Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe was born into a family of dissenters/Protestant which refused the
authority of the church of England. Defoe began working as an apprentice, and then
went into business on is whole. He suffered two bankruptcies which he faced both
with legal and illicit means. He started to write in Whigs papers as a journalist
his greatest achievement was the review, the periodical which he published three
times a week for around 10 years. He became a famous and well-paid intellectual by
writing political essays and pamphlets till the reign of Queen Anne, in which he
was imprisoned, he even appeared in the pillory, which turned into triumph when
some of his friends through flowers at him instead of rocks or rotten eggs. He
denied his Whig ideas so as to be freed and became a secret agent for the new
government. He started to write novels and published Robinson Crusoe, Captain
Singelton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack and Roxana.
Thanks to the money he earned with these works, he could afford a comfortable
standard of life, but his old creditors led him into numerous adventure till his
death.
Defoe is generally regarded as the father of the English novel, the representative
of a new social class that wanted to see their life and ideals portrayed in
literature. His narrative technique was original and became the basis for the
development of the realistic novel. His novels are fictional autobiographies. The
structure of the novels is characterised by a series of episodes and adventures
held together by the unifying presence of a single hero. Defoe neither planned
these works nor revised his writings, his main aim was to produce a large and
effective output not intended for a critical audience. He used retrospective first
person narration and the author’s point of view mainly conceded with the main
characters the characters are presented from the inside they usually appear in
insolation physically or socially.

Robinson Crusoe
The main character is Robinson Kreutznaer, anglicised Crusoe, Born in York of a
German father and an English mother. At the age of 19 he decides to leave his home
in order to travel around the world and make his fortune. On his third journey from
Africa to Brazil where he has a plantation in which he is bringing slaves, he is
shipwrecked on a desert island where he will remain for 28 years, in which he
gradually re-builds the same society as existed in his country. He writes a diary
where he records his experience day by day. After 12 years of solitude he found
human footprint on the shore, he also found some human bones and flesh left by
cannibals. Once Robison decided to attack them, they escaped and left one of their
captives, whom he called Friday, after the day of his rescue. When other cannibals
land on the island, Robinson and Friday attacked them and freed two of their
prisoners, one of them was Friday‘s father. The novel ends with Robinsons return to
England and his discovery that his plantation in Brazil has prospered and made him
very rich.
The setting of most of the story is the island, the ideal place for Robinson to
prove his qualities, and demonstrate that he deserves to be saved by God’s
providence. Robinson’s stay on the island is not seen as a return to nature but as
a chance to exploit and dominate nature.
The hero, Robinson, belongs to the middle-class, he is restless and wants to find
his own identity as an alternative to the model provided by his father. The story
begins with an act of transgression, Robinson’s life on the island develops the
issue of the relationship between the individual and the society. The society
created by Robinson it’s not an alternative to the English one and it can be read
as an exaltation of 18th-century England.
Defoe shows that, though God is the prime cause of everything, the individual can
shape his destiny throughout action. Men can overcome doubt and modify reality
throughout his work and the interpretation of his achievement in the light of the
Bible and God’s will. Robinson has a pragmatic and individualistic outlook. His
objective and rational approach to reality is demonstrated by his journal keeping.
Friday is the first native character to be portrayed in the English novel, he is
attractive and lively. The moment Robinson rescues him he teaches him the word
‘master’, western culture and to read the Bible, so Friday becomes a symbol of the
colonised.
The novel shows an objective approach to the events throughout clear and precise
details, the language is simple, matter of fact and concrete to reinforce the
impression of reality conveyed by the first person narration.