What estimate of the character of Robinson Crusoe do you from? Discuss with adequate textual references

Or, Comment on the character of Robinson Crusoe in Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe.

Answer: “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s” – Robinson Crusoe seemed to be inspired by these words of William Blake and we find a clear testimony of this spirit when he innovates his own ways and styles to enslave others as well as the environment in order to survive in his solitary existence on the uninhabited island. At the beginning of the novel, we find Robinson to be self-willed, arrogant, and hungry for exploits. He leaves home against his parent’s will without a single word of farewell with “a rash and immoderate desire of rising faster.” Ultimately, dearly pays for his follies: “I was,” he confesses, “to be the willful Agent of all my own Miseries.

Robinson Crusoe is the title hero of the fictional travelogue Robinson Crusoe. He is an exceptional creation of Daniel Defoe who has endowed his colonist protagonist with reason, ratiocinative skill, and a wonderful capacity to adapt to the new environment and new challenges. While he is no flashy hero or a grand epic adventure, 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, a 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 highly applauded Crusoe’s do-it-e-yourself independence, and in his book on education, ‘Emile,’ recommends that children be taught to imitate Crusoe’s practical approach to life. Cruse’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.

But Crusoe’s admirable qualities must be weighed against the flaws in his character. Crusoe seems incapable of profound feelings, as shown by his cold account of leaving his family. He worries about the religious consequences of disobeying his father, but never displays any emotion about leaving. Though he is generous towards people, as when he gives gifts to his sisters and the captain, Crusoe reveals very little warm or sincere affection in his dealings with them. When Crusoe tells us that he has got married and that his wife has died all within the same sentence, his indifference to her seems almost cruel. His unfeeling disposal of Xury, his liberator, is almost inhuman. The unworthy fears he harbors about Friday are displeasing. Moreover, as an individual personality, Crusoe is rather dull. His precise and straight style of narration works well for recounting the process of canoe building, but it tends to drain the y excitement from events that should be thrilling, Action-packed scenes like the conquest of the cannibals become quite an example. His insistence on dating events makes sense to a point, but irrelevant when he tells us the date on which he grinds his tools and neglects to tell us the date of a very important event like meeting Friday. Perhaps his impulse to record facts carefully is not a survival skill, but an irrigating sign of his neurosis.

Finally, while not boasting of heroism, Crouse is nonetheless very interested in possessions, power, and prestige. When he first calls himself king of the island, it seems jocund, but when describes the Spaniard as his subject, it seems he really does consider himself king. He becomes the domineering “governor” of the pristine land of surpassing beauty. His teaching Friday to call him “Master” even before teaching him the words for “yes” or “no”, seems obnoxious even under the racist standards of the day. It seems as if Crusoe needs to hear the ego-boosting word spoken by his willful salve as soon as possible. Overall, Crusoe’s virtues tend to be private: his industry, resourcefulness, and solitary courage make him an exemplary individual. But his vices are social, and his urge to subjugate others is highly objectionable. In bringing both sides together into one complex character, Defoe gives us a fascinating glimpse into the successes, failures, and contradictions of modern man.

We notice a bizarre ambivalence of reason and passion, a God-fearing and God-forgetting attitude in compliance with the situations. Having found the ears of corn grown from the seeds of barley and rice thrown carelessly by him on the ground, he expresses his heartfelt thanks for the Miracle of God. But when he finds a rational explanation for the growth of the seeds, he forgets about God’s miracle and his earlier faith in God gradually begins to dwindle. Again when he nearly succumbs to a terrible fever, he utters “the first Prayer, if I may call it so, that I had made for many years,” As the illness abates, Robinson reads the Bible: “I threw down the Book, and with my Heart as well as my hands lifted up to Heaven, in a kind of Ecstasy of Joy, I cried out aloud, Jesus, thou Son of David, Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour, give me Repentance!”

In fine, it would be apt to say that Crusoe is a realistic portrayal of Defoe. He is an Everyman in his instincts for survival. His ingenuity, his inquisitiveness, his courage and insight, his pragmatic attitude, and his mechanical and strategic bent of mind makes Crusoe an enduring creation in the literary firmament. In writing Crusoe, Defoe created a character who speaks to something deep in the human psyche that is essential to the human condition. This is the reason that Crusoe can be assimilated into diverse cultures, that he can be given conflicting meanings, and that he reaches into the private souls of individuals. It is these qualities that make Crusoe a mythic or an archetypal figure.