Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

by
Daniel Defoe

SETTING

When
the story begins, the setting is England. Some of the action thereafter
takes place at sea in various ships. Once the pirates capture Crusoe,
the action moves to Sallee, a port in Morocco. After Crusoe's escape
from there, the setting moves to the Canary Islands, until a Portuguese
ship arrives. For the next few years, the novel is set in Brazil. Then
Crusoe embarks on his ill-fated voyage. After the shipwreck, Crusoe
washes ashore on an uninhabited island, where Crusoe spends the next
twenty-eight years of his life; most of the novel takes place on the
island during these years. After Crusoe is rescued from the island, the
setting moves to England, via Lisbon and the land route through Spain
and France to Calais.

PLOT

Robinson Crusoe,
born in York, is the third son in his family. His parents wish to make a
lawyer out of young Crusoe, but Crusoe has other plans. His one great
desire is to become a sailor and go to sea. The first foreshadows what
lies ahead for the hero. Although his father refuses to give him
permission to go to sea, Crusoe runs away to become a sailor. Although
almost all of his initial forays into sea life are disastrous, Crusoe is
not deterred. During one of his trips, the Moors capture his ship, and
Crusoe is taken as a slave. He finally escapes in a boat with another
young man. After some interesting adventures, he is rescued by a
Portuguese ship. He next lands in Brazil, where his enterprising ways
help him to succeed; he becomes a planter and prospers in a few years
time. Still not satisfied with his success, he decides to become a slave
trader in order to get cheap labor for his plantation. As he travels by
boat to find slaves, a storm hits, and his ship is wrecked. All the
sailors are drowned except for Crusoe, who is washed ashore on an
uninhabited island.

The novel is basically about the life and
adventures of Crusoe on the island, where he lives for the next
twenty-eight years. Crusoe salvages as much as he can from the ship. He
builds a home, strong fortifications, plows the land, cultivates corn
and rice, and raises goats. His peaceful existence is interrupted when
savages land on the island. Crusoe rescues Friday, one of the savages'
prisoners, whom he educates and converts to Christianity. When the
cannibals visit next, Friday and Crusoe rescue two of their prisoners, a
Spaniard and a savage. The savage turns out to be Friday's father. An
expedition is sent to the mainland in a canoe to bring back sixteen
Spaniards who have been marooned there.

An English ship visits
the coast, and a few of its crew come ashore in a boat. Crusoe realizes
that the visitors are mutineers and that the captain and men loyal to
him are being held as prisoners. With good planning, Crusoe and Friday
subdue the mutineers and rescue the captain and his crew. When the ship
sends another boat with men ashore, they are also tricked and captured
by Crusoe's men. Now, all that stands in the way of Crusoe's deliverance
is the remaining men on the ship. In a final assault, the ship is
captured, and the rebel captain is killed. Soon Crusoe sails from the
island in the capture ship and finally reaches England.
Back home,
Crusoe finds that most of his family members have died. He also learns
that his plantation in Brazil has thrived during his absence. As a
result, he is enormously wealthy. The older, mature Crusoe is gracious
in his new status and generous towards his old friends and the remaining
members of his family. There are, however, some more adventures in life
for Crusoe and his friends as they travel the land route through Europe
to Calais. In the end, Crusoe settles down, gets married, and has three
children. Many years later he visits his old island and finds it has
been settled. He promises to send the inhabitants more essential things
from Brazil. On this note the story ends.


CHARACTER LIST

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.

Xury:
a friend/servant of Crusoe's, he also escapes from the Moors. A simple
youth who is dedicated to Crusoe, he is admirable for his willingness to
stand by the narrator. However, he does not think for himself.

Friday:
another friend/servant of Crusoe's, he spends a number of years on the
island with the main character, who saves him from cannibalistic death.
Friday is basically Crusoe's protege, 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.

Crusoe's father: although
he appears only briefly in the beginning, he embodies the theme of the
merits of Protestant, middle-class living. It is his teachings from
which Crusoe is running, with poor success.

Crusoe's mother: one of the few female figures, she fully supports her husband and will not let Crusoe go on a voyage.

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.

Portuguese sea captain:
one of the kindest figures in the book, he is an honest man who
embodies all the Christian ideals. Everyone is supposed to admire him
for his extreme generosity to the narrator. He almost takes the place of
Crusoe's father.

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.

Captured sea captain: he is an
ideal soldier, the intersection between civilized European and savage
white man. Crusoe's support of his fight reveals that the narrator no
longer has purely religious motivations.

Widow: she is
goodness personified, and keeps Crusoe's money safe for him. She is in
some way a foil to his mother, who does not support him at all.

Savages:
the cannibals from across the way, they represent the threat to
Crusoe's religious and moral convictions, as well as his safety. He must
conquer them before returning to his own world.

Negroes: they help Xury and Crusoe when they land on their island, and exist in stark contrast to the savages.

Traitorous crew members: they are an example of white men who do not heed God; they are white savages