Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

The narrative techniques used in Robinson Crusoe include realistic fiction, autobiography, and
spiritual autobiography. Crusoe tells the events of the novel, in first person, from his own point of view,
and he ads not only his own biographical information but also his inner feelings. For example, at the
beginning of the book, he refers to his origins as "being the third son of the family and not bred to any
trade, (his) head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts." The reader can witness
biographical details about Crusoe's family and Crusoe's response to his family. For example, when his
father advises him to focus on a predictable and safe career such as law, Crusoe says that he “was
sincerely affected with this discourse, and, indeed, who could be otherwise?” and he “resolved not to
think of going abroad any more, but to settle at home”, according to his father’s desire.

Regarding the reliability of the narrator, one can say that Crusoe employs the role of an
unreliable narrator because, unlike an omniscient narrator, he does not always understand everything
that occurs to him. Because Crusoe is ilustrating the events from memory, as well as the lack of
response from any other characters, his reliability can, hence, be questioned as a narrator. The
existence of Crusoe's "religious conversion" later in the novel can be questioned as well as his
interpretation of events. Crusoe begins by narrating about his defiance of his father who advises him
not to go to sea and suffer the same fate as his brother, who is now dead, and pursue a career in law.
In terms of “religious conversion”, at first, Crusoe denies God by refusing to follow his father's advice
or believe in God, but when being in distress, when he is shipwrecked, he begins to see signs of God.
He also claims to sense God's presence in the way in which barley magically grows on the island.
Thus, the text employs the traditional conventions of a spiritual autobiography, in which a non-believer
is shown the negative sides of his ways and in response, becomes a Christian. The narrative techniques
involve references to the main character's constantly changing relationship with God.

Concepts like frequency and duration in the excerpt shows that, according to Gerard Genette’s
work, the former employs an iterative pattern of narrating an event, whereas the latter uses a lengthy
narrative time. Thus, the frequency of Defoe’s main character boarding on that wrecked ship for
instance, is higher than the occasions on which Crusoe chose to refer to this event, while the difference
between the discourse time and narrative sometimes seems to be rather worth noting, as the character
“had (already) been thirteen days on shore”, all this time being compressed in just one sentence. As
for another concept coined by Genette, voice, the narration is intra-diegetic, because it is happening
inside the text, and the narrator is homo-diegetic, for the narrator is a character in the story.

Alongside the employment of autobiographical narration, Defoe uses a style of realistic narration
that was similar to that used in many sea stories, this type of nautical story dating back to the time of
Homer and the Odyssey. Defoe also wrote tales of piracy where the main character sets sail and faces
the perils of the sea, which often help him become a better person.