In this post, I begin a series of notes on Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719).
PLOT
- Against his father’s wishes, Robinson goes to sea.
- Robinson refuses a safe plantation position to take part in a slave-ship.
- A storm hits the ship and Crusoe is washed onto a deserted island.
- He contemplates his life and after a” bout of illness, commits his life to God.
- Now his aim is to get off the island.
QUOTATIONS
“Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to leave me entirely without excuse…”
“[W]ithout asking God’s blessing or my father’s, without any consideration of circumstances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the 1st of September 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London.”
“My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea.”
“I began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for my wicked leaving my father’s house.”
“I am cast upon a horrible, desolate island, void of all hope of recovery. But I am alive; and not drowned, as all my ship’s company were.”
SYMBOLS
- Rain (the storms of heaven)
- A ship (with its hierarchy)
- Crusoe’s cave on the island
- Crusoe’s garden on the island
- The sea
Experiments in Criticism 