Daniel Defoe e Robinson Crusoe

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Data:	14.11.2005
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DANIEL DEFOE

Defoe was born in London in 1660 and he was educated at Newington Green. Defoe was a prolific writer: he wrote essays, pamphlets and travel books besides many articles for newspapers and magazines. In 1719 Defoe published Robinson Crusoe, which is the story of a shipwreck on a desert island where he remained for twenty-eight years. He wrote a diary where he recorded his experiences. Robinson rescued a man from cannibals, he called him Friday, he taught him English and to read the Bible. The novel ends with Robinson’s return to England. Daniel Defoe wrote other important novels as Moll Flanders, Lady Roxana, Captain Singleton and Colonel Jack. He died in 1731.
Defoe’s novels are fictional autobiographies. Their structure is characterised by a series of episodes and adventures held together by the unifying presence of a single hero. The characters usually appear in isolation either physically or socially.
The hero of Defoe’s novel belongs to the middle-class. The author decides to set the story on a desert island because there Robinson can prove his qualities, to demonstrate that he deserves to be saved by God’s Providence. On the island he organises a primitive empire, thus becoming the model of the English coloniser: his stay on the island is seen as a change to exploit and dominate Nature. The society on the island can be read as an exaltation of 18thcentury England and its ideals of mobility and individualism. Defoe shows that the individual can modify his destiny through action.