Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English.

Interpretations

Despite its simple narrative style and the absence of the supposedly indispensable love motive, no modern book can boast of such worldwide esteem. Novelist James Joyce eloquently noted that the true symbol of the British conquest is Robinson Crusoe: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist… The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity."

Related Topics:
Love motive - James Joyce - British conquest - Anglo-Saxon - Taciturnity

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According to J.P. Hunter, Robinson is not a hero but an everyman. He begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand; he ends as a pilgrim, crossing a final mountain to enter the promised land. The book tells the story of how Robinson gets closer to God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read. This view was not welcomed by the established Anglican church of the time who thought the message in the book was anarchic and close to heresy. Defoe's views are reflected in those of Christian anarchism.

Related Topics:
J.P. Hunter - Everyman - Pilgrim - Promised land - God - Bible - Anglican - Heresy - Christian anarchism

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Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was himself a Puritan moralist, and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing guide books on how to be a good Puritan Christian. He wrote such guide books as The New Family Instructor (1727) and Religious Courtship (1722). While Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide for youth on how to embark on lifes journey, it shares many of the same themes that would have been obvious to a contemporary reader as being in the same category. It shares the same concerns as guide books, and presents the same theological and moral point of views. The very name Crusoe is very possibly taken from a Timothy Cruso who was a classmate of Defoe's and who had written a number of guide books including God the Guide of Youth (1695) before dying at an early age - just eight years before Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe. Cruso's name would still have been remembered to contemporaries and the association with guide books clear. It has even been suggested that Cruso's God the Guide of Youth inspired Robinson Crusoe because of a number of passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel, however this is unknown and speculation.{{fn|1}}

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