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Robinson Crusoe

By Daniel Defoe

The first volume of Robinson Crusoe was published on 25 April 1719, and it was a big hit, especially for the lower and middle classes. Since that one worked so well, Daniel published Moll Flanders in 1722, drawing heavily on his experiences in Newgate prison to add realism. This novel got him the label of a social historian, much, much later, of course. The point was that the public ate up this kind of thing, and Daniel wrote lots of it. He also worked for a publisher named Mr. Applebee between 1720 and 1726, who liked to publish books about the lives of condemned criminals. Daniel used to go to prison cells and even the scaffold to receive manuscripts for these lives from the criminals themselves. He sometimes goofed up on dates and numbers, but all of these lives are wonderful studies of character and society, though often a bit too heavy on the moral lessons by today's standards.

The action

In the novel Robinson Crusoe , Daniel Defoe presents the life of one man who lived on a desert island for twenty-eight years . Robinson Crusoe was born in 1632 in York city in a good family . He had two elder brothers . Since he was a child , he was feeling an attraction for sailing . When he had nineteen years old he ran away from home to sail with a fellow . They had wreck and the crew was saved . Then he met in London a captain and they tripped to Guinea . On this trip they were attacked by a pirate ship from Sale and he became slave . He escaped and the he sailed to South and continued his travel to Guinea. The ship wrecked and the all crew died except Robinson Crusoe who woke up on a desert island . He thought about his condition and he built a place to stay and to be safe. Then he began to make tools and cultivate barley. Then he began to research the island . On the island , he found lemon trees , grapes , tobacco , sugar cane . These plants grew wild without any human help . His family grew because his cat came back with young cats . He found a parrot and he taught the parrot to speak . On the island he could survive because there was a lot of animals and fruits . He tame a kid and he made clay pot . His target was to sail to the continent so he tried to build a boat and he did it , but he couldn't put the boat on water . After a while he hadn't anything to wear so he made clothes from the skins of the animals . One day when he woke up , he saw that there were cannibals on his island and they wanted to eat him . Finally he found a man foot print on the island . First he thought that the foot print was his foot print but it was bigger . After that he sow the remainders of a cannibal meal . After a while he met the cannibals who sat around a fire for a cannibal meal . He told himself that he would kill them if they came again on his island . Another boat wrecked near the island and he went to the boat to see if anyone survived but he didn't find anyone alive . After that he had an unusual dream and in that day he saw five cannibals boats coming to the island . He saved a cannibal and he made him his slave . He named him Friday and Friday was amazed by Robinson's shotgun . Friday learnt English and he told him that on the continent there were some white men like Robinson Crusoe . They both built a boat and they decided to go on the continent to talk with the others white men , but the wild men came again to the island to eat a Spanish man and the other cannibal , who was Friday's father . Friday , the Spanish man and Friday's father went to the continent . In this time , when Robinson was alone , a English ship came near the island and another boat brought on the island three prisoners . Among the prisoners was the captain of the ship . Robinson helped the captain to get back to his ship and to punish the rebels . After twenty-eight years he finally left the island . When he arrived in Yorkshire he found out that many members of his family died . On his way to Brazil to get his proprieties he stopped in Lisbon where he met an old friend  , the captain . He decided to go back to London , were Robinson got married and remained for the rest of his life.

The characters

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe was a English sailor . Since he was child he was attracted by the sea and by the ocean . He wanted to know the world so in one unlucky day he left home going to the ocean . He was a brave and hardworking man when he was in Brazil . He was getting rich in Brazil because he was a land-owner there . Another unlucky day , he took a boat to get slaves to work on his lands . Unfortunately his ship wrecked near a desert island . He was an optimistic man when he arrived on that island . He build on its own a fortification and he became a good protector of his animals . He was a good gun-shooter and he was a brave man trying to help some people from the hands of the cannibals . He was a good English teacher trying to teach Friday and his parrot English . He also was a patient man because he stayed on that desert island alone but with the hope in his heart .

Friday :

Friday was Robinson's slave and his skin color was black . He was a thankful man to Robinson because he saved him from the hands of the cannibals . Being a very fast runner he ran from the others cannibals who wanted to eat him . Because ha was a very hardworking man , Robinson loved him and they worked together to escape from that island . He was a very brave man in the fight with the wolfs and with the bear in their way to London . After he learnt how to shoot with the gun , he became a very good shooter and he was a very good fighter in the fight with the others cannibals .

Robinson Crusoe is one of the greatest novel by Daniel Defoe . It is an adventure novel .