Visions of Utopia in Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe :: Defoe Robinson Crusoe Essays

Visions of Utopia in Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe achieved literary immortality when, in April 1719, he published Robinson Crusoe (Stockton 2321). It dared to challenge the political, social, and economic status quo of his time. By depicting the utopian surround in which was created in the absence of society, Defoe criticizes the political and economic aspect of Englands society, but is also able to show the narrators relationship with nature in a superb account of the personal growth and development that took place while stranded in solitude. Crusoe becomes the universal representative, the person, for whom every reader could substitute himself (Coleridge 2318). Thus, Defoe persuades us to see unlike islands and the solitude of the human soul. By believing fixedly in the solidity of the plot and its earthiness, he has subdued every other element to his design and has roped a whole universe into harmony (Woolf 2303). A common theme often portrayed in literature is the individual vs. society. In the beginning of Robinson Crusoe , the narrator deals with, non society, but his familys views on how he was bound to fail in life if his parents expectations of him taking the family business were not met. However, Defoes novel was somewhat autobiographical. What Defoe wrote was intimately connected with the grade of life he led, with the friends and enemies he made, and with the interests of natural to a merchant and a Dissenter (Sutherland 2). These similarities are seen throughout the novel. My father...gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design, says Crusoe (Defoe 8-9) . desire Crusoe, Defoe also rebelled against his parents. Unlike Crusoe, however, Defoe printed many essays and papers that rebelled against the government and society, just as Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, did in England by depicting society languishing in social malaise (Marowski 231). It were these writings that eventually got Defoe charged with l ibel and imprisoned (DIScovering Authors). In Defoes life it was the ministry that his father wanted him to pursue (Sutherland 2), but, instead, Defoe chose to become a tradesman (DIScovering Biography). The depth of the relationship between Crusoe and his parents in the book was specifically not elaborated upon because his parents become symbolic not only of all parents, but of society. In keeping this ambiguous relationship, Defoe is able to make Crusoes abrupt exodus much more believable and, thus, more humane.