Daniel DeFoe’s Character Development of Robinson Crusoe
It has been said over the centuries that “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.” Well, if that is true than the writer Daniel DeFoe’s early 18th century novel Robinson Crusoe could well perhaps be considered the forerunner of the popular enduring genre of literature and film produced over the years that is associated with the Robinsonade genre . Published in England in 1719 under the full title The Life and Strange Surprising 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 …show more content…
For in the second stage of Crusoe’s character development, the author impresses on the reader his main character’s abilities and talents. In painstaking detail, the reader is entertained with the character’s capacity for cleverness and resourcefulness as well as perseverance in spending months making a canoe, building a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable. Crusoe reminds himself and the reader about the value of things when shipwrecked. He says on page 88, “However, this put me upon rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use; for I had other things which my eye was more upon-as, first, tools to work with on shore; and it was after long searching that I found out the carpenter’s chest, which was indeed a very useful prize to me, and much more valuable than a ship-loading of gold would have been at that time.” On page 96, Crusoe goes on to demonstrate his physical and mental agilities in establishing his own security while stranded on an unknown land and with unknown dangers. He says” Then I took the pieces of cable which I had cut in the ship, and laid them in rows one upon another, … leaning against … about two foot and a half high … this fence was so strong, that neither man nor beast could get into it or over it. This cost me a great deal of time and …show more content…
It is, however, DeFoe’s creative and continuous use of imagery in the form of a dream as well as pirates and shipwrecks which is perhaps the most effective device in establishing the turmoil which the main character must pass through in order to receive his redemption. Ought, we know this to be true as pirates and shipwrecks are no less captivating to a reader now than they were four centuries ago and may help explain the durability of DeFoe’s
It has been said over the centuries that “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.” Well, if that is true than the writer Daniel DeFoe’s early 18th century novel Robinson Crusoe could well perhaps be considered the forerunner of the popular enduring genre of literature and film produced over the years that is associated with the Robinsonade genre . Published in England in 1719 under the full title The Life and Strange Surprising 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 …show more content…
For in the second stage of Crusoe’s character development, the author impresses on the reader his main character’s abilities and talents. In painstaking detail, the reader is entertained with the character’s capacity for cleverness and resourcefulness as well as perseverance in spending months making a canoe, building a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable. Crusoe reminds himself and the reader about the value of things when shipwrecked. He says on page 88, “However, this put me upon rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use; for I had other things which my eye was more upon-as, first, tools to work with on shore; and it was after long searching that I found out the carpenter’s chest, which was indeed a very useful prize to me, and much more valuable than a ship-loading of gold would have been at that time.” On page 96, Crusoe goes on to demonstrate his physical and mental agilities in establishing his own security while stranded on an unknown land and with unknown dangers. He says” Then I took the pieces of cable which I had cut in the ship, and laid them in rows one upon another, … leaning against … about two foot and a half high … this fence was so strong, that neither man nor beast could get into it or over it. This cost me a great deal of time and …show more content…
It is, however, DeFoe’s creative and continuous use of imagery in the form of a dream as well as pirates and shipwrecks which is perhaps the most effective device in establishing the turmoil which the main character must pass through in order to receive his redemption. Ought, we know this to be true as pirates and shipwrecks are no less captivating to a reader now than they were four centuries ago and may help explain the durability of DeFoe’s