ROBINSON CRUSOE

“Robinson Crusoe is best understood as a colonial narrative.' Discuss this view of Defoe's novel

“Robinson Crusoe is best understood as a colonial narrative.' Discuss this view of Defoe's novel.

Introduction

The story of Robinson Crusoe has been retold, re-explored and reinterpreted through several generations. However, very few writers gained popularity while narrative his adventures, creating both, controversy and acclaim. Daniel Defoe wrote “The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” in 1719 (Defoe, 1719, p. 198).The story of a shipwrecked Englishman is based on the actual solitary stranding experience of the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who spent a little over our years on an island off the coast of South America before rejoining "civilization" in 1709. In his novel he described and portrayed Robinson Crusoe as a colonial narrative. This essay is based on criticizing and discussing this viewpoint and assessing the novel of Defoe to see if this was a correct portrayal of Crusoe (Stableford, 1991, p. 53).

Discussion: Synthesis of Argument

During his lifetime, Defoe wrote more than 300 work of artistic and journalistic. But true success was brought to him by a book about the adventures of a sailor from York, Robinson Crusoe. The stark and romantic era of development of the world, the era of sea travel to the edge of the world, unknown and mysterious land of islands has long gone. Interest in Defoe's hero does not weaken, but rather strengthens. It is no exaggeration to say that Robinson Crusoe was one of the "eternal characters" of world literature. Defoe “created one of the most familiar and resonant myths of modern literature, The Crusoe Myth. Robinson Crusoe is regarded not only as a classic travel and adventure story, but also as the prototype of the novel, because of its emphasis on the daily, external and internal activities of ordinary people, using the formal realism technique (Ingram, 2001, p. 625-631). It was inspired by the real story of the survival of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor who had been shipwrecked for a number of years on a desert island. It is presented as a story told by an old man about his adventurous life: his experiences on several sea voyages, his adventures as a slave with the Moors, as a planter in Brazil, as a castaway on a desert island, and finally his rescue by a ship and return to civilization. His help and servant is a native he names Friday, and his other companion is a parrot. Defoe's book was rooted in the rise of the modern capitalist society.

We see what makes Robinson's prestige: the loneliness we suffer, even and especially in the middle of the anonymous crowd and oppressive, he has marvelously him, develop and raise the level of an art of living . So at least we commonly imagine the hero of Daniel Defoe, and this allows us to better uncover the mechanism of myth. For the mythological hero, if he sets foot in the heart of every individual is prosaic and modest increase at the ...