Daniel Defoe’s Robison Crusoe begins as an individual’s journey for self-definition. However, it soon encompasses under social issues related to colonialism, capitalism and racism. Though Robinson initially has a combination of Romanticism and Robinson is both a romantic and a pragmatic, who develops almost into a cult-hero representing capitalistic individualism....
Daniel Defoe’s Robison Crusoe begins as an individual’s journey for self-definition. However, it soon encompasses under social issues related to colonialism, capitalism and racism. Though Robinson initially has a combination of Romanticism and Robinson is both a romantic and a pragmatic, who develops almost into a cult-hero representing capitalistic individualism. The novel is thus primarily engaged in commercial issues and survivalistic concerns ever since he is marooned in the island. However, Defoe includes from Robinson’s perspective, frequent contemplations on divinity and God’s relationship with his creatures. The protagonist also is engaged in moral reflections about his own choices and actions. In this manner, Defoe depicts the emergence of the eighteenth century commercial Europeans but continues with the legacy of traditional middle-class morality.
Defoe’s novel does not overtly reflect any religious or philosophical ideology. As Defoe was realistically documenting an age of pragmatism and rising materialism due to the contemporary boost in trade, commerce and entrepreneurship, religion or morality in the novel have been represented from the perspective of utility and convenience. Robinson’s responses and reflections on divinity are influenced by the favourable or problematic circumstances in his life. He does not have any innate faith in God. His assessment of the issues of sin and virtue, moral reward or punishment is fickle. It depends on the situation that he is in at the time of his reflection. When Robinson is eighteen, he feels a surging wanderlust and yearns to travel extensively for adventure. However, he is diswayded by his father’s strong objection. Yet, a year later, while conversing with sailors at the dock, he happens to meet an old friend about to embark on a journey. Feeling an impulsive zest for what he had supressed for a year, he ignores his fathers wishes and his mother’s persuasion and commences on a journey. However, during the journey, his moral sensibility rebounds upon his mind.
Brought up under the influence of middle-class ethics and morality, Robinson soon interprets the unpredictable aspects of nature in a moral light. When the ship is caught in a violent storm, the panic-stricken Robinson perceives it as God’s punishment on him for his act of disobedience and for leaving his parents’ house without informing them. This may be allusively linked with Adam and Eve’s First Disobedience. Robinson prays to God fervently to safely take him ashore. He promises God that he will never venture out to the sea again but dutifully return home. However, the next morning, when the weather has cleared, he starts relishing his sea-faring experience and all thoughts of divinity and morality disappears from his mind. Again, after some time, when is ship is struck by a fierce storm and Robinson and his fellow sailors are rescued by a passing ship, the ship’s owner, happening to be his father’s friend, interprets the incident as divine chastisement for Robinson. He urges Robinson to think of the calamity as a warning or signal from God that he is not meant for a sea-faring life and if he persists, he wouldn’t meet with further misadventures. Thus, calamitous human experience has been treated as a manifestation of God’s will.
For almost the whole of the next decade, Robinson is so preoccupied with his commercial pursuits that he hardly has any thought of religion or morality. His trip to Guinea, his enslavement by the captain of a Turkish rover, his dealings with Xury, his rescue by the Portuguese captain and the success of his business enterprise of plantation in Brazil trace his gradual ascension from a paltry Voyager to a solvent planter and employer. These experiences are unaccompanied by any religious reflections on Robinson’s part. Even several years after being marooned at the unnamed Caribbean island, Robinson is engaged in a prolonged struggle for survival for bereft of moral or religious consideration. This suggests Defoe’s implication that spirituality and morality are engagements that humans become involved in after the basic survivalistic needs are fulfilled.
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