Robinson
Crusoe
Robinson
Crusoe, written by the English author Daniel Defoe and published for
the first time in 1719. The novel is one of my favourites, and became
over the years a classic in historical literature.
The
name of the novel is also the name of the main character, and the
story about Robin's fate is partly based on a real life event that
happened to the sailor Alexander Selkirks that got left behind after
a fight on the explorer William Dampier's ship. He got submitted on
the dessert island Más a tirra with little equipment as a musket
with gunpowder, some tools, a knife, a Bible and his clothes that he
wore. With so little aid and no one to help on the dessert island, he
found himself in a very bad situation. Although getting stranded
turned out to not to be such a bad idea, since the ship of William
Dampier sank with almost no survivors.
Just
like what happened to Robinson in the novel, Alexander Selkriks was
stranded on the island that became his home for almost five years,
October 1704 to the beginning of 1709. When he was discovered and
rescued by Captain Woodes Rogers, the captain wrote down the story of
Alexander's life on the island in a Cruising Voyage round the World.
Later, his story got published in an English journal that later finds
its way to the story of Robinson Crusoe. So summarized the novel is
actually based on a real life event that happened long ago.
A
short summary of the novel is that Robinson defies his father that
denied him to see the world by traveling the sea. He aboard his first
sailig ship to Guinea, but after a tumultuous journey the travel ends
in a disaster as the ship gets wrecked in the storm. He ended up
being stranded on an isolated island.
Robinson
got used to the ruff conditions on the island and after a while he
began slowly to develop his skills and had to work his way up from a
hunter to a gartner. Robinson meet a dog and another man on the
island, a former slave that also got stranded on the island. Since
Robinson meet him on a Friday, he named the man Friday. Friday sees
Robinson as his savour, and becomes his servant and friend. After
some years, a boat appears on the coast of the island. They get
offered to enter the ship, but just as the stiry ends we get to know
that Robinson and Friday make the strange decision to stay on the
island.
The
reason why I find this particular novel fascinating it's because its
well written, and also the novel was one of the few novels that I
couldn't stop reading until I had finished it. It's filled with
suspense and you always want to know what Robinson is going to do
next. I would summarize by calling it a classic novel that is worth
reading.
Here
are the sources that I used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crusoe/
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