Scarica Robinson Crusoe (4 anno) e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! ROBINSON CRUSOE: THE STORY It consists of three separate sections. 1. Tells how Robinson leaves his family when he is 19 and goes to sea to make his fortune. After adventures, he lands in Brazil, where he starts a successful plantation. One day, during an expedition to Africa to buy some slaves for his plantation, he is shipwrecked on a remote island where he spends 20 or 18 years. 2. Is in the form of a diary of Robinson’s experiences on the island. It tells how he is able to partly recreate the world he has left behind him. 3. Robinson returns to England where he learns that his plantation in Brazil has made him rich. THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS HERO Robinson belongs to the middle class which his father praises as the best state in the world, not exposed to the miseries, not embarass’d with pride, luxury and envy of the upper part of mankind. What Robinson has in common with the classical heroes of travel literature is his restlessness, the search for his own identity in alternative to the mode, provided by his father. A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY The novel is full of religious references to God, sin, Providence and salvation. It can be read as a spiritual autobiography in which the hero reads the Bible to find comfort and guidance. Robinson keeps a diary to record events in order to see God’s will in them. What Defoe explores is the conflict between economic motivation and spiritual salvation. THE ISLAND The setting of most of the story is the island and it is the ideal place for Robinson to prove his qualities, to demonstrate that he deserved to be saved by God’s Providence. His stay on the island is not seen as a return to a natural state, but as a chance to exploit and dominate nature. THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY The society Robinson creates on the island is not an alternative to the English one; on the contrary, it can be read as an exaltation of 18th century England and its ideals of mobility, material productiveness and individualism. Defoe shows that the individual can shape his destiny trought action. Robinson has a pragmatic and individualistic outlook. He applies a rational method to every situation: he always starts by observing the situation, then he makes a list of all possible solutions, he considers the pros and cons and he chooses the best alternative.
