Robinson Crusoe ~ by Daniel Defoe ~ مغامرات روبنسون كروزو

[~ A7lA DoNiA ~]

Robinson Crusoe

by
Daniel Defoe

SETTING

When the story begins, the setting is England. Some of the action thereafter takes place at sea in various ships. Once the pirates capture Crusoe, the action moves to Sallee, a port in Morocco. After Crusoe's escape from there, the setting moves to the Canary Islands, until a Portuguese ship arrives. For the next few years, the novel is set in Brazil. Then Crusoe embarks on his ill-fated voyage. After the shipwreck, Crusoe washes ashore on an uninhabited island, where Crusoe spends the next twenty-eight years of his life; most of the novel takes place on the island during these years. After Crusoe is rescued from the island, the setting moves to England, via Lisbon and the land route through Spain and France to Calais.


PLOT

Robinson Crusoe, born in York, is the third son in his family. His parents wish to make a lawyer out of young Crusoe, but Crusoe has other plans. His one great desire is to become a sailor and go to sea. The first foreshadows what lies ahead for the hero. Although his father refuses to give him permission to go to sea, Crusoe runs away to become a sailor. Although almost all of his initial forays into sea life are disastrous, Crusoe is not deterred. During one of his trips, the Moors capture his ship, and Crusoe is taken as a slave. He finally escapes in a boat with another young man. After some interesting adventures, he is rescued by a Portuguese ship. He next lands in Brazil, where his enterprising ways help him to succeed; he becomes a planter and prospers in a few years time. Still not satisfied with his success, he decides to become a slave trader in order to get cheap labor for his plantation. As he travels by boat to find slaves, a storm hits, and his ship is wrecked. All the sailors are drowned except for Crusoe, who is washed ashore on an uninhabited island.

The novel is basically about the life and adventures of Crusoe on the island, where he lives for the next twenty-eight years. Crusoe salvages as much as he can from the ship. He builds a home, strong fortifications, plows the land, cultivates corn and rice, and raises goats. His peaceful existence is interrupted when savages land on the island. Crusoe rescues Friday, one of the savages' prisoners, whom he educates and converts to Christianity. When the cannibals visit next, Friday and Crusoe rescue two of their prisoners, a Spaniard and a savage. The savage turns out to be Friday's father. An expedition is sent to the mainland in a canoe to bring back sixteen Spaniards who have been marooned there.

An English ship visits the coast, and a few of its crew come ashore in a boat. Crusoe realizes that the visitors are mutineers and that the captain and men loyal to him are being held as prisoners. With good planning, Crusoe and Friday subdue the mutineers and rescue the captain and his crew. When the ship sends another boat with men ashore, they are also tricked and captured by Crusoe's men. Now, all that stands in the way of Crusoe's deliverance is the remaining men on the ship. In a final assault, the ship is captured, and the rebel captain is killed. Soon Crusoe sails from the island in the capture ship and finally reaches England.
Back home, Crusoe finds that most of his family members have died. He also learns that his plantation in Brazil has thrived during his absence. As a result, he is enormously wealthy. The older, mature Crusoe is gracious in his new status and generous towards his old friends and the remaining members of his family. There are, however, some more adventures in life for Crusoe and his friends as they travel the land route through Europe to Calais. In the end, Crusoe settles down, gets married, and has three children. Many years later he visits his old island and finds it has been settled. He promises to send the inhabitants more essential things from Brazil. On this note the story ends.


CHARACTER LIST

Robinson Crusoe: the main character of the story, he is a rebellious youth with an inexplicable need to travel. Because of this need, he brings misfortune on himself and is left to fend for himself in a primitive land. The novel essentially chronicles his mental and spiritual development as a result of his isolation. He is a contradictory character; at the same time he is practical ingenuity and immature decisiveness.

Xury: a friend/servant of Crusoe's, he also escapes from the Moors. A simple youth who is dedicated to Crusoe, he is admirable for his willingness to stand by the narrator. However, he does not think for himself.

Friday: another friend/servant of Crusoe's, he spends a number of years on the island with the main character, who saves him from cannibalistic death. Friday is basically Crusoe's protege, a living example of religious justification of the slavery relationship between the two men. His eagerness to be redone in the European image is supposed to convey that this image is indeed the right one.

Crusoe's father: although he appears only briefly in the beginning, he embodies the theme of the merits of Protestant, middle-class living. It is his teachings from which Crusoe is running, with poor success.

Crusoe's mother: one of the few female figures, she fully supports her husband and will not let Crusoe go on a voyage.

Moorish patron: Crusoe's slave master, he allows for a role reversal of white men as slaves. He apparently is not too swift, however, in that he basically hands Crusoe an escape opportunity.

Portuguese sea captain: one of the kindest figures in the book, he is an honest man who embodies all the Christian ideals. Everyone is supposed to admire him for his extreme generosity to the narrator. He almost takes the place of Crusoe's father.

Spaniard: one of the prisoners saved by Crusoe, it is interesting to note that he is treated with much more respect in Crusoe's mind than any of the colored peoples with whom Crusoe is in contact.

Captured sea captain: he is an ideal soldier, the intersection between civilized European and savage white man. Crusoe's support of his fight reveals that the narrator no longer has purely religious motivations.

Widow: she is goodness personified, and keeps Crusoe's money safe for him. She is in some way a foil to his mother, who does not support him at all.

Savages: the cannibals from across the way, they represent the threat to Crusoe's religious and moral convictions, as well as his safety. He must conquer them before returning to his own world.

Negroes: they help Xury and Crusoe when they land on their island, and exist in stark contrast to the savages.

Traitorous crew members: they are an example of white men who do not heed God; they are white savages.

[~ A7lA DoNiA ~]

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Ambivalence of Mastery

Crusoe’s success in mastering his situation, overcoming his obstacles, and controlling his environment shows the condition of mastery in a positive light, at least at the beginning of the novel. Crusoe lands in an inhospitable environment and makes it his home. His taming and domestication of wild goats and parrots with Crusoe as their master illustrates his newfound control. Moreover, Crusoe’s mastery over nature makes him a master of his fate and of himself. Early in the novel, he frequently blames himself for disobeying his father’s advice or blames the destiny that drove him to sea. But in the later part of the novel, Crusoe stops viewing himself as a passive victim and strikes a new note of self-determination. In building a home for himself on the island, he finds that he is master of his life—he suffers a hard fate and still finds prosperity.
But this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less positive after Friday’s arrival, when the idea of mastery comes to apply more to unfair relationships between humans. In Chapter XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “[m]aster” even before teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that was to be [Crusoe’s] name.” Crusoe never entertains the idea of considering Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority comes instinctively to him. We further question Crusoe’s right to be called “[m]aster” when he later refers to himself as “king” over the natives and Europeans, who are his “subjects.” In short, while Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate, the praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow humans is more doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction of the colonial mind.

The Necessity of Repentance

Crusoe’s experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one’s life. This moral and religious dimension of the tale is indicated in the Preface, which states that Crusoe’s story is being published to instruct others in God’s wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of repenting one’s sins. While it is important to be grateful for God’s miracles, as Crusoe is when his grain sprouts, it is not enough simply to express gratitude or even to pray to God, as Crusoe does several times with few results. Crusoe needs repentance most, as he learns from the fiery angelic figure that comes to him during a feverish hallucination and says, “Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.” Crusoe believes that his major sin is his rebellious behavior toward his father, which he refers to as his “original sin,” akin to Adam and Eve’s first disobedience of God. This biblical reference also suggests that Crusoe’s exile from civilization represents Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden.
For Crusoe, repentance consists of acknowledging his wretchedness and his absolute dependence on the Lord. This admission marks a turning point in Crusoe’s spiritual consciousness, and is almost a born-again experience for him. After repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and views the island more positively. Later, when Crusoe is rescued and his fortune restored, he compares himself to Job, who also regained divine favor. Ironically, this view of the necessity of repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in the first place. Thus, as powerful as the theme of repentance is in the novel, it is nevertheless complex and ambiguous.

The Importance of Self-Awareness

Crusoe’s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence controlled by animal instincts, and, unlike animals, he remains conscious of himself at all times. Indeed, his island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external social world and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that Defoe took seriously all his life. We see that in his normal day-to-day activities, Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically and in various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe’s makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical calendar with him at its center. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the beach or waiting inside while it rains. Crusoe feels the importance of staying aware of his situation at all times. We can also sense Crusoe’s impulse toward self-awareness in the fact that he teaches his parrot to say the words, “Poor Robin Crusoe. . . . Where have you been?” This sort of self-examining thought is natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but it is given a strange intensity when we recall that Crusoe has spent months teaching the bird to say it back to him. Crusoe teaches nature itself to voice his own self-awareness.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Counting and Measuring

Crusoe is a careful note-taker whenever numbers and quantities are involved. He does not simply tell us that his hedge encloses a large space, but informs us with a surveyor’s precision that the space is “150 yards in length, and 100 yards in breadth.” He tells us not simply that he spends a long time making his canoe in Chapter XVI, but that it takes precisely twenty days to fell the tree and fourteen to remove the branches. It is not just an immense tree, but is “five foot ten inches in diameter at the lower part . . . and four foot eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two foot.” Furthermore, time is measured with similar exactitude, as Crusoe’s journal shows. We may often wonder why Crusoe feels it useful to record that it did not rain on December 26, but for him the necessity of counting out each day is never questioned. All these examples of counting and measuring underscore Crusoe’s practical, businesslike character and his hands-on approach to life. But Defoe sometimes hints at the futility of Crusoe’s measuring—as when the carefully measured canoe cannot reach water or when his obsessively kept calendar is thrown off by a day of oversleeping. Defoe may be subtly poking fun at the urge to quantify, showing us that, in the end, everything Crusoe counts never really adds up to much and does not save him from isolation.

Eating

One of Crusoe’s first concerns after his shipwreck is his food supply. Even while he is still wet from the sea in Chapter V, he frets about not having “anything to eat or drink to comfort me.” He soon provides himself with food, and indeed each new edible item marks a new stage in his mastery of the island, so that his food supply becomes a symbol of his survival. His securing of goat meat staves off immediate starvation, and his discovery of grain is viewed as a miracle, like manna from heaven. His cultivation of raisins, almost a luxury food for Crusoe, marks a new comfortable period in his island existence. In a way, these images of eating convey Crusoe’s ability to integrate the island into his life, just as food is integrated into the body to let the organism grow and prosper. But no sooner does Crusoe master the art of eating than he begins to fear being eaten himself. The cannibals transform Crusoe from the consumer into a potential object to be consumed. Life for Crusoe always illustrates this eat or be eaten philosophy, since even back in Europe he is threatened by man-eating wolves. Eating is an image of existence itself, just as being eaten signifies death for Crusoe.

Ordeals at Sea

Crusoe’s encounters with water in the novel are often associated not simply with hardship, but with a kind of symbolic ordeal, or test of character. First, the storm off the coast of Yarmouth frightens Crusoe’s friend away from a life at sea, but does not deter Crusoe. Then, in his first trading voyage, he proves himself a capable merchant, and in his second one, he shows he is able to survive enslavement. His escape from his Moorish master and his successful encounter with the Africans both occur at sea. Most significantly, Crusoe survives his shipwreck after a lengthy immersion in water. But the sea remains a source of danger and fear even later, when the cannibals arrive in canoes. The Spanish shipwreck reminds Crusoe of the destructive power of water and of his own good fortune in surviving it. All the life-testing water imagery in the novel has subtle associations with the rite of baptism, by which Christians prove their faith and enter a new life saved by Christ.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Footprint

Crusoe’s shocking discovery of a single footprint on the sand in Chapter XVIII is one of the most famous moments in the novel, and it symbolizes our hero’s conflicted feelings about human companionship. Crusoe has earlier confessed how much he misses companionship, yet the evidence of a man on his island sends him into a panic. Immediately he interprets the footprint negatively, as the print of the devil or of an aggressor. He never for a moment entertains hope that it could belong to an angel or another European who could rescue or befriend him. This instinctively negative and fearful attitude toward others makes us consider the possibility that Crusoe may not want to return to human society after all, and that the isolation he is experiencing may actually be his ideal state.

The Cross

Concerned that he will “lose [his] reckoning of time” in Chapter VII, Crusoe marks the passing of days “with [his] knife upon a large post, in capital letters, and making it into a great cross . . . set[s] it up on the shore where [he] first landed. . . .” The large size and capital letters show us how important this cross is to Crusoe as a timekeeping device and thus also as a way of relating himself to the larger social world where dates and calendars still matter. But the cross is also a symbol of his own new existence on the island, just as the Christian cross is a symbol of the Christian’s new life in Christ after baptism, an immersion in water like Crusoe’s shipwreck experience. Yet Crusoe’s large cross seems somewhat blasphemous in making no reference to Christ. Instead, it is a memorial to Crusoe himself, underscoring how completely he has become the center of his own life.

Crusoe’s Bower

On a scouting tour around the island, Crusoe discovers a delightful valley in which he decides to build a country retreat or “bower” in Chapter XII. This bower contrasts sharply with Crusoe’s first residence, since it is built not for the practical purpose of shelter or storage, but simply for pleasure: “because I was so enamoured of the place.” Crusoe is no longer focused solely on survival, which by this point in the novel is more or less secure. Now, for the first time since his arrival, he thinks in terms of “pleasantness.” Thus, the bower symbolizes a radical improvement in Crusoe’s attitude toward his time on the island. Island life is no longer necessarily a disaster to suffer through, but may be an opportunity for enjoyment—just as, for the Presbyterian, life may be enjoyed only after hard work has been finished and repentance achieved.

[~ A7lA DoNiA ~]

ملخص باللغة العربية للرواية

معلومات عن الرواية:

روبنسون كروزو رواية من تأليف Daniel Defoeدانيال ديفو,نشرت لأول مرة1719 تعتبر بعض الأحيان الرواية الأولى في الانكليزية. إن هذه الرواية هي سيرة ذاتية تخيلية .. (منبوذ إنكليزي يقضي 28 سنة في جزيرة بعيدة يصادف الهمج و الأسرى و الثوار قبل أن يُنقذ . هذه التقنية تعرف باسم الوثيقة الخاطئة و تعطي شكلاً واقعياً للقصة.

قصة روبنسون كروزو:

يغادر كروزو إنكلترا في رحلة بحرية في أيلول عام1651 مخالفاً رغبات والديه.تسطو القراصنة Salèعلى السفينة و يصبح كروزو عبداً للمغاربة the slave of a Moor .يتمكن كروزو الهرب في زورق و يصادق قائد سفينة برتغالية مِنْ الساحلِ الغربيِ لأفريقيا.كان طريق السفينة إلى البرازيل حيث هناك بمساعدة من الكابتن يصبح كروزو مالك لمزرعة.

ينضم كروزو إلى بعثة لجلب العبيد من أفريقيا , لكنة غرق في عاصفة تبعد أربعون ميلاً في البحر على مدخل نهر Orinoco (أورانوكو) في 30 أيلول عام 1659. يموت جميع رفاق كروزو و يتمكن هو من جلب الأسلحة و الأدوات و التجهيزات الأخرى من السفينة قبل أن تتحطم و تغرق . يقوم في بناء سور في مسكن و كهف , يصنع رزنامة بواسطة صنع علامات بواسطة قطعة خشب . يقوم بالصيد و يزرع الذرة و يتعلم صناعة الفخار و يربي الماعز .. يقرأ الإنجيل و يصبح متديناً فجأة و يشكر الله على مصيره فلا شيء قد فقد منه إلا المجتمع.

يكتشف كروزو cannibals آكلي لحوم بشر يقومون بزيارة الجزيرة ليقتلوا و يأكلوا السجناء , في بادئ الأمر يخطط لقتل the savages الهمج لفظاعتهم لكن يدرك أن ليس لديه الحق لعمل هذا cannibals لم يهاجموه و لم يرتكبوا جريمة بمعرفته . يحلم كروزو بأسر واحد أو أثنين من الخدم بتحرير بعض السجناء وفي الحقيقة، عندما استطاع سجين هُرُوب، يساعد كروزو، يَسمّي رفيقَه الجديد.َ"جمعةَ Friday" بعد يومِ الأسبوع الذيِ ظهر فيهَ، ويُعلّمُه إنجليزية ويُحوّلُه إلى المسيحيةِ.

تصل مجموعة جديدة من السكان الأصليين و يشاركون في وليمة مريعة و يستطيع جمعة و كروزو قتل معظمهم و الاحتفاظ باثنان منهم ( واحد هو والد جمعة و الثاني اسباني) يخبر الاسباني كروزو أن مجموعة من الأسبان الذين غرقوا موجودون على هذه الجزيرة. تبتكر خطة حيث يعود الاسباني و والد جمعة و البقية إلى الجزيرة حيث يبنون سفينة ليبحروا بها إلى ميناء اسبانيا.

قبل أَن يَعود الأسبان، تظهر سفينة إنجليزية؛ و يسيطر الثوار على السفينة و ينووا هِجْر قائدِهم السابقِ على الجزيرةِ.القائد وCrusoe يَستطيعانِ العودة أخذ السفينةَ. و يَتوجّهونَ إلى إنجلترا، و قد تَرْكوا ورائهم ثلاثة مِنْ الثوارِ لاعتماد على أنفسهم وإعلام الأسبان الذي حَدث.يَتركُ Crusoe الجزيرة في 19كانون الأول 1686. يُسافرُ إلى البرتغال لإيجاد صديقه القديمِ، القائد، الذي يُخبرُه بأنّ مزرعتَه البرازيليةَ اهتمت بشكل حسن وقد أَصْبَحَ غنياً. مِنْ البرتغال، يُسافرُ براً إلى إنجلترا، لتَفادي الحوادث في البحر، عن طريق إسبانيا وفرنسا؛أثناء شتاءِ في Pyrenees، هو ورفاقه يَجِبُ أَنْ يَطْردوا هجومَ بالذئابِ الشريرةِ. يُقرّر كروزو بَيْع مزرعته، كعودة إلى البرازيل تَستلزمُ التَحويل إلى الكاثوليكيةِ. لاحقاً في حياة ما بعد الزواج، سَيكونُ عِندَهُ ثلاثة أطفالِ ويُصبح أرملاً، يَعُودُ إلى جزيرتِه لآخر مَرّة.

يَنتهي الكتاب بتلميح حول تكملة التي تفصّلُ عودتَه إلى الجزيرةِ، التي كَانتْ قَدْ اكتشفت.

[عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل للمشاهدة الرابطللتسجيل اضغط هنا]]] >

[~ A7lA DoNiA ~]

Sources & useful links
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