Assignment Of Paper No : 2 The Neo-Classical Literature

To Evaluate my assignment click Here

Assignment
Paper: 2 The Neo-Classical Literature
Subject: Write a note on the character of Crusoe
Name: Sagar B. Vaghela
Sem: 1
Roll No: 53
Batch: 2017-19
Enrollment No: 2069108420180053
Email: sagarvaghela2020@gmail.com
Submitted to: S.B.Gardi Department of English MKBU



Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in London, England. He became a merchant and participated in several failing businesses, facing bankruptcy and aggressive creditors. He was also a prolific political pamphleteer which landed him in prison for slander. Late in life he turned his pen to fiction and wrote Robinson Crusoe, one of the most widely read and influential novels of all time. Defoe died in 1731.

Early Life

Daniel Foe, born circa 1660, was the son of James Foe, a London butcher. Daniel later changed his name to Daniel Defoe, wanting to sound more gentlemanly.

Defoe graduated from an academy at Newington Green, run by the Reverend Charles Morton. Not long after, in 1683, he went into business, having given up an earlier intent on becoming a dissenting minister. He traveled often, selling such goods as wine and wool, but was rarely out of debt. He went bankrupt in 1692 (paying his debts for nearly a decade thereafter), and by 1703, decided to leave the business industry altogether.
   Robinson Crusoe is a Britsh young man who lives in York. He is tall and has brown hair. Crusoe has large nostrils showing that he is stubborn and headstrong, broad shoulders and is musecular. Robinson is quite hairy and has rough palms. His rough palms show hat he works alot.
.
     Robinson Crusoe is a man with alot of characteristics and those characteristics are clearly visable. Robinson crusoe is a stubborn and selfish man. Even afer his parents told him that he can't go out to sea to become a sailor, Robinon ran away from home and became a sailor.His parents wanted him to be safe because his two elder brothers had died. Imagine how heartbroken Robinsons parents would be when they realize that thier last son ran away from them.
   
     Robinson likes to be boss and is greedy. He says that Friday(a friend) is loyal to him. Robinson threatens xurey(a prisoner) that if he dosn't listen to robinson then Robinson would throw him overboard. How bossy!

     Robinson is discriminating. When Robimson Crusoe rescues a man from natives he names the man Friday. The man could not speak english and had dark skin. I am sure that if Robinson had rescued a Britisher then Robinson would have given him a proper name.

     Robinson does not only have bad qualities, he is hardworking, creative, and uses his resources well. Even though Robinson was the only man on an island, he managed to build a proper home with tables, chairs, etc... He even made an umbrella.

     Robinson is determined and has a clever mind. After he was captured by pirates, he made a clever plan and escaped. He never gave up hope. Robinson Crusoe is a funny character. He has alot of bad qualities , but he also has some good.
Robinson Crusoe starts out his adventures as a young lad of 18 years old who lives with his parents.  He is from a wealthy family in England and seeks high seas adventures.  He is somewhat spoiled and arranges to borrow money for a family member so that he can seek out his fortune by trading with the people in Africa.  Despite being warned of the dangers that exist in a life at sea, he thinks that it is over exaggerated and goes on his quest anyway.

When he gets on the ship he is disappointed in himself because he becomes sick.  He is later captured by pirates and has the strength and sense of mind to arrange a way to make his escape.

Once he moves to Brazil he settles down and has a plantation.  He believes in slavery as he owns one and is asked by the other owners to go on a quest to purchase more slaves for them.  Crusoe, bored again, goes on the quest but is ship wrecked and marooned on a desert island.

Crusoe is an intelligent man who finds a way to invent tools that he needs in order to survive.  He lives in the island for nearly a quarter of a century alone.  He is appalled by the cannibals that go on the island occasionally to eat their victims, but he is reasonable enough to accept that it is their established way of life.

Crusoe's values about slavery do not change.  When he returns to England he keeps the man named Friday as his servant.  He once again joins the aristocratic society and settles down to raise a family.


1) Robinson Crusoe is the central character around whom the moral lesson centres.
2) From the beginning, Defoe presents him as an individual endowed with a capability for moral development because of his natural possession of moral sensitivity
3) As events open, he appears as lacking a certain degree of moral insight and self knowledge, but gradually he gains moral and spiritual re-awakening and self discovery.
This gradual change can be traced in three stages in his life:
a)    When the novel opens, Crusoe leaves home in disobedience of his father and without asking for God’s blessings in search for more wealth, neglecting his father’s advice concerning the advantages of  the middle class. Crusoe ,then,  goes through four adventures in the sea during which he experiences many misfortunes, and has very narrow escapes from death. At this stage, Crusoe’s character is shown as discontented, rash, romantic ,lacking reason and any sense of moral duty towards God and father. Despite the dangers he faces, he never realizes the moral lesson or that these dangers are a punishment of God for his wrongdoings. He blames his bad luck, fate, or his companions.
b)   The second stage in Crusoe’s moral and spiritual development starts with his journey to the coast of Guinea which ends up in his shipwreck, the death of all his fellow sailors and his own survival after he swims to a remote deserted island. During this stage, Crusoe suffers, first, physically to provide for his food, shelter, and security. As he struggles to do this, he shows his great abilities of a resourceful, energetic, and inventive individual, although he has never had any knowledge of mechanics or mathematics. At the same time, however, he has many moral reflections which show his mental stress.
c)   The final stage of this process of gradual moral and spiritual re-awakening culminates in the episode his illness and dream after the earthquake. For the first time, Crusoe recognizes that he is the doer of all his misfortunes, and realizes that he is responsible of all his wrongdoings for has neither asked God for help when he is in danger, nor thanked Him when he is rescued. With this admission of guilt, Crusoe moves quickly in the road of moral and spiritual recovery. Thus he sincerely prays to God for help for the first time. After that, he feels not only physical but also spiritual ease and comfort. As he triumphs over the cannibals,  saves Friday and the captain of the ship and his crew, and finally saves himself, he reaches complete satisfaction.
In 1652, against the will of his parents, Robinson begins a life of sea-faring adventure. On only his second trip, however, he is captured by a pirate ship and spends the next two years as a slave to the pirate king. After he escapes with another young slave, Xury, he is taken in by a Portuguese trading ship. He makes friends with the Captain and is taken to Brazil where he sets up a plantation. His next trading venture is ill-fated, however, and he is shipwrecked off a deserted island. Robinson is the only survivor of the voyage and must learn how to make his way alone and stranded. He spends 28 years making the island his home. Among other things, he grows corn and barley, herds goats, gathers wild fruits, hunts, and builds an elaborate fort. Late in his stay, he begins to notice cannibals landing on his island to make human sacrifices. He befriends one of the victims, who had escaped before being eaten. He names the man Friday, and the two live together for several years, debating vigorously one of Robinson's favorite topics: the virtues of Protestantism. Friday's father is also taken to the island. Together, the men plan to build a large canoe and escape. But when a British ship finally lands on the island, its sailors in mutiny, Robinson sees his chance and forms and alliance with the captain. Together, they fight off the mutinous sailors and return to Europe. Robinson gives up his plantation, but with the profits that have gone uncollected for 28 years, settles a rich man in England. The story ends with Robinson's wanderlust flaring up again, and he determines to travel once more.

Work Cited:
https://www.biography.com/people/daniel-defoe-9269678
http://asthaonblogger.blogspot.in/2012/10/character-sketck-of-robinson-crusoe.html?m=1
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/discribe-main-character-71315
http://www.jiffynotes.com/RobinsonCrusoe/MainCharacters.html