Comment on Daniel Defoe’s The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Comment on Daniel Defoe’s The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, paying special attention to the organising role of the Protestant work ethic in the novel.
Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was born in London in 1660. He attended Morton's Academy, a school for Dissenters at Newington Green with the intention of becoming a minister, but he changed his mind and became a hosiery merchant instead. In 1703 Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, a Tory government official, employed Defoe as a spy. With the support of the government, Defoe started the newspaper, The Review. Published between 1704 and 1713, the newspaper appeared three times a week. As well as carrying commercial advertising The Review reported on political and social issues.
Defoe also wrote several pamphlets for Harley attacking the political opposition. The Whigs took
Defoe court and this resulted in him serving another prison sentence.
In 1719 Defoe turned to writing fiction. His novels include: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Captain
Singleton (1720), Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Captain Jack (1722), Moll Flanders (1722) and
Roxanda (1724).
Defoe died on April 24, 1731.
The story is widely perceived to have been influenced by the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on the Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile. However, other possible sources have been put forward for the text. It is possible, for example, that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of
Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, an earlier novel also set on a desert island. Another source for Defoe's novel may have been Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An
Historical Account of the Island Ceylon," Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons (Publishers to the
University), 1911.
One way of reading Robinson Crusoe is as a spiritual autobiography. The spiritual biography portrays the Puritan
Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was born in London in 1660. He attended Morton's Academy, a school for Dissenters at Newington Green with the intention of becoming a minister, but he changed his mind and became a hosiery merchant instead. In 1703 Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, a Tory government official, employed Defoe as a spy. With the support of the government, Defoe started the newspaper, The Review. Published between 1704 and 1713, the newspaper appeared three times a week. As well as carrying commercial advertising The Review reported on political and social issues.
Defoe also wrote several pamphlets for Harley attacking the political opposition. The Whigs took
Defoe court and this resulted in him serving another prison sentence.
In 1719 Defoe turned to writing fiction. His novels include: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Captain
Singleton (1720), Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Captain Jack (1722), Moll Flanders (1722) and
Roxanda (1724).
Defoe died on April 24, 1731.
The story is widely perceived to have been influenced by the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on the Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile. However, other possible sources have been put forward for the text. It is possible, for example, that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of
Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, an earlier novel also set on a desert island. Another source for Defoe's novel may have been Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An
Historical Account of the Island Ceylon," Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons (Publishers to the
University), 1911.
One way of reading Robinson Crusoe is as a spiritual autobiography. The spiritual biography portrays the Puritan