Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

- Engagement:

- Ladies and gentlemen…:

- Written in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is situated in a period in which the travelers´ reports were based on the subjective: having the “travels” as a background, these narratives focus the travelers´ impressions about territories, people and their customs, serving as metonymic representations of the arriving of the European in inhospitable lands.

- Three aspects are essential to address Robinson Crusoe as the representative of civilization on the book: work, obstinacy and Christianity. He works on the island with the intention of settling down; has the objective of leaving the island and works with this purpose; and spends his free time reading the Holy Bible.

- These three aspects are very clear when he saves a native, Friday, from being sacrificed. Robinson teaches Friday about Christianity and makes him part of the routine he has always had on the island.

- Read it!:

I inquired if he could tell me how I might go from this island, and get among those white men. He told me, ‘Yes, yes, you may go in two canoe.’ I could not understand what he meant, or make him describe to me what he meant by two canoe, till at last, with great difficulty, I found he meant it must be in a large boat, as big as two canoes. This part of Friday’s discourse I began to relish very well; and from this time I entertained some hopes that, one time or other, I might find an opportunity to make my escape from this place, and that this poor savage might be a means to help me. During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that he began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind; particularly I asked him one time, who made him. The creature did not understand me at all, but thought I had asked who was his father - but I took it up by another handle, and asked him who made the sea, the ground we walked on, and the hills and woods. He told me, ‘It was one Benamuckee, that lived beyond all;’ he could describe nothing of this great person, but that he was very old, ‘much older,’ he said, ‘than the sea or land, than the moon or the stars.’ I asked him then, if this old person had made all things, why did not all things worship him? He looked very grave, and, with a perfect look of innocence, said, ‘All things say O to him.’ I asked him if the people who die in his country went away anywhere? He said, ‘Yes; they all went to Benamuckee.’ Then I asked him whether those they eat up went thither too. He said, ‘Yes.’ From these things, I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God; I told him that the great Maker of all things lived up there, pointing up towards heaven; that He governed the world by the same power and providence by which He made it; that He was omnipotent, and could do everything for us, give everything to us, take everything from us; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great attention, and received with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us; and of the manner of making our prayers to God, and His being able to hear us, even in heaven. He told me one day, that if our God could hear us, up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could not hear till they went up to the great mountains where he dwelt to speak to them. I asked him if ever he went thither to speak to him. He said, ‘No; they never went that were young men; none went thither but the old men,’ whom he called their Oowokakee; that is, as I made him explain to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they went to say O (so he called saying prayers), and then came back and told them what Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is priestcraft even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans in the world; and the policy of making a secret of religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the people to the clergy, not only to be found in the Roman, but, perhaps, among all religions in the world, even among the most brutish and barbarous savages. (DEFOE, 2014, p. 343-347).

- Pay attention to…:

- Who narrates this story? What is in evidence in the excerpt above: the dialog or the thoughts?

- Knowing that Robinson Crusoe is nothing but an adventurous young man in the beginning of the book and a rich man who gets back to the island with the purpose of colonizing it at the end of the story, and Friday escapes from his sacrifice to be called a “good Christian” and to start making part of the European civilization, what do you think the book aims to reveal?

- The rise of the merchant class (the Burgeous), Protestantism, Colonialism and Capitalism. How can you read these items on the book?

- … As well:

- Is it correct to say that Robinson Crusoe and Friday had something in common in terms of belief? What do Robinson´s statements about the native´s ritual tell us about our own religion(s)?

- What do “I” and “my” and their repetitions reveal about the colonizers´ mentality?

- Would you say Robinson Crusoe has a lot to do with the real history? Why (not)?

- What about today?:

- How could the feeling of superiority explain many of the relationships estabilished between people, countries and others nowadays? Do economy and culture play an important role on these relationships?

- Text-web (Read, watch and listen):

- Did you know Robinson Crusoe is based on a true story?

- Its narrative style and subject have inspired several other works, as:

Gulliver´s travels (As viagens de Gulliver, Jonathan Swift, 1726);

Treasure Island (A ilha do tesouro, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1882).

- From the many adaptations to the movies, the ones that stand out are:

Robinson Crusoe (George F. Marion, Estados Unidos, 1916);

Robinson Crusoe (M. A. Wetherell, Inglaterra, 1927 – filme mudo);

Náufrago do Pacífico (Jeff Musso, Estados Unidos, 1951);

As aventuras de Robinson Crusoe (Luís Buñuel, Mexico, 1954);

Robinson Crusoe (George Miller, Rod Hardy, Estados Unidos, 1996).

- Other movies have also been based on Robinson Crusoe´s story: