ROBINSON CRUSOE

Plot:

Robinson Crusoe, novel wrote by Daniel Defoe, was inspired by the story of Alexander Selkirk. Robinson Crusoe is the main character of the novel, he comes from the town of York and his father was a merchant, Crusoe’s greatest dream was to travel around the world and so he decides to leave his family to make his own fortune travelling around the world.

During his second voyage was imprisoned by the moors and he was enslaved, after two years he sail to African coast, where a Portuguese captain took him in Brazil. Here Crusoe became a plantation owner.

Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa but he was shipwrecked in a storm. After twelve years of solitude, he finds a human footprint and he discovers native cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. Then he met a young men called Friday. Friday becomes Robinson's servant.
He remained on the desert island for 28 years. After these long years, another ship of savages arrives with three prisoners. Crusoe and Friday saved two of them. Finally Crusoe was rescued and brought back to England, where he discovers that his plantation had made him rich.

CRUSOES' ISLAND

Comprehension:

>>Robinson still need books, pen and ink because he shouldn’t lose his reckoning of time.

>>If he doesn’t have this important things he will lose his reckoning of time; he wants to put everything in order and he wants to be organized to better live on the island.

>>In order to not lose his reckoning of time, Robinson Crusoe cuts with his knife upon a large piece of wood, in capital letters, the days and then he makes a great cross into the number every day.

Interpretation:

>> Geographical and Scientific references are unusual for fictional works.

>>Since Defoe was a journalist, when he wrote Robinson Crusoe he described things with lots of details.

>>He uses concrete and ordinary vocabulary.

>>Defoe uses very long, detailed, complex  and sometimes boring sentences.

>>He uses a list of things that Robinson Crusoe possess, from line 20 to about line 28.

>> I think that all these features makes the tale clearer and so it is easy to understand but I think also that for nowadays readers this tale could be boring.

>>This tale is told in the first person and in my opinion Defoe’s choices involved the reader into the story and the reader feels more closer to the protagonist.

>> As I had just said Defoe’s style is boring but not everywhere, sometimes I’m curious to go on because I want to know what will happen to the protagonist.