Robinson Crusoe: How Robinson Adapts to and Learns From his Experience of the New World - Book Report/Review Example

Robinson Crusoe: How Robinson Adapts to and Learns From his Experience of the New World and its Inhabitants and how Much he Imposes Old World Ideas Upon Them 2007 Robinson Crusoe: How Robinson Adapts to and Learns From his Experience of the New World and its Inhabitants and how Much he Imposes Old World Ideas Upon Them There are many different works of literature that have come out in the past which have had some sort of influence or significance, however of course there are those that stand out among the rest, those which truly set a pattern of incredibly important ideals and which even force us to rethink our own standards and thoughts, and Robinson Crusoe is, without a doubt, considered as being in this category of wonderful works of literature. Robinson Crusoe is a novel which was written by Daniel Defoe, and which was first published in the year 1719. This piece of literature is in fact considered as being the first novel in English, and it has been used to set examples and provoke influence in many different areas of the world, not only in the past, but in the present as well. It is a fictional autobiography of a man named Robinson Crusoe, who is the main character, and it tells about this English castaway and about the 28 years that he spends on a remote island, encountering savages, captives, mutineers and more, before finally being rescued. "This device, presenting an account of supposedly factual events, is known as a 'false document', and gives a realistic frame story. The story was probably influenced by the real-life events of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway marooned on a Pacific island for four years" (Wikipedia, 2007). In order to better understand this piece of literature, there is one issue in particular which must be thoroughly addressed and discussed, and this is the matter of how Robinson adapted to and learned from his experience of the New World and its inhabitants, and how much he imposed Old World ideas on them. By discussing this, we will not only be able to understand better about this particular issue, but as well about the entire novel itself. This is what will be dissertated in the following. The narrator introduces himself as Robinson Crusoe, tells of how he was born in 1632 in the city of York to a good family, and then the beginning of the novel after this divulges into more personal issues, such as when and where Crusoe was born, how he was raised, and so on, and from this section we truly to get grasp at least a remote understanding on Crusoe as a person as well as his own personal traits including his views on society and the world. He speaks of various voyages that he took part in and the results that arose from each one, and we see quite avidly just how negative he claims to have felt so often of the time, "Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly, that I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture by the excessive heat of the climate; our principal trading being upon the coast, for the latitude of 15 degrees north even to the line itself" (Defoe, 1719). When the 'New World' is spoken of in this book, it is referring to how Crusoe ends up restructuring the society that he has left behind, as he "has recreated on his island an alternative version, a new world celebrating its difference from the old" (Maher, 2005). In other words, the 'New World' is this new world that he is experiencing while he is stranded for the 28 years of his life, and the 'Old World' refers to the world that he lived in before he was lost on the island. In regards to the issue of how Robinson adapted to the New World, there are really many different factors that need to be taken into consideration here. Robinson Crusoe was, after all, faced with the need to adjust and survive in a new world and this is in fact one of the most major and significant premises within the entire novel. He is forced to adapt to this new world and to the inhabitants that he comes to meet on it, and we see throughout the appropriate sections of this novel that although at first he felt like a stranger to this new world, that he soon adapted incredibly well. He learned how to live in a world that he had never experienced before, and he imposed many of his old world ideas onto those persons who came into his life while he was on the island for all of those years. One particular example that we can use to show this, is that of how Crusoe discovers that there are goats on the island, and he was delighted to find this out because this meant that there was a source of food that he could rely on. However, he had never had to kill a goat before, and the first couple of times that he attempted to do this on the island, he was unsuccessful. Crusoe blamed this on the fact that "they were so shy, so subtle, and so swift of foot" (101). He takes his time with this process and begins to understand about the issues that are problematic here, as he discovers after sitting up on rocks above them for some time that this is the only instance where they do not run away from him, because "by the position of their optics, their sight was so directed downward, that they did not readily see objects that were above them" (101). He then ends up learning about the best method that he can use in order to capture the goats, which is to climb the rocks first so that he was above them and then get a frequently fair mark from where he was up on the rocks. This is only one of the many different examples however which prove how well he ends up adapting to this new world, and for instance another major evidence is that of how he learns to adapt to the inhabitants that he meets while he is on the island, as they are much different than any of the people that he met in his old world, and so thus he had to learn how to properly converge and interact with them. He learns how to not only get help from these persons but as well how to give, and these are things that he never really had to know how to do before, or at least not in this manner. He also understands about what things in his life are most important, particularly that of materialistic things, as everything is so much different in the new world that he was stuck in for so many years. The items that he strived for in the new world were drastically different than those in the old world, and as he makes note of while on the island, "And this put me in mind that I wanted many things, notwithstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these, this of ink was one, as also spade, pick-axe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth, needles, pins, and thread; as for linen, I soon learned to want that without much difficulty" (110). He really comes to terms with himself as a person as well as the world around him while he is on the island, and he does this primarily through how he has learned to adapt to this new world. He is disappointed and frustrated that he is stuck on this island, and yet as time goes on he becomes more aware to the fact that he is so grateful to be alive, and he really begins understanding about how he should put others first and himself second: Evil I am cast upon a horrible desolate island, void of all hope of recovery. Good but I am alive, and not drowned, as all my ship's company was. Evil I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world to be miserable. Good but I am singled out, too, from all the ship's crew to be spared from death; and He that miraculously saved me from death, can deliver me from this condition. Evil I am divided from mankind, a solitaire, one banished from human society. Good but I am not starved and perishing on a barren place, affording no sustenance. Evil I have not clothes to cover me. Good but I am in a hot climate, where if I had clothes I could hardly wear them. Evil I am without any defense or means to resist any violence of man or beast. Good but I am cast on an island, where I see no wild beasts to hurt me, as I saw on the coast of Africa; and what if I had been shipwrecked there Evil I have no soul to speak to, or relive me. Good but God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have gotten out of so many necessary things as will either supply my wants, or enable me to supply myself even as long as I live. (112). From this review, we can conclude many different things, several which are of particular importance, such as the fact of how well Crusoe ended up adapting to the new world, and how in the end of it all he actually ended up enjoying himself somewhat, even though he was stranded on a desolate island, and even though it took him quite a bit of time to feel this way. He truly had to change his entire self in order to be able to properly adapt to his new conditions and surroundings, and once he was able to do this, all of the issues that he had to work with and face on the island were made a million times easier. This story is truly one of not only survival but heroicness as well, as we see Crusoe as a man that lies in each of us, and this makes us wonder whether we would be able to adapt as well in the same situation as he has done here. As well, in regards to how Crusoe imposed his old world ideas on to the inhabitants of his new world, we see that by him doing this it was really a positive thing overall, and we see how much his influence truly made a difference on these inhabitants. Crusoe is truly a hero in many different ways, particularly in how he gets off the ideal that he is alone and miserable, and begins to focus more on the tasks at hand, such as keeping himself alive and maintaining a relationship with his inner self and with God, of which is made of extreme importance and significance throughout the entire novel. This adaptation and understanding of the new world and how Crusoe learned from all of this is truly one of the most major morale issues that can be derived from this piece of literature, and is also one of the most significant areas that must be discussed in order to be able to properly understand the novel itself, as has been done here. References Anderson, G. J., Bernardello, G., & Engel, M. S (2001). 'Conservation Implications of a Newly Discovered Bee Species on Isla Robinson Crusoe', Conservation Biology, 15 (3), 803-805. Chiu, M (2000). 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'Aspects of Verisimilitude: Temporal and Topographical References in Robinson Crusoe', Association for Literary & Linguistic Computing. Williamson, O. E (2003). 'Calculated Trust, a Reply to Craswell's Comment on Williamson', Journal of Law and Economics, 36 (1)(2), 501-502. Zimmerman, E (2003). 'Robinson Crusoe and No Man's Land', Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 102 (4). Read More