Robinson Crusoe: A Mans Discovery of Himself, Civilization, and God. E

Robinson Crusoe A Mans Discovery of Himself, Civilization, and God. Just about everyone spate recite the highlights of Robinsons adventures A man is shipwrecked without resources on a desert island, survives for long time by his own wits, undergoes immeasurable anguish as a number of his isolation, discovers a footprint in the sand that belongs to Friday, and is fin eachy rescued from his exile. Unfortunately, all of this is wrong. But much significant than any of these details is that our overall knowledge of Robinson Crusoe is wrong. The single most important fact about this boys adventure tolerate got is that it is not a boys adventure book at all. It is, rather, a grown-up statement of a mans discovery of himself, civilization, and God. As Defoes book begins, Robinson Crusoe of York commits what he calls his Original misdeedhe spurns his fathers advice to join the family business and instead heads out to sea. Robinson is self-willed, arrogant, and hungry for exploits. C atastrophes obeystorms, shipwrecks, and slaverybut the lad continues in his follies. I was, he confesses, to be the willful Agent of all my own Miseries. Then providence gives him a second chance, shipwrecking him on an Atlantic island, whose features roughly match those of the Juan Fernandez group in the Pacific Ocean where Robinsons real-life prototype, Alexander Selkirk, passed seven years in solitude. Robinsons island is a pristine land of surpassing beauty. To its forlorn first inhabitant, it seems no matter piddling of Eden the Country appeard so fresh, so green, so flourishing, every thing being in a constant Verdure, or Flourish of Spring, that it looked wish a planted Garden. In this paradise Robinson builds a new plazawithout Eve... ...ledge the enormity of our task for when before has a secular culture rebuilt itself on sacred foundations? We need solutions as ingenious as any devised by our industrious hero. Like Robinson, we must never despair like Robinson, we must find strength in prayer. It helps to bear in mind that it is we who have uprooted God from our homes, schools, books, arts we have cast ourselves adrift. God, the master mariner, never abandons his children. We do well to remember, too, that Robinson found salvation in a plight more desperate than ours. Then, perhaps, we can relish the truth in Walter de la Mares businesslike remark about Defoes finest creation Even to think of his admirable caveman is to be cheerful and to take heart of grace. Bibliography Zaleski, Philip. The Strange Shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe. archetypical Things 53 (May 1995) 38-44.