Book Review #18 – “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe (Adventures in Survival)
Book Review #18 – “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe; published 1719.
“I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked during a dreadful storm in the offing, came on shore onto this dismal unfortunate island, which I called ‘The Island of Despair,’ all the rest of the ship’s company being drowned, and myself almost dead.” ” (Robinson Crusoe)
Background of the Novel. The full title of Defoe’s book is “The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” This book has been described as one of the greatest adventure stories of all time, and it certainly was the first of its kind. Up to its publishing, English fiction was more or less limited to short stories, plays and poetry. So Robinson Crusoe was the first extended realistic fiction, and has even been declared the first English novel by many literary scholars. This book was an immediate best-seller, something brand new to the reading public, and soon became the most widely published work of literature at the time.. Many historians believe that Defoe based his story and character on various castaway stories that were circulating at that time, true stories of being marooned on distant islands, etc. But Defoe never pointed to one castaway story in particular, or what might have inspired him for this tale. The novel surely inspired many spinoffs with similar themes, though, and proved to be the original that spawned many close copies, including… Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss; Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift; Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson; Tale of Little Pig by Beatrix Potter; Lord of the Flies by William Golding; and The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. There have been scores of dramatic films and TV shows patterned after Robinson Crusoe as well, including everything from the film “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks in 2000 to “Gilligan’s Island” to the hit reality series “Survivor.” The master of adventure fiction, Jules Verne, even said, “We have all written a ”Robinson,” but it is a moot question if any of them would have seen the light of day had it not been for their former prototype.”
Brief Bio of Daniel Defoe (1660-1731). Defoe was a survivor right from the start, born in London and soon after at five years old having to face down not only the Bubonic Plague but also the completely destructive Great Fire of London. He became a staunch Puritan who preached strict Puritan moralism to anyone who would listen. As a member of the Dissenters he refused to join the Church of England, writing many tracts and pamphlets about how to be a good Puritan Christian. During his 25 years in journalism with newspapers and magazines, he developed an excellent reputation as a popular writer for the public interests. Over his lifetime he wrote over 500 works that included novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, essays, and newspaper/magazine columns. Despite his popularity, Defoe struggled through financial problems all his life, facing several bankruptcies. As a Nonconformist at 25 years of age, he joined as an active member of the rebellion against King James 2. And then in his support of the next king, William of Orange, he became a secret agent spying for the English court. Later, his strident opinions on Puritan beliefs landed him in prison for six months. After his pardon, he continued as a spy for the king, gathering intelligence on secret missions of all sorts. Defoe developed a large following as a political and religious writer, and his pointed satires and strong opinions landed him in jail once again for a time. As a firm believer in the “puritan work ethic,” he promoted the self-made man who was independent of any need for assistance, focusing on the virtue of hard work, self-reliance, and individual accomplishment. This code centered on personal productivity and working for everything he gets on life. A good Puritan would say that if you didn’t work for it, you didn’t earn it, and therefore you shouldn’t get it. Ben Franklin’s famous saying during this time sums it up… “God only helps those who help themselves.” It’s not surprising that Robinson Crusoe highlights the virtues of resourcefulness, persistence, ingenuity, and the importance of courageously training oneself to survive through hard work and shrewd thinking. Defoe didn’t write this great novel until he was 60 years old. The money he earned from this best-seller quickly evaporated, even after he later followed it up with another best-seller, Moll Flanders, a conversion story about a prostitute who redeemed herself. Nonetheless, he died penniless at 71 years of age.
The Basic Storyline of Robinson Crusoe. In 1651, a restless young man in his early 20’s decided to run away from home in England and see the wider world. Robinson desired more than anything a life of adventure on the high seas. His first voyage ended with a shipwreck, but he survived to try it all again on another ship. This second voyage resulted in being captured by pirates and enslaved for two years by the Moors. Robinson escaped to Brazil and was able to purchase a little plantation to earn a meager living. He is determined, though, to get on board another ship once again, and on his way to Africa his ship was once gain shipwrecked during a storm, hitting a sandbar near an uninhabited island off the coast of Venezuela. He was the ship’s only survivor, and he does what is necessary to survive yet again another tragedy during his travels. After constructing a sturdy raft from various pieces of lumber from the ship, he gathers all the supplies he might need to survive on this nearby island. Robinson proves his mettle and creative grit, and manages to build a comfortable home, living relatively well for 28 years on his island home. During his 25th year on the remote island, he rescues a kidnapped victim of neighboring cannibals, and they become close companions, helping each other to survive on the island and for the remainder of their lives. Robinson named this man Friday, since that was the day of Crusoe’s rescue operation. Finally in 1686 they were able to leave their island home on an English ship that had landed there after a mutiny. The captain was brought ashore by the mutineers, and the captain secretly agrees to take Robinson and Friday to England if they could overcome the mutineers and regain control of his ship. The mutineers are defeated by Robinson, Friday and the captain, are left on the island to fend for themselves, and the ship successfully returns to England with Robinson and Friday on board. Robinson remains true to his restless nature, though, even after recovering the money due him from his Brazil plantation, and in 1694 he decides to set sail as a private merchant trader, returning to his old island home near Venezuela. Robinson discovers there that the mutineers had been joined by others and have succeeded in establishing a home on the island. Robinson then provides this little island civilization with important supplies that will help them to flourish there, such as cattle, grain, tools and ammunition. After twenty days on the island helping the settlers to get better organized, Robinson and Friday departed for further adventures once again.
Robinson Crusoe’s Demonstrated Survival Skills:
Survival Skill #1 – Think Ahead! Immediately after the shipwreck, he took a deep breath, gathered his wits, and considered the supplies that he may need that are in his ruined ship. He had foresight, he carefully anticipated his needs. When he was washed ashore, all he had on him was a knife and a tobacco pipe with a little tobacco. So he quickly swam to the ship from the island’s beach, constructed a sturdy raft from the wreckage of the ship, and scoured the ship to take whatever he could get that would help him survive on the island. He took a total of eleven round trips to the island, each time carrying with him on the raft items such as these items: bread, rice, cheese, goatmeat, corn, men’s clothing, carpenter tools (saws, an axe and a hammer), two long guns and two pistols with ammunition, two swords, barrels of gun powder, broken oars, bags of nails, metal spikes, a dozen hatchets, a grindstone, seven muskets with musket-balls, a hammock with bedding, a huge topsail, wooden support poles, various rigging that included ropes, cables, twines and canvas. On one trip he brought back razors, scissors, knives, forks and a chest full of gold and silver coins. His last trip to the ruined ship netted him some pens and ink, paper, compasses, mathematical instruments, telescopes, sundials, navigation charts, three Bibles, some prayerbooks, and other reading material. Finally, he decided to rescue the dog and two cats that were on the ship. He would end up using and needing all these supplies in the next 28 years on the island as he set up his home. Except for the coins. It’s fascinating that none other than the great G. K. Chesterton, in his masterpiece Orthodoxy, considered the inventory of supplies taken off the shipwreck to be what most appealed to him in the story, that this was a powerful picture of how we as humans have survived a human wreck and “in some way all good in this world was a remnant to be stored and held sacred… Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: He had saved them from a wreck.” Each of the good in our humanity could just as well have been something that didn’t survive our wreck, but in fact did.
Survival Skill #2 – Mark Time! After a couple of days, Robinson decided it was important for him to keep track of time while on the island, for practical as well as sanity reasons. So he found two large wooden beams, nailed them together in the form of a cross, and carved onto it, “I came on shore here on the 30th of September, 1659.” And he carefully kept a record of each day as it passed by making a notch onto the cross calendar, keeping an historical record of his presence ashore, and keeping himself grounded in the reality of time in the midst of a very unreal circumstance.
Survival Skill #3 – Locate Sustenance! Crusoe immediately set out on a hunt for fresh water and possible food sources. He successfully found both soon… a fresh spring for his source of water, and a few wild goats he could hunt for food, as well as the probability of good fishing offshore.
Survival Skill #4 – Build Shelter! Robinson told himself to make the best of a bad situation as he searched for and found a suitable place to build a home that was near his water source, protected from the brutal sun and wild animals, with a view out to the ocean so he could spot visitors and oncoming storms. He found a flat area in front of large rocky cliff that had a small cave, a small hollow place in the rock that could serve as the door of a potential deeper cave of his making later. He set up a tent in front of the rock for shelter, cut down many trees to create large stakes for his fortress walls, and arranged them in a semi-circle around the rock. He then drove these six-foot stakes into the ground after shoveling post holes with his hand made shovels, and sawed sharp spikes on the top of each sunken stake. After roping together all these huge stakes to create a formidable protective wall around his home, he used a larger sail from the ship to make a larger tent around the entire complex. He made a ladder that was used to exit his home and take with him inside at night so there would be no possible way of any unwelcome visitors entering his domain. Crusoe kept enlarging the cave by cutting a deeper and deeper hole in the rock as time went on, to eventually create a cool, dry space for storage and a more protected sleep at night. It’s no wonder that Crusoe lovingly termed his home his “Castle.”
Survival Skill #5 – Be Resourceful! He creatively used what he did have. He made what he needed but didn’t have. He developed new uses for old things, and adapted new purposes for those things that had outworn their usefulness. He learned how to farm, fish, raise wild animals, and build. He handmade tables and chairs, a plow, a canoe, a raft, a kiln to make his earthenware jars and pots, shovels out of branches, cooking utensils, and an indestructible goat pen in which to protect his herd to milk them, enlarge the herd, and keep a ready supply of meat. He made a vineyard in which to grow and dry grapes in order to produce raisins. He learned to weave his own baskets for storage. Even to make his daily bread, he learned how to plant and harvest grain, make a mortar and pestle to grind the grain into flour, sift the flour through his neck scarf, and invent his own underground oven to bake his bread, using his homemade charcoal. He also learned how to tailor his own clothing using the goatskins from those goats who were killed for food. Those goatskins came in handy too as Crusoe figured out how to make many handy items, including his famous Crusoe umbrella.
Survival Skill #6 – Keep the Faith! These quotes from the novel describe his ongoing dependence on God… “I was now landed, and safe on shore, and began to look up and thank God that my life was saved in a case wherein there was some minutes before scarce any room for hope. I walked about on the shore lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapped up in the contemplation of my deliverance.“… “I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered everything for the best; I say I quieted my mind with these thoughts, and left off afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of not being here.” … “Every day, I sat my desk or lay in my bed and read the Bible. Soon I came to think of the words, ‘I will deliver you,’ in a different way. I had long carried a deep feeling of guilt. To be delivered from this feeling would be wonderful! I then read, ‘I am come to forgive you.’ And then a great peace came over me.” … “I gave humble and hearty thanks that God had been pleased to discover to me even that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition that I should have been in a liberty of society and in all the pleasures of the world.” … “I considered that this was the station of life the infinitely wise and good providence of God had determined for me; that as I could not foresee what the ends of divine wisdom might be in all this, so I was not to dispute His sovereignty.” … “It was my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and entirely to His will; and, on the other hand, it was my duty also to hope in Him, pray to Him, and quietly to attend the dictates and directions of His daily providence.” …”These words came into my thoughts, ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify Me.’ Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray earnestly to God for deliverance. When I had done praying, I took up my Bible, and opening it to read, the first words that presented to me were, ‘Wait on the Lord, and be of good cheer, and He shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.’ It is impossible to express the comfort this gave me.” … “I was now entered on the seventy-and-twentieth year of my captivity in this place. I kept the anniversary of my landing here with same thankfulness to God for His mercies as at the first.”