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Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (the_life_and_strange_surprizing_adventures_of_robinson_crusoe.doc)

 

Daniel Defoe

 

The Life and Strange Surprizing 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 the 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 deliver'd by Pyrates.

Written by Himself

 

 

Title

        Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Published                                                                                                                                     Praha: Olympia, 1986.

Translation                                                                                                                            Josef V.Pleva

Abouth the author

        Daniel Defoe (*1660 †1731) was an English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, author of well known titles like The Shortest Way With the Dissenters, Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year, Roxana and Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain . Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered the founder of the English novel. He produced some 200 works of non-fiction prose in addition to close 2 000 short essays in periodical publications, several of which he also edited.

        Defoe was one of the first to write stories about believable characters in realistic situations using simple prose. He achieved literary immortality when in April 1719 he published Robinson Crusoe, which was based partly on the memoirs of voyagers and castaways, such as Alexander Selkirk, who spent on his island four years and four months.

 

About the book

        Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote island, encountering savages, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. This device, presenting an account of supposedly factual events, is known as a "false document", and gives a realistic frame to the story.

        Robinson Crusoe was one of the first English novels, as well as being one of the world's most popular adventure stories. At first Defoe had troubles in finding a publisher for the book and eventually received £10 for the manuscript. It was first published by William Taylor on April 25, 1719 without the author´s name. With six printings in four months, Robinson Crusoe was a popular and financial success in 1719. To capitalize on its success, Defoe wrote, in the same year, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which is a disappointment for most readers. The next year, he recycled some essays as Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe. Through the remainder of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, Robinson Crusoe was printed with both the first and second parts. The modern practice of publishing only the first part of Robinson Crusoe began around 1860.

        The book proved so popular that the names of the two main protagonists have entered the language. The term "Robinson Crusoe" is virtually synonymous with the word "castaway" and is often used as a metaphor for being or doing something alone. Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my man Friday", from which the term "Man Friday" (or "Girl Friday") originated, referring to a personal assistant, servant, or companion.

Main topic                                                                                                                           Employing a first-person narrator and apparently genuine journal entries, Defoe created a realistic frame for the novel, which distinguished it from its predecessors. The account of a shipwrecked sailor was a comment both on the human need for society and the equally powerful impulse for solitude. But it also offered a dream of building a private kingdom, a self-made Utopia, and being completely self-sufficient.

Plot summary

        William Selkirk was the son of a Scottish tanner, who became the master of the Cinque Ports Galley, a privateering ship. Selkirk went to sea in 1704 under William Dampier and was put ashore at his own request, or according to some sources as a punishment of insubordination, on the island of Juan Fernandez in the Pacific, hundreds of miles off the coast of Chile. The island was uninhabited, and he survived there until his rescue in 1709 by Captain Woodes Rogers. Selkirk claimed that he had become a "better Christian" and it was a positive experience. As a journalist Defoe must have heard his story and possibly interviewed him. Selkirk never did go back to the Pacific island, as Defoe had Crusoe do in two sequels.

        Robinson Crusoe is a mariner who runs away to the sea at the age of 19 despite parental warnings. „...tenkrát se otec zapŕisáhl, že jeho dítě nikdy nesmí vstoupit na loď.....tak jako tebe láká námořnictví, lákala zase Thomase vojenská dobrodružství.....kdybys nám odešel ještě ty, věř mi, dlouho bychom ot nepřežili...“ (pg.20) He suffers a number of misfortunes at the hands of Barbary pirates and the elements. Finally Crusoe is shipwrecked off South America. With salvaging needful things from the ship, including the Bible, Crusoe manages to survive in the island. Aided with his enterprising behavior, Crusoe adapts into his alien environment. After several lone years he sees a strange footprint in the sand. Savages arrive for a cannibal feast. One of their prisoners manages to escape. Crusoe meets later the frightened native and christens him Man Friday and teaches him English. Later an English ship arrives. Crusoe rescues the captain and crew from the hands of mutineers and returns to England. „A tu matka pohleděla pozorněji do jeho tváře a rozpřáhla paže s výkřikem: „Robinsone! Synáčku můj drahý. Tak jsem se přece dočkala!“ (pg.242)

 

Characters

Robinson Crusoe - The novel’s protagonist and narrator

Friday - A twenty-six-year-old Caribbean native and cannibal who converts to Protestantism under Crusoe’s tutelage

The Spaniard - One of the men from the Spanish ship that is wrecked off Crusoe’s Island

The Portuguese captain - The sea captain who picks up Crusoe and the slave boy Xury from their boat after they escape from their Moorish captors and float down the African coast

Xury - A nonwhite (Arab or black) slave boy only briefly introduced during the period of Crusoe’s enslavement in Sallee

 

Narrator

        Robinson Crusoe is a fictional autobiography written from a first-person point of view, apparently written by an old man looking back on his life. „Když jsem se probral k vědomí, nemohl jsem si v prvém okamžiku uvědomit, co se se mnou stalo.“ (pg. 52)  

 

Language

        Robinson Crusoe is intensely hard to read because of the language; Defoe uses run-along sentences which last for over half a page, spelling errors which aren't even consistent, and bad grammar. Also, he spends too long a time describing all that Crusoe made, how he made it, what he used, where he got the tools, etc. Despite this, there are certain sections of the book that are interesting. Defoe's thoughts on religion are quite fascinating, and the adventures are well-thought out.

 

 

Chapters, books

        The whole book is divided into 27 chapters from which each describes and episode of Robinson’s life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe. Praha: Olympia, 1986. Translation: Josef V.Pleva

Thornley, G.C.; Roberts, Gwyneth: An Outline of English Literature.

Essex: Longman Group, 2001.

 

Watt, Ian: The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.

 

Internet:

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/defoe.htm

http://www.online-literature.com/defoe/crusoe/

 

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crusoe/summary.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robinson_Crusoe&printable=yes

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/defoe/

http://www.deadmentellnotales.com/onlinetexts/robinson/crusoe1.shtml

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jdefoe.htm