This book report is on the story Robinson Crusoe. The book was written by Daniel Defoe. The genre of the story is adventure fiction. The book has a total of 266 pages.
Robinson Crusoe, the main protagonist in the story, was born in 1632 in the city of York. He was the third son of a German merchant, and was taught very early in his life to be a man of law. Despite this, all that Robinson wanted to do was go to sea. Robinson decides to embark on a ship with his friend to London, but during the sailing a huge storm comes in and nearly kills everyone on board. After this, Crusoe's friend decides to stop traveling by sea, but Robinson is persistent on sailing and decides to go on another ship to London which ends up being better, and leaves his money with a kind widow to go on another trip. The ship he goes on is captured by pirates and Crusoe is then enslaved in a North African town named Sallee. After years of imprisonment, Robinson manages to escape on a fishing boat with a little slave boy named Xury. After escaping pursuers, Robinson and Xury sail down the African coast until running into a friendly Portuguese captain. He buys pelts that Crusoe got while exploring the coast, and also buys Xury from him too, and takes Crusoe to Brazil. Now in Brazil, Robinson buys a plot of land and becomes a plantation owner. He becomes very successful, but heads to Africa for a slave gathering expedition, and gets ship wrecked before even leaving the Caribbean. Robinson Crusoe finds himself on an empty island with no other human being.
Being the only person who survived the crash, Crusoe makes a shelter and a small raft, which he uses to go to the crashed ship to find items not ruined by the water. He finds guns, powder, food, and other asso...
... middle of paper ...
...e captives, and find out there was a mutiny and one of them was the captain of the ship. Crusoe, Friday, and the other shout at the men from different directions, confusing them and tiring them out. They manage to make the mutineers surrender. The captain and Robinson trick the mutineers to take them back to England.
After landing in England, he and Friday soon head to Lisbon, where Crusoe meets up with the Portuguese captain who tells him that his plantations are still successful. Deciding to return to England through Spain, Robinson is threatened with bad weather and animals. When he arrives in London again, he gives a portion of his money to his remaining family members and his widow friend. He marries and has children. After his wife died, Crusoe returns to the seafaring life. When he revisits the island, he finds the Spaniards have made a successful colony.
A deeper understanding of the book clearly reveals that despite his flaws, Robinson Crusoe was admirable. Three obvious and commendable reasons for this are the facts that he kindled a
She becomes the ships spy. The captain thought his crew was slow and lazy. He sometimes even hurts them or takes away the crew members
Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, into a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia. He was the youngest of five children born to Mallie (McGriff) and Jerry Robinson, after siblings Edgar, Frank, Matthew (nicknamed "Mack"), and Willa Mae.[8][9][10] His middle name was in honor of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who died 25 days before Robinson was born.[11][12] After Robinson's father left the family in 1920, they moved to Pasadena, California.[13][14][15]
What were conditions like on the boat? What type of boat is it? What section of the boat does Fievel and his family travel in? (10 pts)
When Crusoe meets Friday, he is joyous for having found someone he could finally make his slave as he had been previously. Although not fully envious of Robinson Crusoe, Friday is found stuck in between two worlds. One, where he thinks of Robinson as his friend and the other where he wonders why he is being treated as a slave, and not for his own personal benefit. Robinson’s views are purely of self-profit as he describes his dreams: “to think that this was all my own, that I was King and Lord of all this Country indefeasibly, and had a Right of Possession” (Defoe 72). This passage explains the belief of Robinson Crusoe in the feudal system and the use of hierarchy to promote bourgeois values upon the populations. The character of Robinson Crusoe then is used in Green Grass, Running Water in a satirical manner when Thought Woman explains to Crusoe that Robinson Crusoe himself would not enjoy his own company as he is seen by the rest of the world as a white supremacist with no place in native land: “But I don’t want to be Friday, says Robinson Crusoe. No point in being Robinson Crusoe all your life, says Thought Woman. It wouldn’t be much fun”(King 295). This proves that Friday was never a true friend to Crusoe when he also states: “[...]it has been difficult not having someone of color
When Crusoe meets Friday, he is joyous for having found someone he could finally make his slave as he had been previously. Although not fully envious of Robinson Crusoe, Friday is found stuck in between two worlds. One, where he thinks of Robinson as his friend and the other where he wonders why he is being treated as a slave, and not for his own personal benefit. Robinson’s views are purely of self-profit as he describes his dreams: “to think that this was all my own, that I was King and Lord of all this Country indefeasibly, and had a Right of Possession” (Defoe 72). This passage explains the belief of Robinson Crusoe in the feudal system and the use of hierarchy to promote bourgeois values upon a population. The character of Robinson Crusoe is then used in Green Grass, Running Water in a satirical manner when Thought Woman explains to Crusoe that Robinson Crusoe himself would not enjoy his own company as he is seen as a white supremacist with no place on native land: “But I don’t want to be Friday, says Robinson Crusoe. No point in being Robinson Crusoe all your life, says Thought Woman. It wouldn’t be much fun” (King 295). Furthermore, this remarks insists that Friday was never a true friend to Crusoe when he also states: “it has been difficult not having someone of color around whom I
Why did Ray Bradbury choose the poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold? Ray Bradbury chose the poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, because at the time when Guy Montag reads it, he is questioning his faith similarly to Matthew Arnold. Also, the poem “Dover Beach” expresses Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag’s sadness and unhappiness with the world. Lastly, this poem represents the loss of love, and hopelessness that Montag feels.
In conclusion, there were many ways Daniel Defoe expressed his own life experiences in Robinson Crusoe, but the comparisons that showed the most were their income, their living conditions, their troubles and even their writing. There were other similarities, but these were the most broad and comparable. The book Robinson Crusoe is like Daniel Defoe writing about himself but in another life as another person. All of the events may not have been exactly the same, but the message behind them remained the same. All in all, Robinson Crusoe and Daniel Defoe were very different people, with similar lives. You can always tell a lot about a person by what and the way they write. Sometimes, you just have to read between the lines.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Thomas Keymer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print. Oxford World's Classics.
Jim and his mother walk to Mr. Trelany’s house to tell him the news but the maid that answers his door, tells them that he is over the squire’s house. After the joy and excitement of the people that were going on this journey they found a ship and a couple new experienced ship mates.
"Daniel Defoe achieved literary immortality when, in April 1719, he published Robinson Crusoe" (Stockton 2321). It dared to challenge the political, social, and economic status quo of his time. By depicting the utopian environment in which was created in the absence of society, Defoe criticizes the political and economic aspect of England's society, but is also able to show the narrator's relationship with nature in a vivid account of the personal growth and development that took place while stranded in solitude. Crusoe becomes "the universal representative, the person, for whom every reader could substitute himself" (Coleridge 2318). "Thus, Defoe persuades us to see remote islands and the solitude of the human soul. By believing fixedly in the solidity of the plot and its earthiness, he has subdued every other element to his design and has roped a whole universe into harmony" (Woolf 2303).
The more the Robinsons explored the woods, the more they found things that would make life easier. They soon discovered some kind of wax berries which they melted and made into candles. They even found a huge salt cavern! The cavern was big enough for them and their supplies, so they moved in, for the rainy season was coming fast. They built stables for their animals, a canoe, and a loom for Mother. The Robinsons were very creative. They made the worst situation into something good and before they knew it, they had spent ten years living on that deserted island! They knew the island like the back of their own hands and Father and Mother watched their sons grow into manhood, as they too got older.
Daniel Defoe tells tale of a marooned individual in order to criticize society. By using the Island location, similar to that of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Defoe is able to show his audience exactly what is necessary for the development of a utopian society. In The Tempest, the small society of Prospero's island addresses the aspects of morality, the supernatural and politics in the larger British society. In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, the island's natural surroundings highlights the subject of man's individual growth, both spiritually and physically. Nature instantly exercises its power and control over man in the tropical storm that leads to the wreckage of Crusoe's ship. "The fury of the sea" (Defoe, 45) thrusts Crusoe to the shores of the uninhabited "Island of Despair" (Defoe, 70). Isolated on the island, Crusoe is challenged to use his creativity in order to survive.
Daniel Defoe wrote his fictional novel Robinson Crusoe during the 18th century, a time of colonization, and the British agricultural revolution. In the novel Robinson Crusoe desires civilization and comforts during his years on the island, so much that he alters the ecology of the fictional “island” in order to fulfill his craving. Consequently, Robinson Crusoe changes the ecology of the island, with the introduction of invasive species, European crops, and enclosures. Crusoe uses the practices of the British agricultural revolution to colonize the island, and to better his life during his stay.
Through realistic literary elements of the novel and the themes of individuality, isolation, society and being content versus being ambitious, readers of Robinson Crusoe can relate to many experiences that Crusoe faced. Crusoe’s story represents the genre of the middle class; it is the narration of middle-class lives with the help of realism elements and prominent themes that reflect on middle-class issues and interests. Crusoe represents mankind in the simplest form, he stands on middle ground no higher or lower than any other. He represents every reader who reads his story; they can substitute him for themselves. His actions are what every reader can picture himself or herself doing, thinking, feeling or even wishing for (Coleridge and Coleridge 188-192)