Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) is regarded as the most notable forerunner of the English Novel or to some extent the first English Novel. It was written at the beginning a century that witnessed great changes in the economic order. The cognoscenti have dealt with the character of Robinson Crusoe, bringing out several points of view. The motive of this piece of work is to study Crusoe’s philosophy about trade, religion and non-Europeans in its historical background. These three facets of Crusoe’s personality are inherently connected with each other and are thus fundamental to an appreciation of Crusoe’s mindset and character. His disposition towards dealings and religion is prompted by realistic considerations. He capitalizes on non-Europeans and is backed by spiritual beliefs in his discriminating treatment. The next consideration of the three main aspects of Crusoe’s nature will help us to grasp his character and inform us of the prevalent trends of the Eighteenth Century.
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Right from the beginning, Crusoe appears to be a star-crossed navigator and tradesman, however his ambitions are not impeded by shipwrecks and captivity. He is not the archetype of a man who could be impelled to abandon his Marxist principles by bad luck; contrariwise these misfortunes and his defencelessness tend to become a driving force. Robinson has the personality of a well-bred dealer whom setback or hardship does not break but whose perseverance and composure are magnified. Such mischance adds to his wisdom and predisposes him to future challenges.
He never omits any scope for investment and commerce. In Brazil, besides exploring other opportunities for making money, he cautiously inspects the land, the plantations, and the regulation of the country. Crusoe undoubtedly inherited his methodical and businesslike way of living from his natal home in York. To put down roots as a planter in Brazil, it is needed to acquire property and obtain an allowable license. He makes profits on the situation and starts out to contemplate future prospects as a prosperous planter.
Crusoe is the only one who survives from the hapless shipwreck. Although the craft is filled with water, he takes all the useful items to the island. He dwells on this remote island thanks to his remarkable shrewdness. His living – the supervision of the resources on the isle – and his discrimination in the dreariest details of everyday life are germane to his mercantile interests. Albeit he calls money a “Drug” and “nasty, sorry, useless Stuff” he does not get rid of it but rather encases it in a piece of canvas and preserves it for the future.
Robinson Crusoe’s life as a dynamic trader arises out of his arrival in Lisbon after having spent more than twenty-eight years on the island. It is as though he were leading off a new life – from scratch – inquiring about the state of his plantation in Brazil and aiming at renewing his old trade contacts. He discovers that his plantation is still thriving and earns from its profits over five thousand pounds in sterling silver. Thenceforth, he disposes of his plantings and takes up residence in England.
Crusoe’s feeling about nature is likewise practical. He exploits the island exclusively for his own subsistence and satisfaction and feels no aesthetic gladness form its magnificent scenery. He just fusses about the improvement of his land and has no leisure to notice that the island provides a beautiful landscape. Crusoe’s sole pleasure comes from examining his goods: “I had everything so ready at my Hand” and “that is was a great Pleasure to me to see all my Goods in such order and especially to find my Stock of all Necessaries so great”.
He always pleaded for his freedom when he was on the Island of Despair. But after his deliverance, and on getting back home, he is not inclined to overlook the investment he has made in the island. Apart from his nostalgic association for him, the island is linked to his commercial motives. He writes: “Besides this I shar’d the island into parts with ’em, reserv’d to myself the Property of the whole, but gave them such Parts respectively as they agre’d on; and having settl’d all Things with them, and engag’d them not to leave the Place, I left them there”.
Crusoe’s penchant for mercantilism proves to be surprisingly realistic and precautionary; his thrifty investments have brought him a substantial coming back. He is an affluent tradesman and his adventures represent the virtues of individualism and absolute economic, social and intellectual freedom for the individual.
Despite the recurrent religious cogitations in Defoe’s story, we are aware that it would be inaccurate to take the purpose of the novel or even its central theme as being pious in nature. Intuitively assessed, the book looks secular, more instantly and more steadily concerned with a man’s earthly fulfillment than with his duty towards the Providence under the guidance of religion.
After returning to England, Crusoe’s comparison of himself to the biblical character Job in chapter XXIX displays much about how he gives his martyrdom religious meaning: “I might well say now indeed, that the latter End of Job was better than the Beginning. It is impossible to express here the Flutterings of my very Heart when I looked over these Letters and especially when I found all my Wealth about me; for as the Brazil Ships come all in Fleets, the same Ships which brought my Letters brought my Goods…” . Like Job, whose religious devotion was gauged by God through the deprivation of family and wealth, Crusoe is dispossessed of his money while nonetheless pledging allegiance to the Deity.
In a similar way, the protagonist’s pride in escaping the “middle Station” is a mark of Greek mythology in which the characters suffer from hubris and are therefore scourged by their sin. His father’s dictum sounds like a prophetic statement for Crusoe’s predicament: “Boy might be happy if he would stay at Home, but if he goes abroad he will be the most miserable Wretch that was ever born.” He unremittingly ponders over his connection with the Lord throughout the novel and how much God is penalizing him for his “wicked Days”.
Halfway through the novel, Robinson, after a long rumination on whether religion allowed him to murder without warning or provoking the cannibals on the island, ends by observing that they might kill him. His observation is: “Religion joyned in with this prudential…me”. Religion has a way of concurring with the protection and comfort of Defoe’s fictional character. As we said previously, Crusoe’s maiden imprudence is going off to sea without his father’s consent, which is viewed by him and is considered to be so viewed by us, as deliberate insubordination to God, that these calamities are meant to lead him into remorse for his offence and into the pardon and kindness of God, and that his ultimate prosperity is a proof of God’s care for him. Despite the dramatic events, Crusoe’s temperament does not seem to alter, even if he is in a state of sin or of repentance.
The necessity of repentance is a key element in the novel. The Preface indicates the moral and religious dimensions of the story, which states that Crusoe’s travelogue is published to instruct others in God’s wisdom and the importance of repenting one’s sins: “The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always apply them to the Instruction of others by this Example, and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances, let them happen how they will.”
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Crusoe needs compunction most when he is told from the fiery angelic figure that comes to him during a feverish hallucination and says: “Seeing all these Things have not brought you to repentance, now you shall die.” He believes that his major sin is his rebellious behaviour towards his father, which he compares to a biblical reference: “I have been in all my Circumstances a Memento to those who are touched with the general Plague of Mankind, whence, for ought I know, one half of their Miseries flow; I mean, that of not being satisfy’d with the Station wherein God and Nature has plac’d them; for not to look back upon my primitive Condition, and the excellent Advice of my Father, the Opposition to which was, as I may call it, my original Sin.” It is akin to Adam and Eve’s defiance of God, which may suggest that Crusoe’s exile from civilization symbolizes Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden. According to Robinson, contrition consists of acknowledging his desolation and his complete reliance upon the Lord.
A main part of the plot of the novel relies on the fact that Crusoe is shipwrecked on the island as God’s way of bringing him to repentance and redemption. On several occasions in the novel, Defoe achieved a kind of grandeur of vision; in which the might and majesty of God are praised: “…I had now brought my state of life…next to miraculous.” Here the Puritan sense of the grace of God for an unworthy sinner is well-expressed. It is unlikely that a hypocrite would pen these lines. If the intensity of religious belief appears less in Defoe and the concern with substantial success greater than in the works of his puritan predecessors, that intensity of feeling is yet anything but missing. This may seem the mark of a hypocritical religious belief, despising the wealthy yet labouring to achieve them, but to the Puritan, there is nothing contradictory in this.
The most unpleasant leitmotiv in Defoe’s novel is the way Crusoe behaves towards non-Europeans. The fact that his attitude is very repulsive arouses our interest, for it assures us to understand the foundations of British Imperialism that were being laid at when the novel was written. There is no possibility but that the opinions expressed by Crusoe are those of the author as well. We know enough of Defoe’s own political career as an agent of the Prime Minister who made the treaty endowing Great Britain with its slaving rights, Sir Robert Harely, to be certain he was in concord with British policy. Moreover it is obvious that Defoe is manifesting his casual sense of superiority to non-Europeans, as shown by his readers’ sympathy, even to the point of making “native” humour one of the interests of the novel.
We shall consider four aspects of Robinson Crusoe before trying to come to some conclusion: the jocular use of language to characterize non-Europeans; the prejudice practiced by Crusoe; Crusoe’s belief that other peoples should work for him; and his reflections on “nationality”.
The first part of the demonstration seems innocuous, but it is not. The problem lies in the fact that both Xury and Friday speak very bad English indeed. Concerning Xury, the thing that may surprise us is that he speaks English, because we are told that Crusoe had no fellow-Europeans to communicate with while he was at Sallee. We should expect that he and his fellow slaves would speak Turkish or Arabic or Berber, some language that is used in the Maghreb. Nevertheless Xury speaks bad English in conversing with Crusoe. As for Friday, he could not utter a word in English before meeting Crusoe. Yet, his English is no better than Xury’s, even after some three or four years of continual conversation in English. Despite this, other foreigners, from Europe like the Portuguese sea-captain, speak completely good English.
Now the vernacular is one mark, a most meaningful sign, of the equivalence between human beings. That Defoe presents Xury and Friday thus, making funny use of their defective English, has the insidious effect of making us perceive them as somehow inferior to Crusoe and to Englishmen in general.
The second thing to clarify is another token of Crusoe’s discrimination. In the episode where Crusoe, after having decided not to interfere in the cannibalistic customs of the Indians on the island, changes his mind on the spur of the moment and does interfere, the reason of his intervention is that one of the victims is a European. This could be abstractly justified, on the basis of Crusoe’s concept of nationalities. Still, this would be too insubstantial to account for the strength of Crusoe’s reaction. Friday’s pronouncement that one of the victims is a European “fired all the very Soul within” him. He was “filled with Horror at the very Naming of the white bearded man,” whom he saw vividly was “a European, and had clothes on.” Such a fact clearly unfolds Crusoe’s real sympathy for Europeans, whatever he might say in calmer moments.
The coming idea we have referred to is not easy to elaborate. We can pay attention to the fact that Crusoe is never disposed to acknowledge a relation on equal terms with non-Europeans. He purposely strives for appearing to them awe-inspiring and assumes, as a matter of course, that they should be willing to offer up their lives for his privilege.
Lastly, the fourth aspect to expound is that Crusoe’s concept of nationalities, though not racist, seems to be prejudiced against the bulk of “native” peoples who are seen as evil and deserving of God’s punishment. It is true that he leaves it to God to punish them, but the expression of the theory is meant to limit our empathy for them. In the following paragraph Crusoe goes on to observe: “…we did not know by what Light and Law these should be condemned; but that as God was necessarily, and by the Nature of His Being, infinitely holy and just, so it could not be, but that if these Creatures were all sentenced to Absence from himself; it was on Account of sinning against the Light…”.
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