Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

Robinson Crusoe

 LIFE:

Daniel Foe (he changed it to the more aristocratic-sounding “Defoe” as an adult) was born c. 1660 in London, to a dissenting, working-class (or lower-middle-class) family.  His father was a tallow-chandler (define). “Dissenter” was a catch-all term for Protestants who did not belong to the Church of England, and included Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists/Puritans, and (later) Methodists; dissenters tended to be middle-class, moralistic, and upwardly mobile.  His religious history meant that Daniel was unable to attend either of the major British universities (Oxford and Cambridge both then required adherence to the Church of England).  Instead, he attended “a Dissenting academy” to study for the Presbyterian ministry (McGowan).   In the event, he did not enter the ministry but became a merchant, with some initial success but usually burdened by debt; he went bankrupt in 1692 when war with France caused an economic downturn in England.  At 33, he turned to journalism for his living.

Defoe had begun to write political pamphlets during his 20s, a dangerous endeavor at the time, since the king, James II, was Catholic and anti-Protestant; things improved somewhat under the next king, William. Defoe continued to write political essays, and again faced political persecution in the early 18^th century and was imprisoned for three months for a satire he had written.  On his release, probably for financial reasons, he switched sides, writing from the Conservative (Tory) point of view. His position on any issue seems to have been for sale.  At one point he was writing for both sides – secretly for the anti-government party (Whigs) and openly for the Tories.  He also engaged in domestic espionage for the Whigs when they were in power.

His writing primarily consisted of such hack work until he published Robinson Crusoe, considered by some to be the first modern English novel, in 1719.  The success of Crusoe led Defoe to write further novels, while continuing to work as a political journalist (what we today would call a columnist, rather – he wasn’t reporting news but writing political opinion).  All of his novels were closely related to nonfiction writing – e.g., A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), purporting to be a true journalistic account, describes events that happened before Defoe was old enough to remember them. Robinson Crusoe itself is based on the story of real-life survivor Alexander Selkirk. 

Robinson Crusoe

      The story of Robinson Crusoe is based on accounts of the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish would-be pirate who was abandoned on the Pacific Island of Más a Tierra in September 1704. Unlike Crusoe, Selkirk was deliberately marooned (after a dispute with the captain of the ship on which he was sailing) and nowhere near as well supplied; he also only remained on the island for  52 months, rather than Crusoe’s 28 years.  The island was a common resupply source for English privateers (pirates) in the Pacific off Chile, and Selkirk was confident he would be rescued soon; in the event, however, he was not picked up until February 1709, when another English privateer picked him up.  He joined the crew of this new ship and, by the time he arrived back in London in 1711, had a fortune of about ₤800 – a healthy nest egg in those days.

      Selkirk’s story was told in an English paper by essayist Richard Steele in 1713.  Steele was a friend of Defoe’s and a likely source for Crusoe, although it is also possible that Defoe met Selkirk himself through Steele. Defoe clearly added a lot of details, as well as moving the island from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast of South America and setting in about 50 years earlier.  One apparent invention, the character of Friday, was possibly based on reality, however.  Sometime before Selkirk’s time on Más a Tierra, a South American Indian named Will was similarly marooned there, and some details of Friday may be taken from him.

      Robinson Crusoe was immediately successful, with four printings in its first year (1719) alone.  Although Crusoe was certainly not written as a children’s book, it was quickly taken up by children, as the child-friendly chapbook version we have before us shows.  It was translated into French the next year and into other European languages over the next half century, and spawned a number of literary imitators, including J.D. Wyss’s Swiss Family Robinson in 1812 and R.M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island in 1858, both noteworthy children’s books.  J.M. Coetzee’s Foe and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies are 20^th-century adult novels derived from Crusoe; ironically, Golding’s book is more commonly read in school, at least in American high schools, than Defoe’s.

      Even in the greatly abbreviated chapbook version published in the Norton Anthology, Crusoe appears as the quintessential, independent individualist.  Not content to follow in his father’s footsteps and make a comfortable living at trade, he resolves instead to travel the world.  He refers to his “roving disposition” and tells us, “nothing could prevail upon me to lay aside my desire of going to sea” (1634) – ironically, this would-be traveler ends up spending 28 years confined to a single island.

      Defoe’s original text contains considerably more religious references than the chapbook’s abridgement, but even here we can see some evidence of divine plan.  Almost as if nature is trying to punish him for disobedience to his father (remember all the emphasis on obeying parents in the New England Primer), the storms at sea instill “terror” and “horror” in the young Crusoe’s mind, leading him to pray for forgiveness (1634).

      Crusoe has a number of adventures that were exciting enough in themselves before finding himself shipwrecked on the unnamed island – he is captured near Africa by slave-trading pirates and spends time as the slave of a Moorish nobleman, has a thrilling escape, then sails again to land in Brazil, where he learns agricultural skills (remember, Crusoe was the son of a city man, not a farmer) that will help him in his subsequent isolation (1635).

      The extensive list of materials salvaged from the wreck, seemingly an odd inclusion in an abridgement of the longer book, is fairly common in this kind of adventure story and seems to appeal to children’s interest in detailed physical reality – it is a catalogue of all the things one would want to have when abandoned on a deserted island (1636).

      On the island, Crusoe learns or displays several important Protestant virtues, not least of them industry as he creates all sorts of ingenious contrivances to make a semblance of “civilized” life.  Other virtues shown:

·        Patience: “At the end of the harvest, I guessed that I had a bushel of rice, and two bushels of barley.  I kept all this for seed, and bore the want of bread with patience.” (1636)

·        Submission to God: “It [the as-yet unidentified carcass of a goat in the cave] struck me with a cold sweat; but again, trusting God’s protection, I proceeded forward. . .” (1638)

·        Stoicism: “…when I calculated the time this canal would take in making, I found that I could not accomplish it in less than twelve years, and therefore gave it over, determining to enjoy what I had, without repining for what I could not get.” (1638)

      Surprisingly, the one element of Crusoe’s story that is almost universally recognized, his “man Friday,” does not appear until he has lived alone on the island for 22 years.  (It strikes me that it might strain credulity a bit to have seen no previous evidence of life for all that time, when the cannibals have been using one end of the island.)  Many modern critics have been made uncomfortable by Crusoe’s apparent racial attitudes, in which the hero expects that Friday will naturally serve him, and Friday just as naturally slips into the role of servant. Suspect racial attitudes also attach to the depiction of the Natives, who are especially savage and barbarous (although early colonizers did in fact worry considerably that the Indians would be cannibals or human sacrificers – this was an issue that underlay John Smith’s concerns at his supposed “execution” by the Powhatan in 1607).

SOURCES: Cynthia C. McGowan, Robinson Crusoe, Lincoln, Neb: Cliff’s Notes, 1998; “Daniel Defoe,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe; Louis Werner, “En Route to the Real Robinson Crusoe,” Américas 54: 6 (Nov/Dec 2002), 22- 29; Zipes et al., The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature: The Traditions in English, New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.

A. Waller Hastings
Professor of English
Northern State University
Aberdeen, SD  57401

Return to Wally Hastings' Children's Literature Page
Return to Wally Hastings' Homepage