Do you know Robinson's story? ( ex p. 188 )

Alexander Selkirk was a mapmaker, his story became Daniel Defoe's inspiration for Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe, the main character of the romance, decided to make fortune travelling around the world. During the travel Crusoe's ship was taken over by the Moorish Pirates and he became enslaved by them. Robinson survived but he did not go home. To tell the truth he went to Brasil, where he became a farmer and he managed an owner plantation.

Successfully he embarked on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ended up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad, where he remains fot twenty-eight years.

During this time he keep a journal where he recorded what happens to him. After twenty years of solitude he found a human footprint on the shore and later observed cannibalistic savages eating prisoners. Once Robinson decided to attach them, in fact using his gun he scared them away and saved a young savage whom he named Friday. Friday was extremely grateful and became Robinson's devoted servant. For some years the two lived happily.

One morning Robinson saw an English ship, they reported home Robinson and Friday.

The novel ends with the return of Robinson, he discovered he had become very rich thanks to his plantation in Brasil.

Comprehension

>> After having been on the island for about ten days, Robinson still needs books, a pen and an ink.

>> The consequences of the lack of them are the loss of the track of time, the loss of reason and rationality.

>> In order to solve the time's problem he cut every day with his knife a piece of wood, so he had a calendar and he could not forget the Sabbath days from the working days.

In order to find other objects Crusoe decided to search among the many things he brought out of the ship in the several voyages.

>> Robinson needed someone to talk to in order to share informations, he felt alone.

Interpretation

>> Right from the start this extract is reach of details, like latitude, the date and also the description is full of scientific and geographic references. Those elements make the intelligent reader understand Robinson has the mind of a calculator. The large number of unusual details also give an idea of realism.

>> The very beginning of the novel is similar to the beginning of T1 because it present a great quantity of useless details.