AnalyseLetter XI

Compare Samuel Richardson’snovel Pamela and Daniel Defoe’snovel Robinson Crusoe

It is the letter XI of Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela . It is arranged into a epistolary form indeed it is made by Pamela’s letters to convey Pamela’s feelings and fears. Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe is organised in journal form to create a realism effect. The different structure underlines that the characterisation of the witness that coincides with the protagonist is different. Daniel Defoe underlines references of time, space and Robinson’s efforts to surviveand to leave island that called “Island of Despair” to create a realism effect and Samuel Richardson underlines Pamela‘s thoughts and feelings indeed in the letter the writer write down her emotions and it makes Pamela the first psychological poem. Both novels is written in first personal narrator technique and so the reader identifies with the protagonist but he could accepts his/her choice or not.                                 

The letter concludes with Pamela purpose to escape from Mr. B.’s house  that it has become a place of “terror and anguish” but Robinson Crusoe wants to escape from the island because he considers it dangerous but he doesn’t know the island and to survive at all costs indeed he change the nature to his needs and Robinson enslaves Friday, it goes without saying that he doesn’t consider Friday’s culture and thoughts but right from the start the adjectives are “poor” and “miserable” so it is contradictory.

Both novels highlight the protagonist skills to face and solve the problems, indeed the first adjectives of Robinson Crusoe novel  are “poor” and “miserable” and Pamela says “as brief as I can” it means that she is in a dangerous situation. Consequently to convey the Enlightenment values of the self-made man namely a man or woman who started at the bottom indeed Pamela and Robinson belong to the middle class: Pamela is a maidservant and Robinson is a castaway. But both protagonists managed to apply the rational method so they solve the problems, for example Robinson thinks “how I survive?” and he realise that he need to build a habitation and look for food, similarly in Samuel Richardson’s novel Mr. B. is taken in by Pamela because she is more intelligent than Mr. B. and she manage to escape from the summer-house where Mr. B. locks her. Otherwise old Greek and Latin poems where the hero to win the battles use the phisical power.