A Summary and Analysis of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Robinson Crusoe, often called the first English novel, was written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1719. The novel is the tale of one man’s survival on a desert island following a shipwreck. Published in 1719, the book didn’t carry Defoe’s name, and it was offered to the public as a true account of real events, documented by a real man named Crusoe. But readers were immediately sceptical.
In the same year as the novel appeared, a man named Charles Gildon actually published Robinson Crusoe Examin’d and Criticis’d , in which he showed that Crusoe was made up and the events of the novel were fiction. The name ‘Crusoe’, by the way, may have been taken from Timothy Cruso, who had been a classmate of Defoe’s and who had gone on to write guidebooks.
What follows is a short summary of the main plot of Robinson Crusoe , followed by an analysis of this foundational novel and its key themes.
Robinson Crusoe : summary
The novel, famously, is about how the title character, Robinson Crusoe, becomes marooned on an island off the north-east coast of South America. As a young man, Crusoe had gone to sea in the hope of making his fortune. Crusoe is on a ship bound for Africa, where he plans to buy slaves for his plantations in South America, when the ship is wrecked on an island and Crusoe is the only survivor.
Alone on a desert island, Crusoe manages to survive thanks to his pluck and pragmatism. He keeps himself sane by keeping a diary, manages to build himself a shelter, and finda a way of salvaging useful goods from the wrecked ship, including guns.
Twelve years pass in this way, until one momentous day, Crusoe finds a single human footprint in the sand! But he has to wait another ten years before he discovers the key to the mystery: natives from the nearby islands, who practise cannibalism, have visited the island, and when they next return, Crusoe attacks them, using his musket salvaged from the shipwreck all those years ago.
He takes one of the natives captive, and names him Man Friday, because – according to Crusoe’s (probably inaccurate) calendar, that’s the day of the week on which they first meet.
Crusoe teaches Man Friday English and converts him to Christianity. When Crusoe learns that Man Friday’s fellow natives are keeping white prisoners on their neighbouring island, he vows to rescue them. Together, the two of them build a boat. When more natives attack the island with captives, Crusoe and Friday rescue the captives and kill the natives. The two captives they’ve freed are none other than Friday’s own father and a Spanish man.
Crusoe sends them both off to the other island in the newly made boat, telling them to free the other prisoners. Meanwhile, a ship arrives at the island: a mutiny has taken place on board, and the crew throw the captain and his loyal supporters onto the island.
Before the ship can leave, Crusoe has teamed up with the captain and his men, and between them they retake the ship from the mutineers, who settle on the island while Crusoe takes the ship home to England.
Robinson Crusoe has been away from England for many years by this stage – he was marooned on his island for over twenty years – and his parents have died. But he has become wealthy, thanks to his plantations in Brazil, so he gets married and settles down. His wife dies a few years later, and Crusoe – along with Friday – once again leaves home.
Robinson Crusoe : analysis
Robinson Crusoe is a novel that is probably more known about than it is read these days, and this leads to a skewed perception of what the book is really about. In the popular imagination, Robinson Crusoe is a romantic adventure tale about a young man who goes to sea to have exciting experiences, before finding himself alone on a desert island and accustoming himself, gradually, to his surroundings, complete with a parrot for his companion.
In reality, this is only partially true (although he does befriend a parrot at one point). But the key to understanding Defoe’s novel is its context: early eighteenth-century mercantilism and Enlightenment values founded on empiricism (i.e. observing what’s really there) rather than some anachronistic Romantic worship of the senses, or ‘man’s communion with his environment’.
And talking of his environment, Crusoe spends the whole novel trying to build a boat so he can escape his island, and leaves when the first ship comes along. While he’s there, he bends the island’s natural resources to his own ends, rather than acclimatising to his alien surroundings.
In this respect, he’s not so different from a British person on holiday in Alicante, who thinks speaking English very loudly at the Spanish waiter will do the job very nicely rather than attempting to converse in Spanish.
This tells us a great deal about Robinson Crusoe the man but also Robinson Crusoe the novel. It was written at a time when Britain was beginning to expand its colonial sights, and it would shortly become the richest and most powerful country on earth, thanks to its imperial expeditions in the Caribbean, Africa, and parts of Asia, notably India.
Crusoe embodies this pioneering mercantile spirit: he is obsessed with money (he even picks up coins on his island and keeps them, even though he cannot spend them), and takes great pleasure in the physical objects, such as the guns and powder, which he rescues from the wreck. Man Friday is, in the last analysis, his own private servant.
But was Robinson Crusoe the first such ‘Robinsonade’? Not really. This, from Martin Wainwright: ‘There is a tale for our troubled times about a man on a desert island, who keeps goats, builds a shelter and finally discovers footprints in the sand. But it is not called Robinson Crusoe. It was written by a wise old Muslim from Andalusia and is the third most translated text from Arabic after the Koran and the Arabian Nights.’
That book is The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan , known as the first Arabic novel (just as Robinson Crusoe is often cited as the first English novel), written in the twelfth century by a Moorish philosopher living in Spain.
Yes, Robinson Crusoe wasn’t the first fictional narrative to take place on a desert island, although it has proved the most influential among English writers.
Although Defoe is widely believed to have been influenced by the real-life experiences of the Scottish man Alexander Selkirk (who spent over four years alone on a Pacific island, living on fish, berries, and wild goats), one important textual influence that has been proposed is Hai Ebn Yokdhan’s book.
Severin cites the case of a man named Henry Pitman, who wrote a short book recounting his adventures in the Caribbean (not the Pacific, which is where Selkirk was marooned) following his escape from a penal colony and his subsequent shipwrecking and survival on a desert island.
Pitman appears to have lived in the same area of London as Defoe, and Defoe may have met Pitman in person and learned of his experiences first-hand. It is also revealing that both men had taken part in the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 (in the wake of which, at Judge Jeffreys’ infamous ‘Bloody Assizes’, Defoe was lucky not to be sentenced to death).
2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe”
Ummm.. who was “the wise old muslim”? What was the book? Another precursor is Henry Neville’s The Isle of Pines, pub;ished a few years earlier. https://www.cbeditions.com/GoodMorningMrCrusoe.html for another intreresting history and meditation on RC.
- Pingback: Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer. * | dual personalities
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Robinson Crusoe
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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Robinson Crusoe: Introduction
Robinson crusoe: plot summary, robinson crusoe: detailed summary & analysis, robinson crusoe: themes, robinson crusoe: quotes, robinson crusoe: characters, robinson crusoe: symbols, robinson crusoe: literary devices, robinson crusoe: quizzes, robinson crusoe: theme wheel, brief biography of daniel defoe.
Historical Context of Robinson Crusoe
Other books related to robinson crusoe.
- Full Title: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited 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.
- When Written: Shortly before 1719
- Where Written: England
- When Published: 1719
- Literary Period: Robinson Crusoe is often regarded as one of the foundational novels of literary realism.
- Genre: Novel, adventure story.
- Setting: England, Morocco, Brazil, an uninhabited island in the Caribbean, Portugal, Spain, and France, in the mid-to-late 17th century.
- Climax: Robinson rescues the English captain, helps him recapture his ship, and finally leaves his island.
- Antagonist: Robinson mostly struggles against the forces of nature (from storms to earthquakes to wild wolves), which can themselves be regarded as instruments of fate and God's providence.
Extra Credit for Robinson Crusoe
The Sequel. Defoe's novel was so popular that he wrote a sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, living up to Robinson's promise at the end of the novel to relate his adventures after joining his nephew on a trading ship in a future account.
Art Imitates Life Imitates Art. Defoe's novel was inspired by the real-life survival of Alexander Selkirk on an abandoned island, Más a Tierra. In 1966, to honor Defoe's famous novel, the island was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island.
Robinson Crusoe
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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 76-144
Pages 145-200
Pages 201-225
Character Analysis
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Discussion Questions
God’s Providence
The work of God’s providence is a major theme in Robinson Crusoe . From beginning to end, Crusoe finds the work of God’s direction to be the force behind, and cause of, his circumstances. When first stranded, Crusoe decries what’s happened to him, wondering why the world has treated him in this way. Upon deeper reflection, Crusoe comes to consider his circumstances to be the result of his wretched life and choices, such as planning to help fellow merchants bring slaves to Brazil from Africa. But soon after, Crusoe believes his role of castaway provides the chance for his own deliverance from sin into a true Christian life. It’s important to note that often Crusoe strengthens his belief in providence only to later doubt it, before again becoming devout.
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At the center of Robinson Crusoe is a tension between society and individuality. As the novel begins, Robinson breaks free of his family and the middle-class society in which they live in order to pursue his own life. If he were to stay at home, he would live a life already arranged for him by his father and by the constraints of English society.
Crusoe believes that his major sin is his rebellious behavior toward his father, which he refers to as his “original sin,” akin to Adam and Eve’s first disobedience of God. This biblical reference also suggests that Crusoe’s exile from civilization represents Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden. For Crusoe, repentance consists of ...
Mini Essays. 1. Defoe has his hero practice two different types of writing in the novel. One type is the journal that Crusoe keeps for a few chapters until his ink runs out. The other is the fuller type of storytelling that makes up the bulk of the novel. Both are in the first-person voice, but they produce different effects.
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe deals with the themes of fear, religion, civilization, and ultimately, the human condition. Read an analysis of these themes and more with the eNotes guide.
Robinson Crusoe, often called the first English novel, was written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1719. The novel is the tale of one man’s survival on a desert island following a shipwreck. Published in 1719, the book didn’t carry Defoe’s name, and it was offered to the public as a true account of real events, documented by a real man ...
Friday (left) and Robinson Crusoe, lithograph by Currier & Ives, c. 1874. Robinson Crusoe, novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in London in 1719. Defoe’s first long work of fiction, it introduced two of the most-enduring characters in English literature: Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Crusoe is the novel’s narrator.
Christianity. Crusoe relies on God to take care of him and also fears God's punishment for abandoning his family and for his lack of faith and gratitude on past occasions. He finds his quality of life improves as his faith in God becomes stronger, and this motivates him to continue. He begins to believe that God has placed him on the earth for ...
Literary Period: Robinson Crusoe is often regarded as one of the foundational novels of literary realism. Genre: Novel, adventure story. Setting: England, Morocco, Brazil, an uninhabited island in the Caribbean, Portugal, Spain, and France, in the mid-to-late 17th century. Climax: Robinson rescues the English captain, helps him recapture his ...
The work of God’s providence is a major theme in Robinson Crusoe. From beginning to end, Crusoe finds the work of God’s direction to be the force behind, and cause of, his circumstances. When first stranded, Crusoe decries what’s happened to him, wondering why the world has treated him in this way. Upon deeper reflection, Crusoe comes to ...