Robinson Crusoe A.

Introduction Today we are considering yet another story about an adventurer who ends up on an island for many years and then returns back home. We have already considered two other such stories, The Odysseyand The Tempest, and we are going on next week to read another, Gulliver's Travels. These four stories have another point in common: they are all unusually popular, both to adults and (often in a modified form) to children as well. There is something very appealing to the popular imagination about such narratives, and we don t have to be !iberal "tudies students to recogni#e that. Today, $ d like to suggest what these stories have in common and, in the process, to offer some reasons why this narrative form is so appealing. %nd then $ d like to apply some of those observations to &efoe s novel. 'y ma(or purpose here, which will become apparent in a few moments, is to explore the vision of life (or at least some aspects of it) which this novel holds out to us and which is significantly different from the others, no matter how apparently similar the narrative form might be. B. The Attractions of the Isolato Adventurer )ery simply put, these four stories have a similar general narrative structure which goes something like this: (a) a member of a sophisticated *uropean society is accidentally cast adrift into the wilderness, where everything is unfamiliar and there are no apparent aids of normal society and no familiar social group around him+ (b) the hero must ad(ust to this strange environment, find some means of coping with the physical and the psychological dislocation+ (c) the hero must find a way off the island, and (d) the hero must reintegrate himself into the *uropean society from which he unwillingly was alienated. The casting adrift can happen in any number of ways. Typically it is the result of a shipwreck, a mutiny, or a misadventure of some kind. %dapting to the new environment may or may not involve ad(usting to the people who live there. $t almost always will re,uire the hero to cope with a very different vision of nature, and he will be forced to confront the fact that in this place things run very differently from what he is used to and that the conventional resources he relies on to cope with life are not available. This, in turn, may produce all sorts of reflections or changes in the normal routine of the hero (because he will be forced to confront situations and ideas he would never run into in normal society). -nce he returns back to the society from which he originated, the hero faces the problem of reintegrating into a society he once took more or less for granted, but which he now, as a result of his experience, has to see from a new perspective. "uch reintegration may reveal a number of things. .or example, the original vision of society which he brought to the island may be confirmed in some way (e.g., perhaps -dysseus), so that in his adventures he has discovered the value of customary civili#ation in a new way. %lternatively he may have significantly changed in some way and is now prepared to enter society with a more mature attitude towards what is really important in life (e.g., /rospero). % third possibility might be that he has great difficulty now accepting the

society he left because he has for better or worse fundamentally altered his understanding of what really matters and is now, to a greater or lesser extent, a stranger in his own land (e.g., the person returning from the cave in /lato s famous allegory or 0ulliver, who has developed a strong critical sense to things which before the travel experience he endorsed unreflectingly). $n some cases he may be so transformed in the wilderness that he does not want to return (e.g., 0ulliver) and remains permanently estranged from the society he left or else has to be dragged protesting back to civili#ation. -ne ma(or source of interest in such stories, naturally, is the way in which the hero copes with the very different physical world in which he finds himself. 1e brings to the island certain attitudes, certain perceptions, certain skills2things we are familiar with2all of which have enabled him to cope more or less successfully in the civili#ed world. These, together with his character, are now exposed and tested as never before, for he has no habitual group to keep him in constant touch with the communal resources and values which have hitherto been an important, if unacknowledged, aid, and he is, in all elements of daily living, thrown onto his own resources as an individual having to live without the customary social support. This situation arouses interest on a number of levels. The first one is, ,uite simply, the pleasure we take in the mechanical details of coping in a strange place without the customary assistance we are used to. $n a wilderness or in a magic island or in a land of pygmies or giants, how does one cope with the everyday realities of life: food, shelter, going to the toilet, keeping warm, interacting with other forms of life on the island, whether they are wild animals like snakes and goats or wild people like /olyphemus and 3aliban or tempting, delightful creatures like 3alypso and %riel. When the hero has to deal with familiar problems in a transformed environment, obvious issues arise in ways that can be amusing, terrifying, pu##ling, shocking, and so on (e.g., 0ulliver s problems about how to relieve himself in a world where he is so much larger than everyone else). We take a natural delight in exploring the everyday problems of different worlds, especially seen, as these stories present them, in direct (uxtaposition with our own. 4ut there s a deeper interest, too. .or such a story, if the characteri#ation and the depiction of detail are at all well done, inevitably brings to the surface conflicts of value. The hero has to make unusual choices which would not be presented to him in such a stark fashion, if at all, back home. .or he is free in a way that none of us is in traditional society (there is no conventional crowd around to (udge his conduct), and he faces unusual challenges. 1e has to decide how to deal with the situation, how to spend his time, how to organi#e an unexpected set of possibilities. $n other words, the isolato has to discover who he is. 1e may be ,uite certain of that when he arrives, but his conception of what matters in life2his moral system2is going to come under pressure as never before. %nd the process of making these decisions will often (perhaps inevitably) educate him about what really matters and what does not. Thus, adventures with isolatos are, or can easily become, an exploration of moral values forced into the awareness of the hero by an unusual circumstance. %nd this development brings with it

inevitably a criticism or a confirmation of the social values (or some of them) of the society of which he is a representative, whose values he brings with him to the island, and to which he returns. /rospero s re(ection of the island and of the magic he so loves, like -dysseus re(ection of 3alypso for his own /enelope, is not (ust a manifestation of the hero s moral nature+ it is also a confirmation of certain values in the society to which they are returning. 0ulliver s re(ection of *uropean society upon his return at the end of the fourth voyage is, in large part, a very severe criticism of the moral laxity of *urope. C. Robinson Crusoe: Some General Observations $f we look at 5obinson 3rusoe in this so far rather general light, we can begin to shape an interpretation. $ m going to return to some of these points in more detail later, but let me (ust sketch out the shape of how one might interpret this book in the light of what $ have (ust observed about stories like this one. 6p to his arrival on the island, 5obinson 3rusoe is a fairly typical adventurous young lad, who has not much time for the sober advice of his father that he should enter the middle class and settle down to the safe and secure calling of making money. 1e runs off to sea and has a few adventures and gets shipwrecked. 7othing in his life up to this point suggests that he is in any way extraordinary, physically, intellectually, socially, or in any other way. That, of course, is an important difference between this narrative and the ones we have read so far, in which the hero is, from the start a superior and mature person (a moral and social aristocrat). 5obinson 3rusoe is, in a very real sense, like 0ulliver, an everyman, a typical middle8class representative of *uropean society, rather than a singularly gifted individual, a social and mental aristocrat. $n fact, one of the most important aspects of this book is that it is celebrating a new hero2the middle8class worker. 1e arrives on an island that is uninhabited (that is another ma(or difference between his story and the others $ have mentioned, and it s very significant, as $ shall mention later). $t is not a particularly cruel wilderness+ he does not have to fight to survive. $n fact, in many ways the place seems something of a paradise, in which 5obinson 3rusoe is more or less free to do whatever he wants without interruption from a very hostile climate or any other people. The island, indeed, offers him a great deal of immediate help (goats, fish, raisins, convenient shelter, and so on). 0iven that, the single most important fact of the story is that in this situation 5obinson 3rusoe chooses to channel all of his efforts into a single activity, manual labour. 'ost of the book is about work, the day8by8day routine and mundane tasks that 5obinson 3rusoe carries out, everything from making clothes, to sowing seeds or drying raisins, to building a house and a country bower and a boat, and so on. $f we look at what this book actually spends most of its time dealing with (especially in comparison with the Odyssey and the Tempest) we can say that whatever values it is celebrating, they are centrally concerned with these work activities. $n discussing this point (as $ shall later) it is important to notice all the possible things that are left out. There are many, many things about the island and about 5obinson 3rusoe s life there that we

learn nothing about. $f we assume, as we must, that the details in the book are the things that 5obinson 3rusoe and &efoe thought were essential for us to understand and that the details that are left out are peripheral, then we begin to get a sense of the particular vision of life this book calls our attention to. 5obinson 3rusoe does come into contact with others eventually, with some cannibals, .riday, and some *uropeans. 4y this time he has been on the island for many years and has matured from the callow youth who arrived. The way in which he deals with them reveals his mature (udgment about what is important and what is not. "o, for example, the way in which he instantly relegates .riday to the role of the servant and keeps him in that role, even after he leaves the island, is an endorsement of a particular attitude to a human relationship as valuable and sanctioned. When 5obinson 3rusoe returns from the island back to civili#ation, it s as if he has never been away. 1e has no trouble ad(usting. %nd he has gained an important new concern with money2something that his father urged him to take seriously as a young man, advice which 5obinson 3rusoe ignored. 7ow, many years later, he is most immediately concerned, not to think about his adventures or to reflect on what living in the wilderness might reveal about the limitations of *uropean society or the nature of human beings, or about the mysteries of life or nature, but rather to bring his accounts up to date, reckoning his accumulated capital, disbursing his money (udiciously to those who have served him honestly as stewards of his investments, and at times congratulating himself for his success as a confirmation of a certain religious view of life. $f we look at (ust these general points, without yet going into particular details, $ think it becomes clear that the story of this isolato is, in a very obvious sense, a morality story about a wayward but typical youth of no particular talent whose life turned out all right in the end because he discovered the importance of the values which really matter. %nd what are those values9 $n a nutshell, they are those associated with the /rotestant Work *thic, those virtues which $ spoke of earlier in the lecture on 1obbes and which arise out of the /uritan s sense of the religious life as a total commitment to a calling, unremitting service in what generally appears as a very restricted but often challenging commitment. 4y way of exploring that further, $ d like to turn now to examine how this book endorses that work ethic. Then, if there s time, $ d like to consider how that work ethic is seen throughout in a religious context. D. The Wor !thic

$ have made the claim above that the central concern of 5obinson 3rusoe s experiences on the island is work. The great ma(ority of the text is taken up with describing his unceasing efforts at mundane tasks. 5obinson 3rusoe is clearly eager to persuade his readers that he was never idle. 'any of his undertakings may have been futile (like his first big boat, which he could not move to the water), but they kept him busy. We might wonder to what extent he needs to do all the things he describes for us, like, for example, making bread or living off the produce he creates through his own agriculture. $s there no natural sustenance on the island which might be obtained with less labour9 What about fishing9 Wouldn t that be easier9 1e tries it and has success, but he doesn t stay

with it. Why not9 "urely, given the topical nature of the island, he doesn t have to labour so much9 :uestions like this miss the point. The book is a tribute to work, and the overwhelming message $ get from it goes something like this: 0od has put us on this world to work. That, in effect, means directing our energies to transform the world around us, to shape it to our will, to our calling, on a day8by8day basis. The important thing about all of 5obinson 3rusoe s agricultural efforts is not that he must have that particular food, but that he has willed himself into becoming a farmer. 1aving done that, having accepted that as his calling, no challenge can be too great to achieve it. %nd his success at making bread and all the other minor victories are a tribute to his resolution, to his surviving the test of the island. %griculture is the perfect calling, of course, because it s so time consuming and thus a daily proof of one s perseverance. .ishing or hunting, by contrast, demand far less time in mundane activities. -f course, he didn t rely much on fishing, as he might have, because it s too easy, too sedentary, too meditative an occupation. That s why some things matter, while others don t. The really important things in 5obinson 3rusoe are those that help him in his calling, especially the most valuable things he removes from the boat, the tools and the guns. -f course, he takes out some 4ibles and clothes and li,uor and materials. 4ut these are far less important than the machines necessary for him to impose his will on nature. 1e makes no experiments with different forms of living or even with very different forms of food. 1e is not interested, because his task, as he sees it, is to impose his will on the island. %nd the book is a tribute to the unremitting effort one man makes to achieve that end. $n this endeavour, it s really important to keep the accounts2 especially to keep track of time, the expenditure of your resources, and the return on your investment. -nly if you do that can you be sure that your work is being productive, is producing a surplus, the sure sign that you are on the right track. "o 5obinson 3rusoe keeps a (ournal, keeps notches in the tree to know the date (time is money), and is always producing a reckoning of everything (even of the people killed in various encounters). 5eaders sometimes wonder why 5obinson 3rusoe tells us what he did and then tells us again in the (ournal. Well, one possibility is that the techni,ue indicates to us that he is learning the importance of keeping a written reckoning2the very fact that he has started a (ournal is an indication of his growing virtue. % record of life is basically a book of accounts, a financial ledger, and the value of one s life thus depends upon a significant return on one s investment. To turn a profit (e.g., to produce a larger harvest this year than last) is a sign that one is living properly. When he enters into arrangements with people, he likes to set up a contract, in which all conditions, especially the financial obligations, are clearly stipulated (e.g., when he makes his agreement with the captain to recover the ship, the important clause is not that, if successful, the captain will take him back to *ngland, but that he will take them ;passage free.; What could be a higher sign of his success than his ability to obtain such a financial per,uisite9).

We don t find in this book that 5obinson 3rusoe in all those years spends much time reading the 4ible (he says he does, but from the attention paid to it, it s clearly far less important than work). .rom time to time we are told he thinks about things, but his thoughts are generally repetitive reformulations of a very simple belief in &ivine /rovidence. 1is thoughts on higher things, in fact, are far less interesting than his immediately practical plans about how to build something or carry out an immediate task. There s not a touch of the philosopher or the mystic about him+ he is a thoroughly practical imagination. 5obinson 3rusoe is a keen observer, but only of those things which he needs to know about in order to carry out a practical pro(ect. 1e can observe the flow of the sea and make important practical conclusions about navigation in a small boat. .urthermore, he has a good empirical sense. 1e knows how to conduct an experiment in sowing a crop (saving some of the seed for a second attempt)+ he has the ability to learn from his failures (like building the boat too far from the water). %bove all he has enormous self8discipline. 7o matter how boring and time8consuming the task, he will carry it out. 4ut he lacks totally the capacity for wonder, a simple contemplative (oy at the beauty and variety of the world, that ,uality which is a marked feature of -dysseus s imagination and of 'iranda s, or for that matter any intense desire to en,uire into things more abstract than the immediate (ob at hand. %nd, unlike 0ulliver, he has no developing critical awareness of social ,uestions, so that his enforced isolation does not promote reflections on *uropean customs or values. .or example, we never learn about the effects on him of a tropical sunrise or sunset over the sea or about the mystery of the sea or the magic wonder of the island or of the ambiguous complexities of feelings as he ga#es at the stars. 1e is rarely, if ever, troubled by an unexpected thought. 1is ruminations on the cannibals begin to touch on some potentially very interesting issues to do with cultural relativism and a critical attitude to received opinion and even to 3hristian doctrine, but these do not lead him anywhere. 1e decides that it is best to leave them alone, degraded specimens of humanity as they are, for 0od to deal with. 3annibals, like everything else, exists as a challenge to overcome2not with wit and inventiveness, but with caution, prudence, toil, and gunpowder. $f they are not an immediate problem, because they fall outside one s pro(ect, then it is best to ignore them completely. $n that sense, he has no innate curiosity to find out new things or to speculate about ,uestions irrelevant to what he has decided to work at. The reward of this view of life is that one ac,uires the right to the ultimate goal of middle8class /rotestant striving, the right to call oneself the owner of a piece of property. What confers ownership is not heredity or one s aristocratic share of the goods of this life+ the only thing that truly confers the right to call yourself an owner is work. That s why 5obinson 3rusoe can call himself after a number of years the 0overnor of the island. %t first this seems as if it might be a self8deprecating (est. 4ut it is nothing of the sort. 1e is the lord of the island, not because he is the first person there, but because he has earned the title through the work he has done, through transforming a hitherto idle and therefore useless piece of land into a productive and profitable business venture, a small farm

We learn very little in the novel about how 5obinson 3rusoe feels about himself, deep inside where it really counts. $nterestingly enough, the most revealing glimpses into his thought processes come when he reflects on his accomplishments. $ descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of pleasure (though mixed with my other afflicting thoughts), to think that this was all my own, that $ was king and lord of all this country indefeasibly and had a right of possession+ and if $ could convey it, $ might have it in inheritance, as completely as any lord of a manor in *ngland. (<=<) The language of this ,uotation is interesting. 1e admits he takes pleasure in his accomplishment, but there s a sense of guilt in the admission (he has to remind us that he also has afflictions). %nd he frames his feelings of satisfaction entirely in legal terms (;indefeasibly,; ;right of possession,; ;convey;). What stimulates his satisfaction is not the accomplishment or the beauty or the sense of his own proven skill, but the sense of legal ownership. 1e has gone from a castaway to the e,uivalent of an aristocrat. !ater on he has a similar reflection: 'y island was now peopled, and $ thought myself very rich in sub(ects+ and it was a merry reflection, which $ fre,uently made, how like a king $ looked. .irst of all, the whole country was my own mere property, so that $ had an undoubted right of dominion. "econdly, my people were perfectly sub(ected. $ was absolute lord and lawgiver+ they all owed their lives to me, and were ready to lay down their lives, if there had been occasion for it, for me. $t was remarkable, too, we had but three sub(ects, and they were of three different religions. 'y man .riday was a /rotestant, his father was a pagan and a cannibal, and the "paniard was a /apist. 1owever, $ allowed liberty of conscience throughout my dominion. (>?@) There is clearly an echo of 1obbes here. The religious differences or the common 3hristian bonding represented in this tiny community is irrelevant. What matters is the structure of obligation established by agreement and by the law concerning property. 5obinson 3rusoe is not the sovereign through any inherent merit in himself, but because he has staked his ownership to the land through work and because the others have covenanted to obey him. 1ere &efoe is echoing what was fast becoming a central claim in the attitude of the /rotestant pioneers in the 7ew World, a concept articulated by Aohn !ocke, among others (an attitude which was fundamental to the development of 3anada and which is still at work in shaping some of our attitudes to the native people: 1e that in -bedience to this command of 0od, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of Bthe *arthC thereby annexed to him something that was his /roperty, which another has no title to, nor could without in(ury take from him. . . . 0od gave the World to 'en in 3ommon+ but since 1e gave to them for their benefit . . . it cannot be supposed 1e meant it should always remain 3ommon and uncultivated. 1e gave it to the use of the $ndustrious and 5ationed (and !abor was to be his Title to it) not to the .ancy and 3ovetousness of the :uarrelsome and 3ontentious. . . . There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any thing, that several

7ations of the %mericas are of this, who are rich in !ands, and poor in all the comforts of life+ whom 7ature having furnished as liberally as any other /eople, either the materials of /lenty . . . yet for want of improving it by labor, have not one hundredth part of the 3onveniences we en(oy+ and a Ding there feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day !aborer in *ngland. (!ocke, Two Treatises of Government) 1is lordship over the land and ultimately over other human beings who arrive there does not come from any comparative excellence of station over them. 7or does he ever seek to claim the territory, as a .renchman or "paniard might, in the name of his country or his monarch or his church. 5obinson 3rusoe is such an individual that he has no consciousness of representing *ngland or striving to maintain or extend an *nglish way of life. !ife is much too personal a responsibility and challenge to think of oneself as part of a collective. "o he becomes in his own eyes the lord of the place and the others are his subordinates because he has worked and they have not. That is the single most important value demonstrated by 5obinson 3rusoe and for him the greatest single confirmation of his successful life. This attitude manifests itself even in the diversions and amusements he tells us about, since the most important of those appear to be his ability to tame nature (the dog and the parrot) to his will (<EF). %fter all, what could be a more apt symbol of a relationship with nature which sees it as something to be subdued to one s will than a parrot which gives back only the words and the voice of the individual. The truth of nature thus becomes a series of self8reflecting /olly syllables and the only voice he hears for years is the self8regarding ;/olly loves her cracker.; 5obinson 3rusoe, although good humoured enough, totally lacks any sense of humour which might lead him to see any incongruity in his situation or any ambiguity in his understanding of things. There is in this book no sense of irony, that life might, in fact, be complicated and re,uire some intellectual or emotional exploration. There is very little, if any, (oy in life, certainly nothing to match the satisfaction which comes from looking at one s account book and being able to prove that one has reaped a reward on one s investment and work. When we learn right at the end that 5obinson 3rusoe has married, the way he states the matter, the important point is that the marriage was to his advantage and produced a profit (that s much more important than the woman s identity or their common happiness together). 5obinson 3rusoe develops no critical sense at all, in spite of being in a situation where one would think such an attitude would be hard to avoid. 1e comes close at times, for example, in his descriptions of the money he has recovered from the "panish shipwreck. -n the island it is useless and over time it corrodes. That phenomenon might, in a more reflective mind (like 0ulliver s), lead one to speculate on the *uropean obsession with money, whose value derives from the social conventions we have associated with it, conventions which are exposed as artificial and hollow by the island experience. 4ut 5obinson 3rusoe shows little evidence of developing any such awareness. $n fact, once he returns to *urope the experience on the island seems to confirm in his mind the importance of money as a sign of spiritual success in reali#ing the good life.

This sense that 5obinson 3rusoe s attitude to the island life as his calling may explain why there is so little emphasis in this book that 5obinson 3rusoe thinks his life is somehow wasted on the island and why so little attention paid to thoughts of escape or a longing for escape. 0od has placed him on the island to prove himself, to show that he can meet the world with the right stuff, the persevering will and the diligent application of his toil, aided by technology, in a foreign situation, without the need for anyone else. To complain about it, to long for something different, is a sign that one lacks faith. 1ere, it s important to note that the island is uninhabited. .or the real business of life represented in this book is essentially a radically individualistic ethic. Whereas -dysseus is always motivated by social concerns2his desire for hospitality, fame, status, and home (things which one can only achieve by risking encounters with other people)2and whereas /rospero is motivated by social bonding, especially with his daughter25obinson 3rusoe s ma(or concern is always with himself, with his own responsibilities to prove himself in isolation from his fellow human beings. 1e doesn t, in fact, meet any fellow human beings until he has proved himself, and then he simply fits them into his vision of himself as a fully reali#ed isolated individual. They matter because they can assist him with his economic pro(ects, not because he needs their society or they have special demands which he can help them fulfill. This is a vision of life about as far removed from %ristotle s notion that human beings are by nature social and political animals as one can get. 5obinson 3rusoe s relationships with people are based on no traditional social bonds or moral obligations. They are based on business relationships2on who owes what to whom. $f you have rescued someone, then that puts them in your debt, and you are, in effect, their governor. The most valuable people in the world are those who most honestly discharge their financial obligations to you. Those to whom you have no such obligations, like your servant, for example, you can more or less deal with as you wish, even selling them into slavery, provided you make a profit, or you can simply ignore them as irrelevant to your life (like .riday s father). We get a very touching picture of how much .riday loves his father, but the value of that relationship has no effect on 5obinson 3rusoe s actions, and the father (ust disappears from the book, while .riday remains an important servant. 0one from this book are those things central to the world of the Tempest, the idea that social bonding, with its complex system of obligations, responsibilities, and obedience, is the essential feature of communal living and of life itself. 3rusoe s admiration for .riday does not educate him into any sense that his vision of life might be too narrow. 1e genuinely admires .riday for the way in which .riday can work and can willingly accept a subordinate position in their (oint work together. 1e s simply not interested in what .riday might have to teach him about aboriginal customs, about things outside 5obinson 3rusoe s value system, about .riday s full character. $n that sense, 5obinson 3rusoe has no intellectual or emotional concern for others at all. .riday is interesting only to the extent that he is useful, and he is useful only to the extent that he can fit in with 5obinson 3rusoe s pro(ects and become, in effect, one more tool he can use in his

calling. "ince .riday does that so well, 5obinson 3rusoe thinks he s a fine specimen, ;'y man .riday.; 5obinson 3rusoe is very proud of what he does when he revisits the island. 4ut what he does is simply put it on a more viable capitalist footing, furthering the imposition on the island of his own *uropean /rotestant values. $f the work is organi#ed properly in that fashion, then one doesn t have to worry about the ,uality of the community one has created or about what might happen to nature or to any of those non8agricultural types, like cannibals, who use the island for other purposes. The fact that the people on the island are producing a surplus, are making a profit, is sufficient reason to congratulate oneself that one is doing the right thing. The sense that one gets out of this is that there are no concessions made at all to the fact that this island is not *urope. That doesn t matter. *uropean life is simply imposed on the place without a ,ualm. $n fact, the transformation of the island from the ;$sland of &espair; (the name 5obinson 3rusoe first gives it) into a thriving *uropean colony, an extension of the *uropean life, and the great satisfaction 5obinson 3rusoe takes from that transformation indicate that this is a success story, above all a tribute to the enormous value of individual effort in carrying out years and years of dreary work, of perseverance, of faith, and a of a total commitment to a very narrow endeavour. When he revisits the island he brings valuable presents: tools and weapons. %nd he leaves behind a carpenter and a smith. *ven though he has no intention of living there, he is still determined to maintain that the island is his property !. The Reli"ious Dimension This view of life is given a religious dimension in the text. 5obinson 3rusoe s discovery of the work ethic goes hand in hand with a spiritual awakening. $ don t think anyone would argue that 5obinson 3rusoe is a very profound religious thinker, although religion is part of his education and transformation. 1e claims he reads the 4ible, and he is prepared to ,uote it from time to time. 4ut he doesn t pu##le over it or even get involved in the narrative or character attractions of the stories. The 4ible for him appears to be something like a &ale 3arnegie handbook of maxims to keep the work on schedule and to stifle any possible complaints or longings for a different situation. "till, the religious dimension is central to what this book is about. 5obinson 3rusoe s interpretation of his life links the financial success directly and repeatedly with his growth in religious awareness. This is not an intellectual conversion but, simply put, an awareness that he has, in some ways, received 0od s grace and is under 1is care. The growing profitability of his efforts is proof of such a spiritual reward. This awareness fills him with a sense of guilt for his former life and a great desire to be relieved of that guilt. The desire to be relieved from that feeling of guilt, in fact, is much stronger than 5obinson 3rusoe s desire to be delivered from the island. 7ow $ looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought nothing of 0od but

deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. %s for my solitary life+ it was nothing+ $ did not so much as pray to be delivered from it or think of it+ it was all of no considerations in comparison to this+ and $ added this part here to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction. (GF) !ike a true /uritan, here 5obinson 3rusoe acknowledges that for him the real drama of life, the stuff that really matters, is internal. $nternal guilt is so much more central to life than external affliction. Thus, complaining about affliction misses the point. The task is to earn the grace of 0od which will ease the guilt. $n such a spiritual drama, one s geographical location is a minor point. "o whereas for -dysseus and /rospero, the absence of their home civili#ation is something they really care about and want to take care of, 5obinson 3rusoe s absence from home is, in a very real way, irrelevant to what life is all about. $f the central metaphor of life is the spiritual relationship between oneself and 0od, in comparison with which all social bonds are basically irrelevant, then we are all on islands. "o what does it really matter if $ find myself on a real island. The priorities are life remain the same. That s why the central image of this book for me is 5obinson 3rusoe s home on the island, that ama#ing fortress built on an island where there is nothing to threaten him. 1e puts more effort into the complex defence works to keep himself and his goods, especially his tools, safe. $n the same way, he lives his life to protect that inner fortress of his soul. Working constantly keeps unruly thoughts and despair from invading his inner home. %nything that might threaten that inner fortress, like too much meditation on anything, even on the nature of 0od, or reading or wonder or whatever, is to be kept away as an interference and a threat. %ny ,uestioning of the arrangements is a potential slackening of the faith which leads to sin: .rom hence $ sometimes was led too far to invade the sovereignty of /rovidence and, as it were, arraign the (ustice of so arbitrary a disposition of things that should hide that light from some and reveal to others, and yet expect like duty from both. 4ut $ shut it up and checked my thoughts with this conclusion, first, that we did not know as 0od was necessarily, and by the nature of 1is being, infinitely holy and (ust, so it could not be but that if these creatures were all sentenced to absence from 1imself, it was on account of sinning against that alight which, as the "cripture says, was a law to themselves, and by such rules as their consciences would acknowledge to be (ust, though the foundation was not discovered to us. %nd secondly, that still, as we are all the clay in the hands of the /otter, no vessel could say to 1im, ;Why hast Thou formed me thus9; (>=E) Thus, ignorance about many things is a condition of life, even at times an advantage, since it conceals from us many things we might otherwise fear and which might distract us from the task at hand (see p. <G>). The occasional visit from the cannibals may present a remote physical threat, but the presence of the &evil, who brings fear and despair, is much more serious, especially since it renders 5obinson 3rusoe less capable of working properly as he should.

Thus, in a sense, 5obinson 3rusoe is deep in his spirit an isolato, a man living his life as a solitary spiritual pilgrimage, even after he returns from *urope. The only real effort he makes with anyone is his attempt to teach .riday the rudiments of 3hristianity. 4ut the motivation behind this is clearly not because 3rusoe feels an urge to spread the gospel (he thinks the cannibals should be ignored or removed)+ rather he wants the religious training to be part of .riday s real education, the course of instruction which will make him useful and diligent in 5obinson 3rusoe s personal pro(ects and which, above all, will cure him of cannibalism. This, incidentally, indicates a profound and historically important difference between the /uritan and the 3atholic attitudes to the 7ew World inhabitants. To the 3atholics the important goal was that the inhabitants of the 7ew World should be converted, incorporated into the 3hristian community. There was no lack of abominable treatment by many colonists, but there was always an official policy, often strenuously pursued, that the first goal must be an extension of 3hristian world through conversion, education, and intermarriage. The /uritan emphasis was ,uite different. The inhabitants of the 7ew World were there to be ignored, like .riday s father, used as servants, like .riday, or killed, like the cannibals. The important part of the /uritan encounter with the 7ew World was what 5obinson 3rusoe shows us, the spiritual testing of the solitary /rotestant spirit, a life8long ordeal in which he achieved success (or the closest thing to a manifestation of success) by stamping his will on the new land, staking out territory as his property through backbreaking toil, without any concessions to anyone or anything, least of all to the land or to its original inhabitants. That was the /uritan s calling+ that was the reason 0od has placed us on this earth: to put to our personal uses the material and people available, to ignore what does not fit in with such pro(ects, and to remove ,uickly and ruthlessly anything that stands in our way. The famous drawing of 5obinson 3rusoe makes this point clearly. 3rusoe is walking alone on the beach, staring with apprehension at a footprint in the sand (the fact that there seems to be only one footprint adds somewhat to the mystery). 1e s dressed in a rather strange garb, and the picture emphasi#es his possession of tools and a gun. There is no attention paid to anything but 3rusoe (no luxurious vegetation, no other human figures, nothing to distract our attention from the only thing that matters, the isolated figure of 3rusoe himself. This famous drawing makes an interesting comparison with many 3atholic visual depictions of the 7ew World, in which what is stressed is the interaction of the arriving *uropeans and the local inhabitants, in a setting rich with vegetation and often with animals. $ m thinking here, for example, of the picture of %merigo )espucci awakening the spirit of the 7ew World, bringing to his encounter all sorts of symbols of the civili#ation his is coming from and encountering a different world of people, plants, and animals. The image may suggest (to many it clearly does suggest) a strongly paternalistic attitude, but at least it emphasi#es the importance of the human contact. -ne might pursue this different attitude in many directions, and that s beyond my purpose here. 1owever, it s no accident that the

/rotestant attitude does not (for obvious reasons) encourage one to ;go native; or to enter into intimate alliances with them. $n the 3atholic tradition, by contrast, intermarriage with the indigenous population was encouraged, as was a primary concern for their conversion to 3hristianity. #ostscri$t $ think the enormous popularity of Robinson Crusoe in the two hundred years after it was written goes hand in hand with the growing expansion of /uritanism and capitalism in all areas of *nglish and 7orth %merican life. $t has the form of a narrative which is as old as the Odyssey, and &efoe is skilful enough to hold our attention with all sorts of particular details. 4ut the real popularity comes from the vision it delivers, a value system which speaks elo,uently to the countless people who lived a life not altogether unlike 5obinson 3rusoe s, lonely years in hostile territory with little to go on but the strength of their bodies, the tools they brought with them, and the intense spiritual conviction that in carrying out the con,uest of nature in the 7ew World they were reali#ing 0od s purposes for them, their calling. *ven if that encounter was not always framed in an explicitly religious context, the sense that the frontier experience in the forest or on the prairie was essentially a spiritual test of one s individual will remained (and still remains) strong. $ don t want to leave a negative impression from my remarks on this text. That is easy to do, because so much of the ethic of Robinson Crusoe depends on self8denial, of, in effect, blocking out so much of what life affords in order to channel all one s energies into a comparatively narrow canal (or to use a metaphor of Tawney s, the ethic is like the painting techni,ue that, in order to focus all our attention on single spot of light, blacks everything else out). "uch a procedure is not likely to leave one sensitive to differences between the people and lands the traveler encounters and the world he has come from. %nd it certainly can promote a fre,uently aggressive imperialism, on a small or large scale, in the name of one s spiritual fulfillment. 1owever, we need to recogni#e that there can be a certain heroism in this, not a heroism of the classical tradition, based on a well8developed and wide8ranging conception of excellence, but a heroism of the restricted spirit, protected in its inner fortress and prepared to take on whatever ;afflictions; the world presents in order to bring one s calling to a profitable conclusion, a heroic assertion of the will in the service of a narrow calling, the sort of spiritual discipline that will provide the continuing commitment to tame a difficult wilderness. That this ethic is important in the history of 7orth %merica is, $ take it, self8evident. %nd almost all people here have some first8 hand experience of it either in the way they were educated or in conversations with parents and grandparents. .or better or worse, this work ethic still helps to mould our political and social thinking (e.g., our sense that people who don t make it are somehow spiritually inferior or that going on welfare is morally demeaning or even that the highest goal of life is to own and cultivate one s own rural property with outmoded technology). That view, so powerful for so long, may be weakening its grip (maybe), but we don t have to be particularly perceptive to recogni#e its effects.

%nd no matter what we think of this novel or the various aspects of the vision of life $ see in it, there are several people in this room who, consciously or not, live by 5obinson 3rusoe s creed (seculari#ed perhaps but still operative): they are willing to devote their lives to often very mundane toil in order to secure for themselves a powerful fortress against all potential invaders. The value of their lives is what goes on in that fortress, and their motivation for work comes from a dedication to the proposition that only if $ can show a handsome profit over time, a surplus of goods in my fortress or my bank, will my life be a success.