies of the official Church of England, which they did so that they would still be eligible for office. Defoe’s pamphlet An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity (1698) was followed by the satirical Shortest Way With the Dissenters (1703), which led to his arrest for seditious libel in May 1703. He was in Newgate Prison for six months and pilloried three times. Though he went on to a successful career as a journalist and novelist, he was never entirely free of the stigma of sedition and imprisonment. In 1704 Defoe founded The Review , a periodical discussing international and domestic politics. This brought him to the attention of the government, for whom he became a secret agent working for peace with France and towards union with Scotland, where he lived on and off until 1712. Fiction writing Scholar Maximillian Novak calls the years 1715–24 ‘the great creative period’ of Defoe’s life. Now in his fifties and sixties, Defoe wrote a wide variety of fiction, bringing verisimilitude and dramatic realism to the traditional genre of the domestic conduct book, and producing the novels for which he is now most famous: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724) – the last two being notable for their morally ambiguous female heroines. In his later years he turned his attention once more to ‘state of the nation’ writings about British trade and foreign policy. Before his death in April 1731, Defoe was plagued by debts and restlessly moved between several different lodgings. He is buried in Bunhill Fields, the cemetery for Nonconformists.
Robison Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman from the town of York in the seventeenth century, the youngest son of a merchant of German origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe expresses his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going out to sea, and his father explains that it is better to seek a modest, secure life for oneself. Initially, Robinson is committed to obeying his father, but he eventually succumbs to temptation and embarks on a ship bound for London with a friend. When a storm causes the near deaths of Crusoe and his friend, the friend is dissuaded from sea travel, but Crusoe still goes on to set himself up as merchant on a ship leaving London. This trip is financially successful, and Crusoe plans another, leaving his early profits in the care of a friendly widow. 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 labor and its economic advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad. Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition and seeks shelter and food for himself. He returns to the wreck’s remains twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other items. Onshore, he finds goats he can graze for meat and builds himself a shelter. He erects a cross that he inscribes with the date of his arrival, September 1, 1659, and makes a notch every day in order never to lose track of time. He also keeps a journal of his household activities, noting his attempts to make candles, his lucky discovery of sprouting grain, and his construction of a cellar, among other events. In June 1660, he falls ill and hallucinates that an angel visits, warning him to repent. Drinking tobacco-steeped rum, Crusoe experiences a religious illumination and realizes that God has delivered him from his earlier sins. After recovering, Crusoe makes a survey of the area and discovers he is on an island. He finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes, where he builds a shady retreat. Crusoe begins to feel more optimistic about being on the island, describing himself as its “king.” He trains a pet parrot, takes a goat as a pet, and develops skills in basket weaving, bread making, and pottery. He cuts down an enormous cedar tree and builds a huge canoe from its trunk, but he discovers that he cannot move it to the sea. After building a smaller boat, he rows around the island but nearly perishes when swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore, he hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved once again. He spends several years in peace. One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides it must belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region. Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that the shore has been strewn with human carnage, apparently the remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed. Another one, waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills. Well-
CHAPTER I
Summary The novel begins with Crusoe himself accounting how his family name came into existence and where his family originally came from. His father, a successful merchant, moved from Bremen in Germany to York and met his mother there, marrying her. He also mentions his two brothers, one of whom has already died in a battle near Dunkirk and the other having no contact with the family anymore. His parents have very clear plans for Robinson’s future which he disagrees with. Instead of staying in York like his father wants him to, he goes aboard a ship traveling from the port of Hull to the city of London at the young age of 19. The trip does not go to plan as Crusoe becomes seasick due to the rough sea. He pledges that “if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father” (Defoe 8-9). As soon as the sea becomes calm, however, his pledge is all but forgotten. When the ship sinks in another storm close to Yarmouth, he is advised by the captain to never return to sea again because it is clearly not his destiny. Allegedly being jinxed, Crusoe is too ashamed to return to York and his father and continues his journey to London where he quickly begins searching for a new voyage. Analysis Even in the first few paragraphs, it becomes apparent how Robinson Crusoe wants to be an individual and set himself apart from the future his parents, and mostly his father, want for him as the last-born son. Very early on in the narrative, he implies that he himself, like his brothers, also has no contact with his family anymore: “What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother knew what became of me” (Defoe 2). His father describes his life as the “middle state” which “had the fewest disasters” (Defoe 3) and is therefore quite comfortable, albeit not as luxurious or adventurous. Crusoe, however, seeks the adventures and despises the comfort because it bores him. His father does not understand his youngest son’s needs, but his advice and words will come to haunt Crusoe with guilt. When he finally decides to board a ship to London, it is a rather impulsive decision that he seems to make quickly, in a moment of clarity, and which he describes as “I broke loose.” Before that moment, he had been “obstinately deaf” (Defoe7), meaning that he had felt repressed and imprisoned in his own home. When Crusoe first has to face the obstacle of a storm and seasickness, he silently promises to go back home to his father, a “repenting prodigal” (Defoe 9). He often turns to God in moments of hardship and then forgets all about it as soon as they are overcome. This is a recurring theme in the novel and he seems to follow mostly his own interests despite believing in God’s punishment. Much of this reasoning likely stems from the understanding of the connection between deeds and consequences from the Old Testament when people believed that everything bad that happened to them must have come from something they previously did wrong (Baumann). Even in today’s world, many Christians and people of all faiths say and do opposite things and repeat actions that previously caused them trouble. Crusoe’s ultimate excuse when the ship sinks due to another storm in Yarmouth is that he is too ashamed to return back home. In reality, his desire for travel leads him to London and beyond, already looking for new adventures because it is in his nature. Crusoe calls his father’s discourse “prophetic” in his narrative about his childhood, referring again to the deed-consequence connection in which the father believes that God would not assist his son in his recovery of such a “foolish step” (Defoe 5) because he had not listened to him. Later in the chapter, the captain of the sunken ship repeats similar words: “[...] if you do not go back, wherever you go, you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments, till your father’s words are fulfilled upon you” (Defoe 17). It seemingly sets the tone of the novel and Crusoe’s adventures.
CHAPTER XV
Summary Chapter fifteen concentrates on Friday’s education and Crusoe teaching him the English language and giving him instructions on the work that has to be done on the island. Even though Friday is a companion and help for Crusoe, he also has more work with him and needs more resources such as food, since two people now have to eat. Crusoe even manages to make Friday eat goat meat instead of human meat, “and at last he told me, as well as he could, he would never eat man’s flesh any more” (Defoe 274). Not understanding how guns work, Friday is amazed by them and Crusoe teaches him their functional principle. He does not give Friday a gun, however, but provides him with a knife and a hatchet. Crusoe teaches Friday the principles of Christianity and Friday seems interested and eager to learn. Their conversations about God and the devil are versatile and interesting and Crusoe is made to question some important aspects of the Christian belief, including why an almighty God would not just cause the devil to vanish. Crusoe replies that God does not kill humans who sin either and that he pardons all. Crusoe also learns about Friday’s religious beliefs in a god named Benamuckee. The two talk about their pasts, how Crusoe landed on the island and how Friday was caught by a rival tribe. Friday reveals his tribe lives on the mainland and that they have seen ships like the ones Crusoe describes before, one of them, with white men onboard, even allowed to land on their shore. Friday says he would like to return to his tribe and when Crusoe questions him on whether he wants to be a savage again, Friday negates it, saying that he would teach his tribe Christianity and deter them from eating humans. His answers satisfy Crusoe and they make plans to get to the mainland. Analysis Robinson Crusoe seems to show more interest in Friday’s culture than in other natives’ before, even learning about his god and generally being more culturally open. He is pleasantly surprised at how Friday questions everything and what he has accomplished. He realizes that the tribe he comes from is different to European standards, but they nevertheless have a sort of civilization with rules. Cannibalism is their way of practicing religion and holding ceremonies and their religion includes concepts of an afterlife. Friday’s intelligence becomes clear when he asks Crusoe about God’s ability to kill the devil. Crusoe is momentarily taken aback by the question and realizes in his conversations with Friday, he is learning more about himself and his religion, too. Crusoe even becomes a little jealous of Friday. “While my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day pumping him to see if he would discover any of the new thoughts which I suspected were in him” (Defoe 288). Friday makes Crusoe question his religion and his assumptions about certain aspects as well. As they speak about the ships and Friday’s tribe, Crusoe realizes that some of the Spaniards from the ship have indeed survived as they managed to get to the mainland. Friday thought them to be dead, landing on the shore of a cannibalistic tribe. However, they took the white men in and allowed them to settle. Friday explains that his tribe does not just eat anyone, but that there are specific rules and only those caught in battle are eaten. As men in need, the Spanish survivors were welcome by the tribe.
The Importance of Self-Awareness Crusoe’s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence controlled by animal instincts, and, unlike animals, he remains conscious of himself at all times. Indeed, his island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external social world and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that Defoe took seriously all his life. We see that in his normal day-to-day activities, Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically and in various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe’s makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical calendar with him at its center. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the beach or waiting inside while it rains. Crusoe feels the importance of staying aware of his situation at all times. We can also sense Crusoe’s impulse toward self-awareness in the fact that he teaches his parrot to say the words, “Poor Robin Crusoe.... Where have you been?” This sort of self-examining thought is natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but it is given a strange intensity when we recall that Crusoe has spent months teaching the bird to say it back to him. Crusoe teaches nature itself to voice his own self-awareness. ROBINSON CRUSOE While he is no flashy hero or grand epic adventurer, Robinson Crusoe displays character traits that have won him the approval of generations of readers. His perseverance in spending months making a canoe, and in practicing pottery making until he gets it right, is praiseworthy. Additionally, his resourcefulness in building a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable from practically nothing is clearly remarkable. The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau applauded Crusoe’s do-it-yourself independence, and in his book on education, Emile, he recommends that children be taught to imitate Crusoe’s hands-on approach to life. Crusoe’s business instincts are just as considerable as his survival instincts: he manages to make a fortune in Brazil despite a twenty- eight-year absence and even leaves his island with a nice collection of gold. Moreover , Crusoe is never interested in portraying himself as a hero in his own narration. He does not boast of his courage in quelling the mutiny, and he is always ready to admit unheroic feelings of fear or panic, as when he finds the footprint on the beach. Crusoe prefers to depict himself as an ordinary sensible man, never as an exceptional hero. Compared to Adam. But Crusoe’s admirable qualities must be weighed against the flaws in his character. Crusoe seems incapable of deep feelings, as shown by his cold account of leaving his family—he worries about the religious consequences of disobeying his father, but never displays any emotion about leaving. Though he is generous toward people, as when he gives gifts to his sisters and the captain, Crusoe reveals very little tender or sincere affection in his dealings with them. When Crusoe tells us that he has gotten married and that his wife has died all within the same sentence, his indifference to her seems almost cruel. Moreover, as an individual personality, Crusoe is rather dull. His precise and deadpan style of narration works well for recounting the process of canoe building, but it tends to drain the excitement from events that should be thrilling. Action-packed
scenes like the conquest of the cannibals become quite humdrum when Crusoe narrates them, giving us a detailed inventory of the cannibals in list form, for example. His insistence on dating events makes sense to a point, but it ultimately ends up seeming obsessive and irrelevant when he tells us the date on which he grinds his tools but neglects to tell us the date of a very important event like meeting Friday. Perhaps his impulse to record facts carefully is not a survival skill, but an irritating sign of his neurosis. Finally, while not boasting of heroism, Crusoe is nonetheless very interested in possessions, power, and prestige. When he first calls himself king of the island it seems jocund, but when he describes the Spaniard as his subject we must take his royal delusion seriously, since it seems he really does consider himself king. His teaching Friday to call him “Master,” even before teaching him the words for “yes” or “no,” seems obnoxious even under the racist standards of the day, as if Crusoe needs to hear the ego-boosting word spoken as soon as possible. Overall, Crusoe’s virtues tend to be private: his industry, resourcefulness, and solitary courage make him an exemplary individual. But his vices are social, and his urge to subjugate others is highly objectionable. In bringing both sides together into one complex character, Defoe gives us a fascinating glimpse into the successes, failures, and contradictions of modern man. FRIDAY Probably the first non white character to be given a realistic, individualized, and humane portrayal in the English novel, Friday has a huge literary and cultural importance. If Crusoe represents the first colonial mind in fiction, then Friday represents not just a Caribbean tribesman, but all the natives of America, Asia, and Africa who would later be oppressed in the age of European imperialism. At the moment when Crusoe teaches Friday to call him “Master” Friday becomes an enduring political symbol of racial injustice in a modern world critical of imperialist expansion. Recent rewritings of the Crusoe story, like J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and Michel Tournier’s Friday, emphasize the sad consequences of Crusoe’s failure to understand Friday and suggest how the tale might be told very differently from the native’s perspective. Aside from his importance to our culture, Friday is a key figure within the context of the novel. In many ways he is the most vibrant character in Robinson Crusoe, much more charismatic and colorful than his master. Indeed, Defoe at times underscores the contrast between Crusoe’s and Friday’s personalities, as when Friday, in his joyful reunion with his father, exhibits far more emotion toward his family than Crusoe. Whereas Crusoe never mentions missing his family or dreams about the happiness of seeing them again, Friday jumps and sings for joy when he meets his father, and this emotional display makes us see what is missing from Crusoe’s stodgy heart. Friday’s expression of loyalty in asking Crusoe to kill him rather than leave him is more heartfelt than anything Crusoe ever says or does. Friday’s sincere questions to Crusoe about the devil, which Crusoe answers only indirectly and hesitantly, leave us wondering whether Crusoe’s knowledge of Christianity is superficial and sketchy in contrast to Friday’s full understanding of his own god Benamuckee. In short, Friday’s exuberance and emotional directness often point out the wooden conventionality of Crusoe’s personality. Despite Friday’s subjugation, however, Crusoe appreciates Friday much more than he would a mere servant. Crusoe does not seem to value intimacy with humans much, but he does say that he loves Friday, which is a remarkable disclosure. It is the only time Crusoe makes such an admission in the
context and content of the story. Crusoe is an unsettled being. He is given to physical and emotional wanderlust, and he was simply not cut out for the risk-averse life he condemns himself for rejecting. Defoe knows and Crusoe comes to know that his impulse is rather to change his circumstances, to try something new, something different. That is the engine that drives both character and story. Crusoe even has to change his ideas and notions because the ones he has grow stale. He becomes religious in the story primarily because it is something new for him, almost the same way he works with his hands on the island because he had not done so before, or later desires companionship because he is growing bored with loneliness. In Robinson Crusoe Defoe wished to reveal the transformative powers of endurance, fortitude and energy. He wanted to invent a character broadened by his island experience and not lessened by it. And the adventure turned out even more extensive than Defoe might have originally hoped. Over the years, Robinson Crusoe has meant many things to many readers, not only an intriguing tale of island exile but an economic fable on utility theory, a religious conversion story, a treatise on Providence, a colonial primer, a self-help manual. Some have even read Robinson Crusoe as an allegorical autobiography. Defoe was said to have based Robinson Crusoe on the real-life experiences of a Scottish privateer, Alexander Selkirk, on the island of Juan Fernández off the coast of Chile in the Pacific. In 1704 Selkirk asked to be dropped off on the island after a dispute with his ship's captain. He thought that he would be quickly picked up by any of a number of privateers sailing along the same shipping lane. He was wrong. When finally picked up four years and some months later, wearing little but goatskins, he seemed slightly crazed, had lost some of his ability to speak and showed symptoms of the depression that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Whatever readers might think of the many ways to read Crusoe’s adventure, everything ultimately takes a back seat to the phenomena of island life as Defoe represents them : loneliness, fear, satisfaction, the learning of crafts, the building of protective spaces, the planting of seed, the fabricating of goods, the raising and herding of stock, the comfort of pets. Large ideas for Defoe tend to dwindle down to practical realities. When Crusoe starts reading the Bible (a copy recovered, along with other supplies, from his wrecked ship ), he begins to think that all that has happened to him is the result of God’s providential design. But careful attention to the day-to-day description of life on the island makes it clear that the influence of Providence is pretty much what Crusoe decides to do anyway for other practical or emotional reasons.
Journal of the Plague Year
-Fictionalized account Detail about the bubonic plague that struck London in 1665 Primary sources Verisimilitude Science Faith -Realistic novel Fictional character- Harry Foe Human aspects of the plague Fiction based on facts Furthermore unsettling a graphically detailed narrative of horrors Journal May Be, it is also an edifying tale of survival and of triumph H.F. observes that the rich are leaving the city and the poor are being strongly affected by the distemper. He relates how they succumbed to the wiles of quack doctors, fortunetellers, mountebanks, and astrologers in their fear and anxiety of the imminent plague. City officials are rational and organized concerning the spreading plague, and publish the Orders of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London. These set up rules and regulations for the appointment of searchers and examiners and watchmen to guard the houses, for the shutting up of infected houses, and for the shutting down of events in which large groups of people would congregate. H.F. is generally against the shutting up of houses, commenting that it seemed to do more harm than good in most cases and could barely prevent the plague from spreading because Londoners found ways to escape or delude city officials. H.F. tells many stories of how the people of London were affected by the plague. These stories include tales of grieving fathers, crazed men running through the streets, people throwing themselves into burial pits due to pain or grief, husbands trying to support their families, people blaspheming the name of God, houses being looted, and people trying to escape the city and travel to other towns in search of reprieve. H.F. is keen to debunk rumors that all was chaos in the city during the plague; he is sympathetic to the plight of the poor and refuses to believe the sordid rumors that surround the days of plague. He relates many stories of mercy, charity, and redemption.
