As time passed, Crusoe became a skilled craftsman, able to construct many useful things, and thus furnished himself with diverse comforts. He also learned about farming, as a result of some seeds which he brought with him. An illness prompted some prophetic dreams, and Crusoe began to reappraise his duty to God. Crusoe explored his island and discovered another part of the island much richer and more fertile, and he built a summer home there.
One of the first tasks he undertook was to build himself a canoe in case an escape became possible, but the canoe was too heavy to get to the water. He then constructed a small boat and journeyed around the island. Crusoe reflected on his earlier, wicked life, disobeying his parents, and wondered if it might be related to his isolation on this island.
After spending about fifteen years on the island, Crusoe found a man's naked footprint, and he was sorely beset by apprehensions, which kept him awake many nights. He considered many possibilities to account for the footprint and he began to take extra precautions against a possible intruder. Sometime later, Crusoe was horrified to find human bones scattered about the shore, evidently the remains of a savage feast. He was plagued again with new fears. He explored the nature of cannibalism and debated his right to interfere with the customs of another race.
Crusoe was cautious for several years, but encountered nothing more to alarm him. He found a cave, which he used as a storage room, and in December of the same year, he spied cannibals sitting around a campfire. He did not see them again for quite some time.
Later, Crusoe saw a ship in distress, but everyone was already drowned on the ship and Crusoe remained companionless. However, he was able to take many provisions from this newly wrecked ship. Sometime later, cannibals landed on the island and a victim escaped. Crusoe saved his life, named him Friday, and taught him English. Friday soon became Crusoe's humble and devoted slave.
Crusoe and Friday made plans to leave the island and, accordingly, they built another boat. Crusoe also undertook Friday's religious education, converting the savage into a Protestant. Their voyage was postponed due to the return of the savages. This time it was necessary to attack the cannibals in order to save two prisoners since one was a white man. The white man was a Spaniard and the other was Friday's father. Later the four of them planned a voyage to the mainland to rescue sixteen compatriots of the Spaniard. First, however, they built up their food supply to assure enough food for the extra people. Crusoe and Friday agreed to wait on the island while the Spaniard and Friday's father brought back the other men. Daniel Defoe in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature.txt pp.3-7
A week later, they spied a ship but they quickly learned that there had been a mutiny on board. By devious means, Crusoe and Friday rescued the captain and two other men, and after much scheming, regained control of the ship. The grateful captain gave Crusoe many gifts and took him and Friday back to England. Some of the rebel crewmen were left marooned on the island.
Crusoe returned to England and found that in his absence he had become a wealthy man. After going to Lisbon to handle some of his affairs, Crusoe began an overland journey back to England. Crusoe and his company encountered many hardships in crossing the mountains, but they finally arrived safely in England. Crusoe sold his plantation in Brazil for a good price, married, and had three children. Finally, however, he was persuaded to go on yet another voyage, and he visited his old island, where there were promises of new adventures to be found in a later account.
Some words about the translation of the novel
Many sides of his worldview can be found in his Diary. The except of if we shall try to analyze. And this put me in mind that I wanted many things, not with standing all that I had amassed together, and of this ink was one, as also spade pickaxe, and shovel, to dies or remove the earth, needless, pins and thread, as for liner I soon learned to want “These lines are translated into Russian by M. A. Shishmoreva thus.
Conclusion
Robinson Crusoe, the narrator of the story, tells us that he was born in 1632 in the city of York, England. His father, a German immigrant, married a woman whose name was Robinson, and his real name was Robinson Kreutznaer, but due to the natural corruption of languages, the family now writes their name "Crusoe." He was the third son; his oldest brother was killed in a war, and the next son simply disappeared.
When Robinson Crusoe first had an urge to go to sea, his father lectured him upon the importance of staying home and being content with his "middle station" in life. His father maintained that the "middle station had the fewest disasters and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind." After his father expressly forbade him to go to sea, and, furthermore, promised to do good things for him if he stayed home, for another whole year, Robinson Crusoe stayed at home, but he constantly thought of adventures upon the high sea. He tried to enlist the aid of his mother, pointing out that he was now eighteen years old and if he did not like the sea, he could work diligently and make up for the time he might lose while at sea. She refused to help him, even though she did report his strong feelings to her husband.
When Robinson was nineteen, on the first of September, in 1651, he joined a friend on a ship bound for London, without consulting either his father or mother. Almost immediately, "the wind began to blow, and the sea to rise in a most frightful manner." Robinson Crusoe, who had never been to sea before, saw this as a sign that he was justly "overtaken by the judgment of Heaven" for his wicked leaving of his father's house without letting anyone know. He was so frightened that he made the promise: "If it would please God here to spare my life in this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived." The wind soon abated, and the next morning the sea was so calm and so beautiful that he entirely forgot the vows and promises that he had made in his distress, and joined the other sailors in a drinking bout.
As they neared a place called Yarmouth Roads, the winds ceased to blow and thus they were stilled for eight days, and when the winds did begin to blow, the ship immediately encountered a storm much more violent than the earlier one. Even the most experienced sailors were down on their knees praying. The storm continued with such fury that the seamen acknowledged that they had never known a worse one.
When the boat sprung a leak, Robinson was ordered below to help pump the water. It soon became apparent that they would not be able to save the ship and the captain fired several volleys of distress signals. A lighter ship in the vicinity made it up to their ship and was able to take the crew away from the sinking ship, which foundered soon after they left.
The crew finally got to shore, where Robinson Crusoe met his friend's father, who owned the ship. When the captain heard Robinson Crusoe's story, he felt strongly that it was the "hand of Providence" instructing Robinson Crusoe never to go to sea any more. He told the young man: "You ought to take this for a plain and visible token that you are not to be a seafaring man." He even wondered if he had done something wrong that such a person as Robinson Crusoe should "come onto his ship," and he warned Crusoe again that "you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments" if he did not go back to his father's house.
The impetus for the idea for Robinson Crusoe came to Defoe from his reading of the account of a man named Alexander Selkirk who, in a fit of anger, had himself put ashore on a deserted island. Earlier, Selkirk had gotten into a fight with a fellow crewman and had himself and his effects put ashore on an island outside of Chili. When he realized the effect of his actions, he pleaded with his shipmates to come back for him, but it was too late. He was marooned on the island for four and a half years. When he was later rescued, the report states that he could hardly speak any more, but he did apparently quickly regain his speech.
The account of Alexander Selkirk was published widely throughout England; he was the subject of an article by Richard Steele in the Englishman, and an account of his adventures appeared in many other papers. Consequently, Defoe was quite familiar with Selkirk's adventures, and some biographers maintain that Defoe interviewed Selkirk personally, but this is debatable.
Many of Selkirk's activities on his island are paralleled by Robinson Crusoe on his island; for example, Selkirk fed on turnips, fish, and goat's meat; he became overrun with cats, and he had to use his ingenuity to survive, all reflected in Defoe's novel. In addition, Alexander Selkirk's original name had been Alexander Sclera, just as Robinson Crusoe's real name had been Robinson Kreutznaer.
A clue to one of the basic ideas of the novel is given in the first chapter, when Crusoe's father admonished his son to stay "in the middle station" of life--this station being the one which "had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind." Crusoe's pride would not allow him to remain in this "middle station." So Crusoe, like the protagonists in many Greek myths and dramas, suffers from the sin of hubris and is accordingly punished. Often during his confinement on the island, Crusoe is reminded of his father's advice and rues his own impulsiveness. Furthermore, the father's pronouncement that his "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" becomes a prophetic statement which foreshadows Crusoe's later predicament.
The father's prediction comes true sooner than even Crusoe could expect. His first boat founders and Crusoe makes solemn vows in a time of trouble, but as soon as the trouble is over, he forgets his vows. Thus, we have his first reneging on his word to God. Throughout the rest of the novel, he will constantly contemplate his relationship with God and how much God is punishing him for his "wicked ways."
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