3. About the author
• English novelist, pamphleteer, and a journalist
• Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered as the founder of
the English Novel
• He was a son of a butcher
• Studied at Charles Morton’s academy
• Despite his father’s wish for him to be in a ministry, he plunged for
politics and trade; especially in Europe
• 1680’s: commission merchant of Corn Hill, but went bankrupt in 1691
4. Works and career
• Best known for Robinson Crusoe
• Wrote more then 500 books, pamphlets, and journals
• Pioneer of economic journalism
5. The Unexpected
• Defoe’s parents were Presbyterian Dissenters (believed in the
separation of the church and the state)
• Was educated in Dissenters Academy at Newington Green, and also
went to church there
• Was expected that he would become a dissenting minister, but he
chose the world of business
• As a salesman, he sold hosiery, wine, and general woolen goods
• Despite the fact that he was good at his job; he always remained in debt
7. Summary
• It’s a story of a man, named Robinson Crusoe, who got shipwrecked all
alone in an island
• Here he struggles to survive and later on makes this island his
• Although, at first he tries to go back to the city, but when he finally
reaches there, he does not feel the same sense of feeling he used to
have
• Since he got used to living all alone with animals and only one or two
other people on the island, he eventually goes back to the island and
lives there
9. Genre
• Adventure Story: (journey and the struggle of the main character)
• Danger, action, risks, and excitements of Robinson Crusoe
• Shipwrecked alone, Crusoe struggles against hardship, privation, loneliness, and
cannibals in his attempt to survive on a deserted island
• Historical Fiction: (Robinson Crusoe is considered to be the 1st realistic
novel ever to be written by Defoe)
• The story have thought to be based on the life of Alexander Skulk
• A Scottish castaway, lived for four years on a Pacific island called “Mas a Tierra”
• Now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966
10. Cont…
• Novel Of Isolation:
• When Robinson Crusoe gets shipwrecked and stranded on a desolate island
• “I am cast upon a horrible desolate island void of all hope of recovery”
• Considers it a place of captivity (being imprisoned) holding him back from his
dreams and wishes like a prison
• Later to return home to England he yearns to return back to the island
• Becomes antisocial, and starts to enjoy being alone.
11. Narrator & POV
• Robinson Crusoe is both the narrator and main character of the tale
• Personal pronouns ( I, us) etc.
• POV:
o Crusoe narrates in both the first and third person.
o His focus was not on feelings. So, Crusoe occasionally describes his
feelings.
o He favors a more factual narrative style focused on actions and events.
Not on fancy things, like describing the beauty of nature.
12. Setting
• Temporal Setting:
• From 1659 to 1694
• Spatial Setting:
• main setting; island of Trinidad;
• others include England ( where he lived);
• Africa; Brazil (become owner of sugar Plantation);
• Island; England (return);
• Lisbon (to handle some affairs);
• England;
• sold his Plantation in Brazil; visited Island again.
13. Tone
• Crusoe’s tone is mostly detached.
• He generally avoids dramatic storytelling
• He very rarely registers his own feelings, or those of other
characters.
• only does so when those feelings affect a situation directly
• E.g. he describes the mutineers as tired and confused,
indicating that their fatigue allows them to be defeated.
14. Plot
• Rising Action
• Crusoe disobeys his father and goes out to sea. Crusoe has a profitable first
merchant voyage, has fantasies of success in Brazil, and prepares for a slave-
gathering expedition.
• Climax
• Crusoe becomes shipwrecked on an island near Trinidad, forcing him to fend for
himself and his basic needs.
• Falling Action
• Crusoe constructs a shelter, secures a food supply, and accepts his stay on the
island as the work of Providence (the foreseeing care and guidance of God or
nature over the creatures of the earth).
16. Nature
• One of the major themes
• Crusoe is a man at peace with Nature.
• He loves the sea and the outdoors.
• when he is marooned (leave behind) on the island and finds himself alone
with only Nature as his companion, he adapts easily.
• When he looks at the natural world, he sees its utility and the value of that.
• He believes that nature is something that keeps us away form evilness of this
world.
• “ At the first place. I was removed from all the wickedness of world here”.
17. Cont…
• Instead of opining on the beauty of things, he notices production
value.
• He was quick to use things from Nature to help him survive.
• He uses the trees and plants to build himself a canoe and
• homes, animals to provide him with food.
• “All the good things of this world are no farther good to us than
they are for our use”.
18. Rules & Order
• This novel depicts hierarchy ( God, upper life, middle life, lower life )
• Crusoe kept his goals and wishes above everyone.
• “…I consulted neither Father or Mother any more, nor so much as
sent them Word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might,
without asking God's Blessing”
Novel depicted Crusoe, a strong determine person, having his own
rules and orders.
19. Cont..
• In order to fulfill his wish to become seaman, He goes against his
father’s orders:
“…..inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of
my Father…..”
• Crusoe rules all that is under him.
• His moral authority – and his allegiance to God – gives him dominion
over other people, places, and things.
• e.g., the way he treated or used Xury and Friday, or the animals of the
island.
21. • As he was a round character, He undergoes certain changes throughout
the novel.
In the start of the novel, he didn’t give importance to God.
“…I consulted neither Father or Mother any more, nor so much as
sent them Word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might,
without asking God's Blessing”
22. In the middle of the novel:
• When he was in a difficult situation, his life was in danger he
remembered God.
“I expected ever wave would have swallowed us up…in this agony of
mind I made several vows and resolutions.”
25. Robinson Crusoe
• The main character of the story, he is a rebellious youth with an
inexplicable need to travel.
• Because of this need, he brings misfortune on himself and is left to
fend for himself in a primitive land.
• The novel essentially chronicles his mental and spiritual development
as a result of his isolation.
• He is a contradictory character; at the same time he is practical
ingenuity and immature decisiveness.
26. Xury
• Young boy with whom Crusoe escapes from captivity in Africa
• One of the most important points about Crusoe's encounter with Xury
is the power dynamic between the two
• As a non-white European, Xury is always assumed to be subordinate to
Crusoe. We can see this when Crusoe "gives" Xury to the Portuguese
sea captain:
He offer'd me also 60 Pieces of Eight more for my Boy Xury, which I
was loath to take, not that I was not willing to let the Captain have
him, but I was very loath to sell the poor Boy's Liberty, who had
assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own.
27. Cont…
• Crusoe doesn't actually sell Xury to the captain, but instead they strike
a bargain. Xury is to be kept in indentured servitude for ten years, and
if he converts to Christianity, he will then be set free.
28. Portuguese Captain
• Comes across Crusoe and Xury after they escape from captivity, and he
rescues them on his boat.
• He travels with the men to Brazil.
• The most notable point about the captain is that Crusoe seems to view
him as his equal. (The captain is, after all, a white European.)
29. Crusoe’s Parents
• Most of the poor decisions Crusoe makes in his life,
• He traces back to the initial rebellion against his parents-especially his
father
30. For example
“In this Interval, the good Advice of my Father came to my Mind, and
presently his Prediction which I mentioned at the Beginning of the Story,
viz. That if I did take this foolish Step, God would not bless me, and I
would have Leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his
Counsel, when there might be none to assist in my Recovery. Now, said I
aloud, My dear Father's Words are come to pass: God's Justice has
overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me: I rejected the Voice of
Providence, which had mercifully put me in a Posture or Station of Life,
wherein I might have been happy and easy; but I would neither see it my
self, or learn to know the Blessing of it from my Parents; I left them to
mourn over my Folly, and now I am left to mourn under the
Consequences of it: I refus'd their Help and Assistance who would have
lifted me into the World, and wou'd have made every Thing easy to me,
and now I have Difficulties to struggle with, too great for even Nature
itself to support, and no Assistance, no Help, no Comfort, no Advice; then
I cry'd out, Lord be my Help, for I am in Great Distress.”
31. Friday
• Another friend/servant
• He spends a number of years on the island with the main character,
who saves him from cannibalistic death.
• Friday is basically Crusoe's protégé, a living example of religious
justification of the slavery relationship between the two men.
• His eagerness to be redone in the European image is supposed to
convey that this image is indeed the right one.
32. Moorish Patron
• Crusoe's slave master, he allows for a role reversal of white men as
slaves.
• He apparently is not too swift, however, in that he basically hands
Crusoe an escape opportunity.
33. Spaniard
• One of the prisoners saved by Crusoe
• It is interesting to note that he is treated with much more respect in
Crusoe's mind
• Than any of the colored peoples with whom Crusoe is in contact
35. Wealth
• As an 18th-century mariner on the high seas, Robinson Crusoe is very
interested in commerce, trade, and the accumulation of wealth
• He makes money in Africa and also in the sugar plantations he buys in
Brazil
• Crusoe's economic individualism
• Crusoe's father argues that it's best to have neither extreme wealth nor
be in dire poverty. Instead, the moderation of the middle classes
presents the happiest and most contented state of life possible in that
society.
36. Cont..
• On the island, Crusoe realizes that whatever money he might find in
the wreckage of the ship is simply worth nada. Wealth will mean
something entirely different:
“I smil'd to my self at the Sight of this Money, O Drug! Said I aloud,
what art tho good for, Thou art not worth to me, no not the taking
off of the Ground, one of those Knives is wroth all this Heap, I have
no Manner of use for thee, e'en remain where thou art, and go the
Bottom as a Creature whose Life is not worth saving.”
37. Cont..
• When Crusoe owns the island, which he calls, earlier, his "Collony"
Here, he shares it with some of the inhabitants but still considers it
part of his holdings:
“Besides this, I shard'd the Island into Parts with 'em, reserv'd to
myself the Property of the whole, but gave them such Parts
respectively as they agreed on; and having settled all things with
them, and engaged them not to leave the Place, I left them there.”
38. Slavery
• The institution of slavery serves as a basis for much of the action of the
novel
• When Crusoe heads to Africa, it is to purchase slaves. He himself
becomes a slave and then soon becomes a slave owner.
• Crusoe's wealth from his sugar plantations at the end of the novel
would have come from slave labor.
40. Theme of Colonialism
• Colonialism: Establishment and maintenance of colonies in a certain
territory by the people who do not belong to that territory.
• One of the most obvious theme of this Novel.
• Incorporated into the novel by Daniel in a very realistic way
• The theme of Colonialism seems to be the impact of that time on the
writer.
• Daniel wrote this Book in 1719.
• The time when England was enjoying the power over the whole world
and English government colonized the major areas of the world
successfully.
41. Cont..
• Two things force the reader to interpret the novel in colonial contexts.
1. British trader as the protagonist
2. Setting of a distant Caribbean island.
• The colonial aspect of the hero’s personality becomes obvious as the
story proceeds and reach to the fullest when he reaches the island.
• Crusoe Takes physical, linguistic, and cultural dominance on the
island.
• Crusoe establishes his control over the island and shapes an empire.
“Lord of the whole Manor; or if I pleas’d, I might call myself King,
or Emperor over the whole Country which I had possession of”.
42. Cont..
• Crusoe’s treatment towards Friday shows his colonialist behavior.
• He Re-named him.
• His attitude towards him is more of a Master- Servant relation.
• He never let Friday eat or sleep on the same position where he did.
• He turns Friday to Christianity.
43. Theme Of Self-Awareness
• Defoe always followed the Doctrines of Presbyterian (a part of
Protestant faith)all his life.
• One of these was that an individual must remain conscious of his own
soul and identity.
• Crouse remained conscious of himself all the time at that island.
• For Example: He made a calendar which revolved around him.
• Crusoe kept a journal to record his daily activities that too revolved
only around him.
44. Theme Of Family And Life
• The way Crusoe Explains about his family in the start shows that he has
no strong relationship with them.
• As the story proceeds, he talks a little about how he misses his family
and that how he thinks that he was very wrong when he went all
against the will of his father.
• He tried making a family for himself though it was with animals.
• Crusoe's relationship with his biological father is as an earthly version
of his relationship with God (his spiritual father).
• Most of the poor decisions Crusoe makes in his life, he traces back to
the initial rebellion against his parents – especially his father.
• He Considers that it was his biggest sin that he did not obey his father.
