Sunday, September 16, 2007

Crusoe-Is He A Relatable Character Or Not?

Reading through Robinson Crusoe, I found myself constantly questioning whether I could relate to the main character or not. Sure, I identified with his rebelliousness at first, because people often don't want to become what their parents want them to be. But after his first incident with sailing almost cost him his life, I would figure one would be hesitant to go to sea again. Yet Crusoe persists in his desires and eventually becomes a slave to someone who takes over the ship he was sailing on. He escapes his confinement and is rescued. He gets himself some land and would have lived a happy and content life if he had stayed there, yet he goes to sea YET AGAIN. After Crusoe ends up on the island, I thought to myself, "here is a man who can never be satisfied; I hope the island teaches him a lesson." Crusoe is way too lucky on the island, since he is able to find food, ammunition, clothes, and all manner of things on the boat which crashed near the island. It was certainly believable to an extent, but after a while I became a little incredulous at all the luck he came across (goats, rice and barley, and all the things he was able to make by himself). I felt a connection with Crusoe when he started to believe in God because it is certainly something that can happen to someone stranded on an island all alone. He gives thanks for being the sole survivor of the boat crash and all the supplies he manages to get from the boat, yet he almost squanders it all away when he rides his canoe around the island and is almost lost to the current. I mean, how is it logical for a person who has had so much misfortune on the seas, and has come to believe in an omnipotent God, to go out and risk his life on the water again, especially after living a comfortable life on a deserted island for a number of years? His fear of the footprint was one of the few things I could relate to, because he thought savages were after him. If anyone was on an island for over ten years and saw a footprint, they would be freaked out, since they would be so used to isolation. In fact, I'm surprised Crusoe didn't go mad when he first landed on the island; though the book makes mention of a brief moment of madness, it certainly passes very quickly. All in all, taking into account all of the things I have mentioned, Crusoe comes off as a highly unique, interesting character; though not a very relatable one.

2 comments:

Lilia Ford said...

I like that you note that "here is a man who can never be satisfied; I hope the island teaches him a lesson." How do these two themes connect--or contradict each other? Does Crusoe think he has been taught a lesson? What lesson is that? He speaks frequently of providence--he believes that he was stranded on the island as part of God's punishment--or lesson--and yet you still question if he has really changed--or learned from his past. I like how you note the way he goes off in the boat. I agree that it poses a real problem: in some ways Crusoe seems content--he is pleased with what he has done on the island--but in other ways he does not seem like a person who achieves that deep religious contentment that is sometimes called "quietude." My question, which I will come back to in class, is: do we consider him implausibly contradictory? a hypocrite? or something else? Brooke Nadell

Sophie said...

I really enjoyed what you wrote. I thought about that a lot, how he can continue going back to sea and I think that he thought that taking risks an everyday life to him and it is what makes him, him. He doesn’t want to be what his father wanted and if it were up to his father he wouldn’t have ever left his home. But he did, and he lived a life that his father would’ve never dreamed off for him. We may not think it was that great since he went through a lot. But who doesn’t want to live an island all alone where you are not bothered by anyone but eventually we get out of that dream and come back to reality but to Crusoe this was his reality and I think that’s the best part of it. He got everything. He got the Island; he is rich, married, and kids. What else can one person ask for, and he was saved more than anyone can count