Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in the beginning of the Restoration

English monarchy after the English civil war. Robinson Crusoe was written in
1719 and is often cited as the first English novel but this distinction is debatable
however the genre of fiction and the novel as the new form of writing is
significant to the Enlightenment function of Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe
uses fiction and storytelling as means of responding to issues that were usually
addressed in the variety of other established genres. Ian Watt argued in The
Rise of the Novel that Robinson Crusoe is emblematic of the rise of the ordinary
individual in the notion that in Robinson Crusoe there is a concern with daily
lives of the ordinary people.
The novel revolves around a protagonist who desires to change his
destiny and sets out on a voyage towards selfhood and identity.
The novel, is narrated in the first person as though it was an actual
autobiographical account, Defoe in this novel presents a religiously and
politically corrupt England. England, is the home of Robinson Crusoe. When
the novel opens, England is being ruled by Oliver Cromwell during the Puritan
Revolution, and the middle class to which the young Crusoe belongs is
expanding rapidly. To Crusoe, England promises a future of hard, monotonous
work and strict Puritanism, so he takes passage on a ship looking for adventure
elsewhere. Years later, he returns to England, made prosperous by his long
years of work and struggle, and embraces the faith of his father.
Although Crusoe spurns his father’s Protestant religion by going to sea,
the deserted island is instrumental in his return to his father’s faith. As in the
Bible’s prodigal son narrative and many Puritan-conversion narratives of
Defoe’s era, Crusoe is lost in the wilderness but returns after a period of
intense suffering, becomes repentant, and finds forgiveness. For Crusoe,
repentance consists of acknowledging his wretchedness and his absolute
dependence on the Lord. This admission marks a turning point in Crusoe’s
spiritual consciousness, and is almost a born-again experience for him. After
repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and views the island
more positively. Later, when Crusoe is rescued and his fortune restored, he
compares himself to Job, who also regained divine favor. Ironically, this view of
the necessity of repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have
learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in the first place.
Thus, as powerful as the theme of repentance is in the novel, it is nevertheless
complex and ambiguous.
The large size and capital letters show us how important this cross is to
Crusoe as a timekeeping device and thus also as a way of relating himself to the
larger social world where dates and calendars still matter. But the cross is also
a symbol of his own new existence on the island, just as the Christian cross is a
symbol of the Christian’s new life in Christ after baptism, an immersion in water
like Crusoe’s shipwreck experience. Yet Crusoe’s large cross seems somewhat
blasphemous in making no reference to Christ. Instead, it is a memorial to
Crusoe himself, underscoring how completely he has become the center of his
own life.

After a long time spent on the island, time in which he got used to the
island life, he manages to survive with the little things he had at first, and he
reached a point in which from almost nothing has what to eat, cultivates plants
and has even a little farm with animals. Crusoe is learning to accept life as it
comes, without trying to interfere and take too much control over his fate. The
discovery of a footprint is the strongest test of his fortitude. The appearance of
that footprint is the rock that shatters Crusoe's window of sovereignty. Initially
he tries to convince himself that the print belongs to him, but he is forced to
admit that his foot does not fit. Crusoe’s religious awareness continues to grow
in these chapters. Almost every major event is taken either as cause for
repentance or as proof of God’s mercy. Crusoe’s first assumption on seeing the
footprint on the beach is that it is a mark of the devil, showing that
supernatural or divine explanations have priority over natural ones in his mind.
Robinson is so happy living with Friday because he now has someone
whom he can teach; specifically, he teaches religious doctrine. Friday is a
justification for slavery--the institution exists so that savages might become
good Christians. Ironically, Friday poses difficult questions to his master about
why the Devil even exists. It is important to note that Robinson does not fully
answer the questions. Comically enough, however, he prides himself after
lecturing Friday, because he now feels that his beliefs are more solid than they
were.
 Before, we observed great meditations on the will of God, and Crusoe
questioned how he was to behave to best act out that will. At this point, there
are no real references to what God would want Crusoe to do: the entire battle
against the savages takes place with a single reference to a higher power, when
the narrator tells Friday to let bullets fly "in the name of God." We cannot be
sure how sincere the remark is, but there is a good deal of evidence that lets us
assume that Crusoe has forgotten his religious origins in some respects. When
he frees the Spaniard and Friday's father, they look upon his as "God-sent."
Rather than correct them or view the statement as sacrilegious, Robinson
seems to take pleasure in the idea. His absolute authority over the men
suggests a mental construction of divinity. Religion is more or less a means of
achieving a powerful attitude. Crusoe acts like a leader; therefore the men
treat him like one. In spite of this appearance of confidence, Robinson still
seems to fear leaving the island because he is scared to fall under the control of
someone else. There is more than a little prejudice alive within him. He is not
entirely willing to trust the Spaniard because he is Catholic; he fears that the
savages on the mainland will eat him. It is not until an Englishman arrives that
the narrator feels comfortable leaving the island and placing himself in the
hands of another. The crew who mutinies are essentially white savages; they
need to be conquered because they do not heed God.