Robinson Crusoe

          Robinson Crusoe is a novel written by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe an its author, leading many readers to belive he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.

          The Life and Strange Surprising 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 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 pyrates, commonly known as Robinson Crusoe.

 ✴  Characters:

•    Robinson Crusoe
•    Friday
•    Xury
•    Portuguese Captain
•    Mr.& Mrs. Crusoe (parents of Robinson)
•    Spanaiard
•    Widow
•    Negroes
•    Traitorous crew members

 ✴  Themes:

•   Society and Class
•   Wealth
•   Man and the Natural World
•   Rules and Order
•   Foreignness and 'the other'
•   Slavery

 ✴   This book is divided into three parts:

•   Part 1:  Before the Island
•   Part 2:  Life on the Island
•   Part 3:  Escape from the Island

           Before landing on the island, Crusoe's father wants him to be a good, middle-class man. Crusoe, who wants nothing more than to travel around in a ship, is definitely not into this idea. He struggles against the authority and at last he decides to go on adventure of the sea. After sailing around for a while, he makes a bit of money in trade, but then is captured and made into a slave off the coast of Africa. Here he meets a young man named Xury, with whom he escapes from captivity. Picked up by a Portuguese sailing captain, Crusoe makes it to Brazil where he buys a sugar plantation. He does fairly well financially, but soon becomes involved in a venture to procure slaves from Africa. On the voyage there he gets shipwrecked and is left as the only survivor on a deserted island.

          In the second part we can see that Crusoe is all alone on the island. He builds three main structures: his initial shelter, his country home on the opposite side of the island and his guns and fort in the woods. He spends his time planting corn, barely and rice. He learns to make bread. He builds furniture, weaves baskets and makes pots. Crusoe also raises goats and tents to his little animal family of cats, dogs and a parrot. This way he tries to survive on the island and spends many years there.

          In the third part we can see that Crusoe sees a footprint on the shore one day and learns that he is actually not alone on the island. There are also cannibals. Crusoe struggles with the question of whether or not he should take revenge on them. Eventually, he meets with a man but he was unknown with the name so he kept his name Friday because the day when they meat was Friday. Friday is able to rescue from the cannibals. Crusoe allows Friday to stay with as a slave and to call Crusoe his master, so the first word Crusoe taught him was master. Crusoe also teaches Friday English and many other things like etiquette. As the time passed they were not sharing a master slave relation but the two become like father and son. Friday and Crusoe also rescue a Spaniard and Crusoe's father. At the end Crusoe and his father goes back to the native place giving the responsibility of island to Friday and told him that he would visit the island again.