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Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Writer's picture: David ZasloffDavid Zasloff

Everybody knows who Robinson Crusoe is, even (or especially) those who haven't read the book. Not only has it remained in print for 300 years, it's been the basis of dozens or hundreds of variations, from MAD Magazine to Tom Hanks movies. You don't actually have to read this thing, folks, but that would be an error.


Why? Because we only know part of the story, the part in which Crusoe gets stranded on a deserted island for nearly 30 years and must find a way to survive alone, with only the use of a few tools salvaged from the wreck of the ship he arrived in. All of this is accurate enough, and makes for an interesting enough account. He finds a way to tame a herd of the local goats, and having saved a small amount of seed from the ship's stores, he learns how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and thresh grain, which he figures out how to bake into cakes. He finds shelter, which he hides by use of a small grove of trees, in case locals happen to come by – which they eventually do. But if this were all, the book would be a simple travelogue rather than a full-blown story.


Several elements prevent that. For one thing, the tale starts, not when Crusoe washes up on his island, but when he goes away to sea for the first time, much against the wishes of his parents. He soon learns just how correct they were in urging him to stay on land and live peacefully. In fact, we learn of two or three journeys he undertakes before his shipwreck, none of which work out well. He turns out to be such a poor (or at any rate unlucky) sailor that the reader has to wonder, as he himself does, why on Earth he insists on going to sea at all.


Another story element that turns this novel into an actual story is the fact that Crusoe finds, among other things, a Bible among the gear he obtains from his ship. He admits to having no spiritual life to speak of before this, but as time goes on we learn of his religious development. This shows how he learns and grows, critical for the development of any fictional character, and also gives author Daniel Defoe the opportunity to throw in a few comments in favor of English Christianity. Whether we as readers are believers or not, this gives the story a certain universal context.


And a third story element, as most people are probably aware, is the arrival of Crusoe's companion Friday. This character has become such a well-known part of the story that I was a little surprised to find that Friday doesn't show up until the last third of the novel. What's more, once Friday arrives, it's not long before several other companions come to the island, and shortly thereafter, all of them find a way to get back to Europe.


At this point, by the way, it's worth noting that to the modern reader, Friday's arrival is a little disturbing. Crusoe rescues him from a crew of nearby cannibals, and quickly turns him into a manservant. He's not quite a racist about it, thankfully – he puts Friday to work, all right, as a goatherd and farmer, but he himself continues to work right alongside him rather than lounging around and living off his "servant's" labor. He's also decent enough to acknowledge the fact that Friday, local man that he is, knows a good deal more about life in the region than he does. In addition, his attitude toward the later European arrivals seems to be pretty much the same as toward Friday.


On the other hand, Crusoe quickly converts Friday to a sort of Christianity rather than leaving him to his own beliefs. What's more, when Crusoe thinks about sending Friday back to his own dwelling to bring news of his people to the island, Friday is so distraught over the possibility that his "master" might send him away that he begs Crusoe to kill him instead. Just like a primitive to long for orders from his betters, isn't it?


This is all the more surprising when we remember that, a few dozen pages earlier, Crusoe sees a group of locals bring a prisoner ashore, cook him and eat him. He finds this so infuriating that he plans carefully to descend upon the cannibals and kill them all, but shortly realizes that cannibals or not, these people have done him no harm and he therefore has no right to indulge his own morality on them. In other words, Crusoe uses caution in imposing himself on a group he hasn't met, but has no such qualms about imposing himself on a man who becomes a friend and important helper.


Getting back to the novel's structure, you'd think, given how the novel plays out, that it would end once Crusoe leaves his island, but that's not so. We follow him and his friends all the way back to Portugal, Spain, France, and finally England, and see how Crusoe repays those who looked after his various holdings while he was gone. And this is no small thing – in his early life, Crusoe showed himself as a careless, stubborn, and even selfish person. Without the last few chapters, we would have no way of seeing just how he changes. With them, we see that very thing. And that, as any writing teacher will tell you, is what separates a good story from a mediocre one.


Benshlomo says, If a protagonist takes an exterior journey and not an interior journey, he and we have wasted our time.

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