Personal Response to Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe Essay -- Robinso

Defoes novel, Robinson Crusoe relates single mans spiritual journey in search of ego and his goal of setting involvements right and making amends. Finding the ego may take a lifetime. It took twenty-eight years on the island for Robinson Crusoe to discover to a greater extent about himself, and, of course, he had to wait that number of years before he could make up for past mistakes. However, we do not gift an oceanic preventing us from making amends, and if only readers were to open themselves to this book, for all its clumsiness, flat bearing and Eurocentricity, it can, by illustrating wizard mans life, illuminate ours. To engender opening ourselves we must begin to identify with Crusoe. This is not as easy as it might seem. For one thing, in my case, he is a man, and I am a woman. He lived two hundred years ago so had very assorted values. He was white. I am not. It is, however, necessary to push these things aside and go to the text. Look especially at inst ances when Crusoe is not the most politically dress of heros- -when he seems most at odds with our thinking. Consider Crusoes treatment of Friday. Friday has no name of his own, and he, the savage, automatically becomes a servant. Here, Crusoe is condescending and racist. Yet, when I look at my own actions towards opposites, I have to admit that many times they slide by short of being good or just. Let us be honest, dont we all shun or dislike those not like ourselves in color, age, social standing, or religion, at some time or other? One other important flaw--some might not call it a flaw at all--is Crusoes bond of utility rather than bond of vulgar respect that forms the basis of his friendships. Crusoe is a man that, early in the novel, is a friend when the other person c... ...eight years on a cast off island. We learn that what really keeps us down is our human self submersion and that we have to rise above this terrible selfishness. We learn that finding the self is acknowledging our frailty and working, in spite of it, towards making our spiritual side strong. If I realize what is important in life, I know I have learnt from Crusoes experiences and will never have to cry Oh had there been but one .... The one book that teaches all that books can teach Rousseau I shall pathway through this world but once any good thing therefore I can do, or any kindness I can show to any human being let me do it now, let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. Stephen Grellet Works CitedDefoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Thomas Keymer. Oxford Oxford UP, 2008. Print. Oxford Worlds Classics.