"Robinson Crusoe" and Religion

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and focuses on a range of distinctive puritanical motifs by exploring the 'profoundly religious' climate that saw the emergence of this pioneer of fiction. It looks at how the novel essentially takes the form of a spiritual biography whereby Defoe's prodigal embodiment in Crusoe follows a pattern of punishment for the disobedience to his father, repentance and consequently deliverance from his affliction on the island. It also explores how it is by means of this design that Crusoe grows in spiritual faith to become the mythical hero who possesses an immediate resonance of association in the twenty-first century's heritage of the English novel.

From the Paper:

"This idea of religious father and prodigal son may be traced back to Defoe's The Family Instructor that was published in two volumes shortly before Robinson Crusoe. This example of Puritanical guide literature was primarily for didactic purposes and would have been recognized amongst Defoe's contemporaries. The 1715 volume presents a boy who tires of his father's attempts to Christianize and tether him, debatably portraying an embryonic Crusoe. Such treatise helped in forming the minds of fiction's first creators, but Robinson Crusoe actualizes the symbolic aspects of life observed by a puritan."

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• Argumentative Essay # 73656 : "Robinson Crusoe"

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