Robinson Crusoe

Life & Times About the Author

Daniel Defoe was born at the beginning of a period of history known as the English Restoration, so-named because it was when King Charles II restored the monarchy to England following the English Civil War and the brief dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell. Defoe’s contemporaries included Isaac Newton and Samuel Pepys.

Defoe was born in London and during his formative years was witness to the Great Plague (1665-6) and the Great Fire (1666), both of which had considerable effect on the neighbourhood he lived in. In addition to these disasters, the English were at war with the Dutch between 1665 and 1667, which saw many privateer ships involved in attacking the Dutch fleet as Charles had insufficient money to fund the war. Privateers essentially paid themselves with the booty they acquired from the enemy ships, which included trade vessels as well as men’o’war. In turn this led to the evolution of piracy in times of peace. It is undoubtedly this roguish activity on the high seas that inspired Defoe to write his famous novel Robinson Crusoe.

Defoe’s original surname was simply ‘Foe’ and his family were humble traders, but he added the prefix to make himself sound more continental and sophisticated. Defoe became interested in social reform and used his first efforts at writing to promote ideas for improving social and economic conditions in London. He was arrested for his activities but had caught the attentions of Robert Harley, 1^st Earl of Oxford, who made him an agent for gathering intelligence about his political rivals.

His literary journey began soon after this when Britain was struck by a full scale hurricane in 1703, which travelled across the Atlantic Ocean and ravaged the southern British Isles for two whole days. The storm killed thousands of people, felled millions of trees and damaged every building in its path. Defoe was inspired to record many first-hand accounts of the hurricane, which he published the following year in The Storm.

For the next fifteen years Defoe was very active politically, writing hundreds of documents for the Tory party, a party which had emerged as a political wing of the Cavaliers following the English Civil War. They were essentially royalists with deeply held conservative views. There had been many stories of pirate adventures in exotic places and a Scotsman named Alexander Selkirk had been rescued in 1709 after four years castaway on Juan Fernández, a tropical island in the south Pacific, off the coast of Chile. Clearly Defoe had been inspired by these tales of danger and derring-do. In 1719, Defoe published his masterpiece, Robinson Crusoe, which is widely considered to be the first English novel.

The novel was an instant success, seemingly because there was a great appetite in England for yarns about intrepid explorers who survived against the odds in far flung corners. Added to that, there was a certain innate appeal about the idea of fending for one’s self in isolation – building one’s own shelter, making clothes, finding food and water, staying alive. It seemed to resonate with a primal desire in people that had lain dormant since time immemorial – the reawakening of the hunter gatherer instinct.

This reaction to Robinson Crusoe was perhaps an expression of the way developing society was making people feel trapped by circumstance. The British Agricultural Revolution was beginning, soon to be followed by the Industrial Revolution, and these events were compartmentalizing society, so that people had defined jobs to do rather than being required to put their hands to a number of tasks. The psychological effect was to divorce people from their fundamental sense of self worth and independence. Crusoe’s ordeal may have been ough and isolating but it was also life affirming and character building. Most of all, Crusoe had his own kingdom to reign over, when most English men, women and children couldn’t call any patch of land their own.

The psychological freedom delivered to Crusoe seemed worth all of the hardship he endured over his 28 years waiting to be rescued. There must have been many a reader who would have gladly swapped their life for his, so Crusoe became a kind of folk hero even though he lived only in the world of fiction.

Despite its attraction as an escapist fantasy, Robinson Crusoe also reminds the reader that they are essentially social animals and that loneliness is the enemy of most humans. Crusoe fears that he may never see another person again and die alone, but then he sees a footprint in the sand. It is the moment of his reconnection with humanity. Although he doesn’t know whether the footprint belongs to a potential friend or enemy he is compelled to seek out that person whatever the outcome.

This is why the book is considered the first novel, because it says something between the lines, about the human condition. It contains allegory and makes the reader think beyond the plot. The reader becomes the intimate voyeur, feeling Crusoe’s emotions, frustrations and revelations as he learns to cope with his surroundings. Ultimately he turns the wilderness into his home because he comes to realize that we all come from the wilderness, but we have forgotten our prehistory.

At the time that Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe many European countries were conquering new lands around the globe and enterprising men were making their fortunes through trade of goods and slavery. Defoe used this world as the backdrop for his story.

When Crusoe first sets out into the world he is shipwrecked and captured by pirates who make him their slave. He then escapes and manages to make his own fortune by establishing a sugar plantation. The tables are then turned again, when he is shipwrecked a second time and has to survive by his wits on an island. Defoe cleverly allows Crusoe to acquire the life experience to make his story of survival believable. He probably recognized that a European gentleman would not have faired very well had he been stranded on a maiden voyage.

After a number of years alone Crusoe discovers that other people visit the island from time to time. He is alarmed to discover that they practice cannibalism, but then realizes that their culture is so different from his own that he has no moral right to condemn their actions. This shows considerable wisdom on the part of Defoe, because he is acknowledging that the ethics of what is right and wrong depends on social context. Nevertheless, Crusoe still decides to rescue a captive about to be ritually slaughtered and in doing so finds himself a devoted companion in the form of a native he calls Friday. As unlikely as it may seem, Crusoe has managed to keep an accurate calendar and knows which day of the week the rescue took place.

As the book was intended for an English market, Defoe has Crusoe teach Friday to speak the king’s tongue and convert to Christianity. There are then various further twists and turns to the plot that see Crusoe and Friday eventually arrive in England. What is more, Crusoe is able to claim back the wealth from his sugar plantation and live the rest of his life a wealthy man.

There is a forgotten sequel to Robinson Crusoe, titled The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe decides to revisit his island, establishing a civilized colony there, but Friday is killed by attacking cannibals. Crusoe then embarks on a series of adventures around the world, including Madagascar and Asia. Defoe published this sequel later in the same year, 1719.

The story of Crusoe, in particular his time spent alone on his island, has remained an inspiration for many writers ever since. As well as inventing the novel, Defoe also invented the survival genre, so that any similar story is automatically seen to allude to Robinson Crusoe, even when it happens to be a true story. There is an enduring attraction to the idea that humans can, when given no choice, manage to find ways to cope. Common sense, resourcefulness and self reliance are qualities we admire in others and in ourselves, because they reassure us that it is possible to get by without the trappings of the modern world.