of self-reliance and the idea that one can achieve greatness through perseverance and determination. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe demonstrates that by taking risks and following one's own path, one can overcome adversity and achieve success. Crusoe's journey from a mundane life to becoming a plantation owner and eventually a "Governour" of the island highlights the importance of individualism and the pursuit of one's own dreams. The novel serves as a reminder that sometimes the greatest achievements come from taking risks and charting one's own course.
He left his family after being warned about the dangers of a life at sea, which he had encountered multiple times. He traded Xury to the Captain of the Portuguese ship, and only felt he had "done wrong in parting with … Xury" (31) when he realized Xury would have been helpful on the plantation Crusoe owned in Brazil. When he rescued Friday, Crusoe taught him to call him "Master" (174) instead of his name. Crusoe refers to Friday's father and the Spaniard as "subjects" (204) rather than as companions. All these moments of interaction with others show that Crusoe wants to have control over these people. A reader might believe that Crusoe would want friends after being isolated for so long, but that is not the case. He has built a potentially better life for himself on the island that he would have never been able to achieve in York. Crusoe has chosen to have servants, or subjects, rather than friends. Crusoe sent Friday to tell his father "the news of his being delivered" (200). He also makes it clear to the Englishmen who arrived on the island when there had been a mutiny on their ship that he is in control by saying, "... my conditions are but two. 1. That while you stay on this island with me, you will not pretend to any authority here …" island. He frequently refers to the home he built for himself as his "Castle" (140) and intends to attack the Savages for coming onto his island and threatening his sense of security. However, Crusoe decides against it. When the Savages return, he again questions attacking them, asking, "What necessity was I in to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had neither done nor intended me any wrong?" (195). Earlier in the novel, Crusoe's reasoning was that since God had left them to continue living like this, he had no "authority...to pretend to be Judge and Executioner upon these Men as Criminals" (144). When the Savages returned to the island with the Spaniard, whom Friday had assured Crusoe was living amongst the Savages peacefully, Crusoe decides to take action and attack them. This attack represents Crusoe making a decision a ruler would make in a time of war when his people were under attack. Crusoe saw the Spaniard as one of his own because they were both European and felt that if the Spaniard, who was supposedly in cohabitation with the Savages, was brought here to be eaten, the same could possibly happen to Crusoe if he went to that island with Friday. The Captain of an English ship whose crew had mutinied refers to Crusoe as "Governor," and the island as an English colony. This is the final title of power Crusoe is given before finally leaving his island.
In conclusion, this portuguese captain was willing to die for his beliefs but for the wrong reason. Maybe Magellan would have one against the Indians if he were to have treated his crewmen better. Loyalty comes with a cost and Magellan was not willing to pay
The fear the Spanish unleashed to the Natives was immense. The armor the Spaniard’s whore terrified everyone who saw them. The loud clamor they made as they marched also installed fear into the Natives heads.
Las Casas emphasizes on three main issues throughout his account. First, in almost each chapter, Las Casas writes about the luscious qualities of the land and the different indigenous peoples that inhabit them. Second, he explains and describes in detail how the natives were rapidly being massacred by the invading Christian Europeans. Finally, Las Casas discusses how God had brought justice to the Europeans for their diabolical acts upon the natives. Las Casas, a former slave owner himself, realized that those whom he previously enslaved were just as much human and capable of learning and practicing the Christian faith as he was. As a bishop, he realized he could do little for the Natives except document his experiences (in as much detail as possible) and hope that the royal administration would have sympathy for the Natives and establish laws to protect them from the Europeans.
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
If you were stranded on an island alone, what actions would you take to survive and maintain your sanity? Would your actions be deemed admirable? This predicament faced Robinson Crusoe in the novel appropriately titled, Robinson Crusoe. Set in the mid to late 17th century, Robinson Crusoe, is an epistolary novel following the early life of the main character Robinson Crusoe. What begins as an account of the voyages and business ventures of a rebellious, young man, soon transforms into a twenty-eight year struggle for survival when Crusoe is stranded on a deserted island. While it is unanimously agreed that Crusoe survived his stay on the island, a divergence in opinion occurs when asked whether he was an admirable man by the end of the book. Some readers find his actions and character admirable, while others do not.
The captain is characterized as incompetent even at sailing a ship despite his title. The captain should have been the one to lead the castaways but his incompetence caused the island dwellers to despise him. Ten years after being marooned on the island, “the captain become a very boring person, without enough to think about, without enough to do.”(294). Trying to find a purpose to his boring life, the captain hovered around a spring, the island’s only water supply. He would tell the kanka-bono girls the kind of mood the spring was in on that day despite the fact that “The dribbling [from the spring] was in fact quite steady, and had been for thousands of years”(295). The kanka-bono girls did not speak english and therefore the captain’s attempt at humanising the spring were lost on the girls making it a completely pointless endeavor. Moreover,If not for the lack of tools on the island, the captain would have tried to improve the springs and consequently might have clogged it(296) potentially putting the life of castaways at risk. The captain was desperate to find a purpose to his mundane life on the island, so much that he was willing to put his and the island’s inhabitant 's life at risk. The captain’s attempt at accomplishing something to find a purpose in his life was useless and even
Since this bond of brotherhood is felt by all the men in the boat, but not discussed, it manifests in small ways as the men interact with each other. They are never irritated or upset with each other, no matter how tired or sore they are. Whenever one man is too tired to row, the next man takes over without complaining. When the correspondent thinks that he is the only person awake on the boat, and he sees and hears the shark in the water, the narrator says, “Nevertheless, it is true that he did not want to be alone with the thing. He wished one of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it” (Crane 212).
James Joyce on Robinson Crusoe: “…the man alone, on a desert island, constructing a simple and moral economy which becomes the basis of a commonwealth presided over by a benevolent sovereign” (Liu 731).
Overall, Robinson Crusoe’s ship crashing on the island forever changes the ecology, and biodiversity. Robinson colonized the island by introducing invasive species, European crops, and enclosing areas of the island. This colonization would lead to the islands decent in, wildlife habitation, and biodiversity. Although, these concerns would change the ecosystem on the fictional island they are the signs of colonization, and improvement in the lives of the inlands inhabits.
Crusoe's journey in the canoe exemplifies the reality of his life in that, although he longs to please and obey God, he must also contend with his instincts for self-preservation, looking to himself as his own savior. When Crusoe finally reaches land after a tumultuous experience at sea in his canoe, he states ."..I fell to my knees and gave God thanks for my deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my deliverance by my boat,..." (112). Crusoe strives for the Christian ideal, an ideal that leads him to look to God for assistance and not to man/himself because God holds the only power to give and take life. When Crusoe drops to his knees in gratitude to God for his safe return, he appears to have achieved this ideal. However, one must note the use of the word "resolve" in this passage. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word "resolve" as used in the eighteenth century as follows: to decide, to determine, or to convince one of something. The fact that Crusoe had to convince himself and come to a determination in order to lay aside his thoughts of his boat saving him rather than God, reveals to the reader that C...
In the work by Defoe, Crusoe comes from a middle class family wanting to explore the world. His father wants him to pursue law but Crusoe goes against his father’s wishes and goes out to sea. Crusoe later colonizes an island, where he is destined to meet a man who would become his faithful servant and slave named Friday. When Friday first encounters Crusoe, Crusoe saves him from being eaten by other cannibals: “[…] and he came nearer and nearer, kneeling down every Ten or Twelve steps in token of acknowledgement for my saving his Life.” (Defoe, 223) Although they have a master-servant relationship, their bond is unique. Friday seems to be very grateful to Crusoe for saving his life and willingly becomes a servant to Crusoe. This will also affect their relationship later in the story. Crusoe stated that Friday “kneeled down to me, seeming to pray me to assist him, […] and he became my servant.” (Defoe, 218) Crusoe’s attitude towards Friday is warm and inviting “I smiled at him and looked pleasantly, a...
From the beginning of some life, people make many choices that affect their personal growth and livelihood, choices like what they should wear and/or what they should do. Even the littlest choices that they make could make a big difference in their lives. In the book, Robinson Crusoe retold by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, while on the island, made many choices, big and small, that affected his personal growth and contributed to why he survived for so long. On the island he made a lot of smart decisions of what to do in order to stay a live. On his second day he made a choice to go back to the ship to explore what was there. He spent a lot of time building his home when he could have done something more important. He also took a risk and helped out a person that he did not know. These were some of many choices that Robinson Crusoe made throughout his many years on the island.
"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).
Crusoe accepts the challenge to survive, but not only does he survive, but he also expands and discovers new qualities about himself. In the beginning of his time on the island, Crusoe feels exceedingly secluded. He fears savages and wild beasts on the island, and he stays high up in a tree. Lacking a "weapon to hunt and kill creatures for his sustenance" (Defoe, 47), he is susceptible. Defoe believed that "the nature of man resides in the capacity for improvement in the context of a material world" (Seidel, 59), and this becomes apparent in his novel. The tools that Crusoe possesses from the ship carry out this notion, improving his life on the island dramatically. He progresses quickly, and no longer feels as isolated as he did before on the island. Crusoe uses his tools to build a protective fence and a room inside a cave. He then builds a farm where he raises goats and grows a corn crop. Later, his ambitions take him to the other side of the island where he builds a country home. Also, with the weapons that Crusoe creates, he saves Friday from cannibals, and makes him his servant. Because of his tools, his supply becomes more than sufficient for survival. He comes to learn that if he works with his surroundings instead of wallowing in the fact that he has no longer got what he thinks he needs, he able to find and use everything he needs in order to carry out life.
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)