Book Review
Book Review: Robinson Crusoe
1.Brief introduction about the book
Robinson Crusoe is a novel written by Daniel Defoe and was first published on April 25th 1719. Epistolary, confessional and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the protagonist, Robinson Crusoe. He spends 28 years on a remote island in a tropical area and encounter many challenges to survive himself. It’s an interesting, readable and attractive book on account for not only its interesting and simple narrative style, but also its abundant contents. It is said that the book is based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called “Mas a Tierra” which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.
2. Plot summary
Robinson Crusoe sets sail from Kingston upon Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, which is against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his desire for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, ends in disaster as well, as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is on the route to Brazil. Crusoe sells Xury to the captain upon his request. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation in Brazil.
In the years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa, but he encounters a shipwreck and is trapped in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island near the Venezuelan coast ,which he calls the Island of Despair, near the mouth of the Orinoco river on 30 September 1659. He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on this island. Only he, the captain's dog, and two cats survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society.
More years pass and Crusoe discovers cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. He plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe teaches Friday English and converts him to Christianity.
After more cannibals arrive to take part in a feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and save two prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that other Spaniards are shipwrecked on the mainland. They make a plan that the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port.
Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have taken over the vessel and intend to murder their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship. With their ringleader executed by the captain, the mutineers take up Crusoe's offer to be marooned on the island rather than being returned to England as prisoners who would be hanged. Before starting their trip back to England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island, leaving all his property for him, and says that there will be more men coming.
Crusoe leaves the island on 19th December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed that him was dead and as a result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England from Portugal to avoid traveling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, along the way, they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished and fierce wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.
3. My feelings and review on Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is really an attractive book to read. The experience of Crusoe’s venture and survival on the remote island is very interesting to me. Furthermore, I’m much surprised that he should survive in that arduous and despair situation and escape and go back to the city through so much hard work. Every time I read this book, I’m lost in thinking that if I were him, I would definitely die there. He inspires me and sheds light on me in various aspects.
Crusoe was born in a middle-class family, upon which, his is free from a lot of trouble to a certain extent. In that case, he is happier than most of the people at that time. His father advised him to not to go into adventures. What he said is undoubtedly full of wisdom, and he was deeply worried about his son. But Crusoe did not take his advice and persuasion. On the contrary, he insisted on his own ideas. He finally paid the price, as he is reduced to the deserted island. He regrets that he did not listen to his father's advice only after the real disaster happened. As is often the case, we always think that our ideas are right, and usually ignore the advice of our parents. Not until the real difficulties happens do we really came to understand that how important our parents’ suggestions is and regret that we didn’t accept the correct advice. Our parents are many years older than us, so, to some extent, they know more than we do, in which case, we should think carefully about their suggestions.
In addition, Crusoe's four voyages are actually a little impulsive and unwise. He is already rich enough to make a good living, but he takes the risk of going to sea again. This time, he does not escape from the bad luck and ends up being trapped in the remote island. To a certain extent, we can say that Crusoe's suffering is completely self-inflicted and accounts for the bad aspects in his characteristics. First of all, he does not think carefully and completely in advance and acts impulsively. Second, he is a little greedy for money, ad he puts the money superior to his life in some measures. Third, he is hard to be satisfied and wants more when he has enough money. From his tragic experience, we can see that it is important to think and plan carefully in advance, and that it is not good to be too greedy.
When Crusoe arrives on the island, he has no place to live, no understanding of the environment, and no one to help him. He himself is in a very lonely and despair situation, which, for most of the people, may have lost their hope to make a living. But he doesn't. He accepts it and he starts to to try to create conditions for himself through his intelligence and his knowledge. This highlights the importance of good attitudes towards adversity. No matter what the situation is, a calm mindset is much better than a chaotic one. Besides, I hold a form belief that what Crusoe does on the island is not something that everyone could do. He is able to make bread, tables, pots and so on successfully, largely because he is full of wisdom and knowledge. Were it not for his wisdom and knowledge, he would not have such a successful living on the island. It can be concluded that knowledge is very important. What we have learned may one day become a tool to save our lives. Therefore, we should study hard and acquire knowledge as much as possible, not only from textbooks, but also from real life.
Crusoe has lived on the island for 25 years. During this long time, he hardly allowed himself to rest leisurely. He always works outside when it is not raining, planting the fields, drying the raisins, domesticating the goats. He stays at home during the rainy seasons and process grain and repair the house. His happy life on the island does not come easily. Every good condition is the result of his hard work. It tells us that a good life relies on hard work; indolence can only achieve nothing.
Before Crusoe finds the footprint, he is carefree and has been living easily and happily for a long time without pressure. But after he finds the footprint, he begins to know of the existence of the savage, and then he realizes that the danger is not absent, but has not been noticed. In this case, the sheep he domesticates and the trees he plants are very important. When I was reading it, I was relieved because he has better prepared for his living. We can conclude from this that dangers and difficulties are sometimes latent and may suddenly be discovered at any time. Only when we have prepared well in advance, can we arm ourselves with confidence and sense of security and won't be at a loss when threats suddenly appear. Therefore, it is necessary and important to be alert to potential risks.
Crusoe’s adventure the the remote island sheds light on me from another angle. Current society is too noisy. And we need a life of isolation.
Our lives seem predetermined from the moment we were born. Our parents give us our talents, our family and living environment shape our characteristics, and our schools fill us with knowledge. It seems that we just grow up on a determined schedule. Now that the end is unchanged, what else can we do? What we can do, perhaps, is to seize the opportunity and change our fate in the changing society. Life needs to be worthy living.
Without a purpose in life, or knowing how to achieve it, we easily lose ourselves. The point is that we don't know ourselves well and thoroughly. The most important thing in life is to know ourselves clearly. When we are rich in materials, we often have no time to think and reflect on ourselves. On the contrary, we come to reflect and repent after we encounter misfortune and adversity, as is put by Crusoe: Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries; nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.
Crusoe is a typical example. When the 27-year-old young Crusoe unfortunately is left on a desert island, regret and sadness are mixed in his heart. The punishment of the soul is often more severe than the punishment of the body. Thus, Crusoe begins the process of self-denial to self-transformation. In the past, the life was smooth and peaceful, but why does not he listen to the advice of his parents, and willfully choose to go out to the sea? He already has a prosperous plantation, but why does he blindly listen to others to set sail to Africa to buy slaves?
On the uninhabited island, Crusoe has to use the resources left on the ship for survival. He hunts in the woods with guns, learns to make tools, build and improve shelter, learns to sow grain, learns to make pottery and weave rattan, learns to make fences to domesticate sheep, and even studied to make canoes, all of which is a great project.
Crusoe tells us with his experience that life should have a great goal, but this goal can not be isolated from reality, can not be overambitious, and can not be insatiable. You should also have a strong belief in life to support you and motivate you to achieve your goals. Finally, in order to achieve the goal, we have to work hard. Only through hard work, can life become full and meaningful.
Perhaps in a few decades later, we will have a deep reflection on ourselves like Crusoe: is my life successful? It is better to take the present as the future, to think in advance what will we say to ourselves, than to regret in the future. However, with the rapid development of society, we are too busy to think about our past, our future and our life. As a result, we don't even know what did we do is right and what is wrong.
Life itself is a journey full of problems. To this end, I need to, like Crusoe, find a “desert island”, to work quietly and think quietly. Let’s live a isolated life, free from the noise of the city. Without the restraint of the clock, life becomes more regular. Without excessive desire, it is easier to feel happy inside. In that case, we reflect on the past, and purify our hearts. Life is a process of constant search for self, self-knowledge and self-improvement , with the ultimate purpose of living as ourselves.
4. Most impressive: society, individuality and isolation
At the center of Robinson Crusoe is a tension between society and individuality. As the novel begins, Crusoe 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 as his parents suggest, he would live a more comfortable and smooth life that has already arranged for him by his father and by the constraints of English society. By setting out to sea, Crusoe put his sense of individuality as priority over his family and society at large. Crusoe gets exactly what he asks for and more than he is desirable for when he finds himself stranded alone on the desert island. There, he lives entirely as an individual apart from society and is forced to struggle against nature to survive. He becomes self-sufficient and learns how to make and do things himself, during which he discovers ingenuity he didn't know he had. Thus, one could say that being separated from society leads to Robinson becoming a better person. Crusoe himself seems to come to this conclusion, as he realizes that his experience brings him closer to God and that living alone on the island allows for a life largely without sin: he makes, harvests, and hunts only what he needs, so there is nothing for him to be covetous of or greedy for. And while he is alone, he does not suffer from lust or pride.
Crusoe seems to like his individual existence on the island so much that, at times in the novel, it is unclear whether he even wants to be rescued and returned to society. And when he finally does return to England, he notes how much worry and stress issues of money and property caused him. Nonetheless, there are some problems with Crusoe's value of individuality over society. For one, while Robinson values his own personal liberty, he doesn't respect that of others. He hates being a slave, but is quick to sell Xury into the service of the Portuguese captain. Similarly, he treats Friday as his inferior servant. This maltreatment of others can be related as well to Crusoe's narcissistic style of narration. His narrative is always about himself, to the degree that he is self-centered to some extent and hardly even gives the names of other characters. We never learn the name of his wife, for example, whose death Crusoe describes quickly and unemotionally at the end of the novel before hastening to tell us more of his own adventures. And finally, Crusoe's intense individualism is inseparable from his painful isolation. He feels lonely in Brazil, and then is literally isolated, when he is stranded on his island all alone. His only companions are his animals and, while he learns to enjoy life on the island, he still feels a deep desire for the human companionship that he lacks. Thus, the novel values individuality, but also shows the dangers of narcissism and isolation that may come with it.
While Defoe presents individuality as important, Crusoe does decide to leave his island in the end. And, as we learn when he returns, he turns his haven of individualism into a society—a thriving colony with a substantial population. Society may restrain an individual from being independent in some measures, but it also provides valuable companionship, as human beings are social animals. While Crusoe rejects the claims of society in favor of individuality in the beginning of the novel, he ultimately comes to the stage to try to balance the two.
Hindsight is another thing worth thinking. Crusoe’s hindsight is only gained by making mistakes and learning from them. As his experiences on his island exemplify, knowledge is gained through experience: he learns how to tame goats, cure grapes, build walls, and do all sorts of other things by trying to do these things and learning along the way rather than following someone else's instructions. Similarly, throughout the entire novel Robinson must learn from his own experiences rather than relying on other characters' warnings. Somewhat paradoxically, Crusoe must discount good advice in order to learn from his experiences and realize his mistakes; only then is he in a position to see how good such advice was. With the benefit of hindsight, Crusoe often draws lessons from his own experiences for the reader and gives the reader advice—about obeying God or trusting in providence, for example.
All in all, Robinson Crusoe is a good book worth reading. It has enlightened me in many aspects.
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