Concept of individualism in Robinson Crusoe

Assignment

Name- Hareshwari Kapdi

Course- M.A. English

Semester- 1

Batch- 2019-2020

Roll No- 10

Submitted to- Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU

Paper No-The Neo- Classical literature

Topic- Concept of individualism in Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe:-

Robinson Crusoe  is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.

Individualism in Robinson Crusoe

While he is no flashy hero or grand epic adventurer, Robinson Crusoe displays character traits that have won him the approval of generations of readers. His perseverance in spending months making a canoe, and in practicing pottery making until he gets it right, is praiseworthy. Additionally, his resourcefulness in building a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable from practically nothing is clearly remarkable. The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau applauded Crusoe’s do-it-yourself independence, and in his book on education, Emile, he recommends that children be taught to imitate Crusoe’s hands-on approach to life. Crusoe’s business instincts are just as considerable as his survival instincts: he manages to make a fortune in Brazil despite a twenty-eight-year absence and even leaves his island with a nice collection of gold. Moreover, Crusoe is never interested in portraying himself as a hero in his own narration. He does not boast of his courage in quelling the mutiny, and he is always ready to admit unheroic feelings of fear or panic, as when he finds the footprint on the beach. Crusoe prefers to depict himself as an ordinary sensible man, never as an exceptional hero.

At the center of Robinson Crusoe is a tension between society and individuality. As the novel begins, Robinson breaks free of his family and the middle-class society in which they live in order to pursue his own life. If he were to stay at home, he would live a life already arranged for him by his father and by the constraints of English society. By setting out to sea, Robinson prioritizes his sense of individuality over his family and society at large. Robinson gets exactly what he asks for (and more than he bargained for) when he finds himself stranded alone on his island. There, he lives entirely as an individual apart from society and is forced to struggle against nature to survive. He becomes self-sufficient and learns how to make and do things himself, discovering ingenuity he didn't know he had. Thus, one could say that being separated from society leads to Robinson becoming a better person. Robinson himself seems to come to this conclusion, as he realizes that his experience brings him closer to God and that living alone on the island allows for a life largely without sin: he makes, harvests, and hunts only what he needs, so there is nothing for him to be covetous of or greedy for. And while he is alone, he does not suffer from lust or pride.

Robinson comes around to liking his individual existence on the island so much that, at times in the novel, it is unclear whether he even wants to be rescued and returned to society. And when he finally does return to England, he notes how much worry and stress issues of money and property caused him. Nonetheless, there are some problems with Robinson's valuing of individuality over society. For one, while Robinson values his own personal liberty, he doesn't respect that of others. He hates being a slave, but is quick to sell Xury into the service of the Portuguese captain. Similarly, he treats Friday as his inferior servant. This maltreatment of others can be related as well to Robinson's narcissistic style of narration. His narrative is always about himself, to the degree that he hardly even gives the names of other characters. We never learn the name of his wife, for example, whose death Robinson describes quickly and unemotionally at the end of the novel before hastening to tell us more of his own adventures. And finally, Robinson's intense individualism is inseparable from his painful isolation. He feels lonely in Brazil, and then is literally isolated (the word comes from the Latin word for island, insula), when he is stranded on his island all alone. His only companions are his animals and, while he learns to enjoy life on the island, he still feels a deep desire for the human companionship that he lacks. Thus, the novel values individuality, but also shows the dangers of narcissism and isolation that may come with it.

While Defoe presents individuality as important, Robinson does decide to leave his island in the end. And, as we learn when he returns, he turns his haven of individualism into a society—a thriving colony with a substantial population. Society may curb an individual's independence, but it also provides valuable companionship. While Robinson rejects the claims of society in favor of individuality in the beginning of the novel, he ultimately comes around to trying to balance the two.

Think of the island on which Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked in Daniel Defoe's famous book and you're likely to think of a sun-drenched Caribbean idyll with sandy beaches and palm trees. In short, not a bad place to be shipwrecked.

But the island that supposedly inspired the book is nothing like that. It's in the Pacific, nearly 700km off the coast of Chile, and is frequently shrouded in mist.

Robinson Crusoe Island is the largest of the Juan Fernandez Islands, a tiny archipelago that is now Chilean territory. Its link to Daniel Defoe's book dates back to 1704 when a British buccaneer ship called at the island.

The ship was leaking badly and its crew was sick and exhausted. One of the sailors, a young Scotsman called Alexander Selkirk, said it was madness to continue their voyage and argued his case with the captain.

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What happened next is unclear. Either Selkirk refused to rejoin the ship, or was forced off it by the captain. Either way, he remained on the tiny, uninhabited island as the ship sailed off into the distance.

Selkirk lived here alone for the next four years and four months, surviving on fish, berries and wild goats until another British ship passed by in 1709. By then, he must have been quite a sight. The captain of that ship described him as "a man Cloth'd in Goat-Skins, who look'd wilder than the first Owners of them".

The current residents of Robinson Crusoe Island know all about that. Rudy Aravena, a 35-year-old hotelier, was almost killed by the tsunami of 2010.

               

"We were asleep and a friend of mine who's in the navy woke us up and shouted 'get out, a tsunami is coming!'" he recalls. "We got dressed with anything we could lay our hands on, with no shoes, and we ran for the hills. We got out just in time."