Robinson Crusoe in Classics Without All the Class

Sep 19, 2013 Carol rated it really liked it

Shelves: daniel-defoe

I was completed surprised after reading this excellent classic book: I especially liked when he was overwhelmed by his Christian faith, and how it totally transformed his life. This is a story about a man who rejects his father's advice regarding his middle-income career, and instead ignores his father and God; and decides to goes out to the sea on an adventure. He makes some money, is captured, made a slave, and befriends Xury. Picked up by Portuguese sailing captain, Crusoe makes it to Brazil I was completed surprised after reading this excellent classic book: I especially liked when he was overwhelmed by his Christian faith, and how it totally transformed his life. This is a story about a man who rejects his father's advice regarding his middle-income career, and instead ignores his father and God; and decides to goes out to the sea on an adventure. He makes some money, is captured, made a slave, and befriends Xury. Picked up by Portuguese sailing captain, Crusoe makes it to Brazil and buys a sugar plantation. He does well financially, but becomes involved in a venture to procure slaves from Africa. On the voyage, he gets shipwrecked and is left as the only survivor on a deserted island.

Crusoe's time alone on the island is challenging. He builds an initial shelter, another on the opposite side of the island, and his guns/ammo fort in the woods. He is busy planting corn, barley, and rice. He learns to make bread. He builds furniture, weaves baskets, and makes pots. He raises goats and tends to his little animal family of cats, dogs, and a parrot. Most importantly, though, Crusoe becomes stronger in his religious faith, eventually submitting to the authority of God. He devotes himself to much religious reflection and prayer.

At the end of the book, Crusoe sees a footprint on the shore one day and fears that he is not alone on the island. Crusoe struggles with the question of whether or not he should take revenge on his visitors. He meets with Friday, a native man whom he is able to rescue from the cannibals, and teaches Friday to speak English & converts him to Christianity. The two become "father and son." Friday and Crusoe rescue a Spaniard and Friday's father from a different group of cannibals. An English longboat of sailors land on the island. Crusoe learns that the men have mutinied against their captain. Crusoe helps restore order to the ship, the men and captain pledge allegiance to Crusoe and agree to take him home. Crusoe returns to Europe with Friday, where he comes into a great deal of money from his sugar plantations. Crusoe gets married and eventually revisits the island in his later years. The novel ends with more adventures for him in the sequel.

DANIEL DEFOE biography - Born in London in 1660; was a merchant, also failing businesses which forced him into bankruptcy. He was also a political pamphleteer (which put him in prison for slander.) His father, James Foe, was a London butcher and Daniel changed his last name to Defoe instead of Foe. He graduated in 1683 and became a dissenting minister, traveled great, selling goods (wine, wools) but seem to be just barely ahead. He was bankrupt in 1692, and by 1703 left the business industry. His interest was in politics, and wrote political pamphlet in 1683 and continued as a journalist in 1700. Many of Defoe's works during this period targeted support for King William III, also known as "William Henry of Orange." Some of his most popular works include The True-Born Englishman, which shed light on racial prejudice in England following attacks on William for being a foreigner; and the Review, a periodical that was published from 1704 to 1713, during the reign of Queen Anne, King William II's successor. Political opponents of Defoe's repeatedly had him imprisoned for his writing in 1713.

On April 25, 1719, Defoe at the age of 60 years, and published Robinson Crusoe. This first edition credited the work's fictional protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. It was published under the considerably longer original title The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely delivered by Pirates. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)—a castaway who spends years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. Although, the story has also been influenced by the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on the Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. Robinson Crusoe marked the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. ...more

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