Style

Narrative
Robinson Crusoe is a fictional autobiography
written from a first-person point of view, apparently
written by an old man looking back on his
life. The story also includes material from an incomplete
diary, which is integrated into the novel.
Spiritual Fable
Robinson Crusoe can be viewed as a spiritual
or religious fable. Defoe was very concerned with
religious issues, and nearly became a Dissenter
minister. In the preface of the book, Crusoe asserts
that he aims to “justify and honour the wisdom of
Providence in all the variety of our circumstance.”
In so doing, Crusoe clearly sees himself as part
of the tradition of religious instruction manuals.
The book does show similarities to the four different
types of spiritual fable. Firstly, Crusoe, like
many Puritans, keeps a diary in which he records
his progress toward salvation. Of this first form of
spiritual biography, the best known is John Bunyan’s
1666 Grace Abounding. The second form of spiritual fable evident in
Crusoe is the guide or advice tradition. This type
of fable is aimed at particular audiences—seamen,
farmers, young people, women—to point out the
dangers of human existence, especially their own.
The goal of such works is to show not just the dangers
but the solution, usually a prayer.
The tale of Providence is the third tradition evident
in Crusoe’s story. In such tales, God is believed
to be a being who intervenes in the affairs
of people. Crusoe is constantly speculating on
whether an event is due to God’s intervention in
providential terms.
The last form is the pilgrim allegory, like Bunyan’s
Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). This form was
very popular but often amounted to no more than
a modernization of the parable about the Prodigal
Son, or the story of Jonah.
In this form, a young man leaves his home and
consequently isolates himself from God. This act
results from pride, discontent, or the rejection of a
“calling.” God intervenes, usually with violence, to
bring about a change in the prodigal’s direction
back toward Himself. By this intervention, the man
realizes he should have stayed home or accepted
his calling and thus willingly confronts evils and
hardships to return to God. Crusoe’s adventure follows
this pattern.
Verisimilitude
Although heavily influenced by religious concerns
and technique, Defoe’s use of realism, or
verisimilitude, is perhaps the most singular aspect
of the work. What Defoe did was apply and thereby
popularize modern realism.
Modern realism—as formulated by Descartes
and Locke but not fully outlined until Thomas
Reid—holds that truth should be discovered at the
individual level by verification of the senses. The
realistic elements of Robinson Crusoe include the
lists, time scale, repetition, diary, and Crusoe’s ordinary
nature. The reader could almost use Robinson
Crusoe as a handbook if ever stuck on a deserted
island.
Time
The concept of time is central to the structure
of Robinson Crusoe. Defoe presents Crusoe’s life
chronologically. The details of Crusoe’s life and
activities mark the passage of time; and while exhausting
to the modern reader, these small details
reflect the concern with time during that period.
Allegory
Many critics view Robinson Crusoe as an allegory
for Defoe’s life. The first such attempt, by
Charles Gildon, was spurred by a comment in the
preface of Defoe’s Serious Reflections During the
Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Many scholars have since tried to match the
known details about Defoe with the events in Crusoe.
No one has been successful.
Earlier works by Defoe add credence to this
view. His notebook of meditations, written when
he was twenty-one, show that Robinson Crusoe’s
story was on his mind a long time, well before the
sensational tales about Alexander Selkirk.
More clues can be found in Defoe’s most autobiographical
piece, An Appeal to Honour and
Justice (1715). Defoe claims that he endured great
solitude but had remained “silent under the infinite
Clamours and Reproaches, causeless Curses, unusual
Threatnings, and the most unjust and injurious
Treatment in the World.” Although it is impossible
to be certain whether Robinson Crusoe is
an allegory for Defoe, it is certain that Crusoe represents
Defoe’s thoughts on solitude and industriousness.
Today Robinson Crusoe remains a popular adventure
narrative. In fact, the book gave rise to the
“Robinsonade,” adventure tales that rework the
structural elements of Crusoe’s island tale. Moreover,
the character of Robinson Crusoe is recognized
as a literary and cultural icon, like Don
Quixote, Don Juan, and Faust; the story of a man
stuck on a deserted island has become familiar to
nearly everyone in the Western world.

History context
The Restoration
When Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) came to
power in England in 1653 he instituted a strict government
based on Puritan principles. Although this
benefited the middle class and the merchants, his
excessive taxes, his rule by force, and the absence
of trial by jury or parliamentary representation
gradually led the English people to hate him more
than they had Charles I.
When Cromwell died in 1658, his son Richard
(1628–1712) assumed the reigns of power. His
weakness soon led to his resignation, and the army
and parliament verged on a civil war. However, the
monarchy was restored to power when General
George Monck invited Charles II to return.
Charles II (1630–1685) restored the British
monarchy in May of 1660. An enthusiastic parliament
convened in the following year, and became
known as the “Cavalier Parliament.” Its session
lasted until 1679. The Church of England was restored
by the Clarendon Code, which also demanded
oaths of allegiance to the king. It also made
it unlawful to raise arms against the king.
Colonialism
Two dominant European powers lost much of
their power during the seventeenth century. Firstly,
Spain’s decline began after a series of naval losses.
Secondly, Portugal was not able to withstand Dutch
aggression. Although both nations would retain
control over several colonies, by the end of the seventeenth
century France and England became the
dominant world powers.
England’s colonies in North America—
Jamestown, Virginia (founded 1607) and Plymouth,
Massachusetts (founded 1620)—were becoming
prosperous by the 1700s. The original
English colonies in the New World were joined by
new ones: the Carolinas (1663), Pennsylvania
(1682), and islands in the West Indies.
Glorious Revolution
When Charles II died, James II (1633–1701)
assumed the throne of England. A fervent Roman
Catholic, James freed many Catholics, Quakers,
and Dissenters from prison. Alarmed by his policies,
the Earl of Argyll and the Duke of Monmouth
joined to overthrow the King in 1685. They were
defeated, due in large part to a lack of support from
the noble classes and the London merchants. Some
suggest that Defoe himself was among those captured.
In 1688, James II had an heir and he proceeded
to impose his Catholic agenda, including Catholicizing
the army. The nobles and merchants decided
to bet their lives on an “invasion,” by extending an
invitation to the Protestant rulers William and Mary
of the United Provinces (Netherlands).
William III (1650–1702), having promised to
defend English liberties and Protestantism, landed
with an army in 1688 and marched unopposed on
London. James II fled to Ireland where his supporters,
the Jacobites, were strong. He had French
backing as well as the support of some of the Scottish
clans. The Scottish Jacobites were defeated by
William III at Killiecrankie in 1689.
In the following year, William III defeated
James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
William then turned his attention to Europe. With
English money and troops, he fought against the
French in the War of the League of Augsberg until
1697. William’s need for money led to the creation
of the Bank of England (1694), and a commercial
revolution which would enable Britain to
eventually dominate global commerce.

Daniel Defoe's marks the birth of the modern novel as an art form distinct from other literary forms, which
shows the interplay of the individual and society. The picaresque novel was defined as an adventurous
story of a rogue's life which through its episodic account of wanderings contains a satiric view of society.
It originated in the Spanish and French picaresque novels, The English picaresque strain is
represented by the many rogue- histories, chiefly of notorious criminals, a highly popular form of
literature to which Defoe himself contributed accounts of Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wilde. Defoe
the author of picaresque novels and novels of adventures, is the writer who was most aware of the
individualistic spirit of the middle- class man.Based on a picaresque strings of events his novels add a
deeper insight into the psychology of the main characters

His main preoccupation was the economic status of man. The ideal pursued by Defoeesque
characters is their economic success. Everything else, including morality and conscience, is subordinated
to this aim His heroes and heroines all make good, all reach affluence. They might be called stories of
successful crime, the success is obtained at the price of a reformed life. Life is considered in terms of
polarities: virtue vs, vice, good v evil.Poverty is the sin of Defoe's characters : it is better to steal than beg;
Their choices are momentary, with immediate consequences. . His novelist's style was deeply influenced
by his journalistic experience
The narrative perspective of Defoe's novels is narrowed to that of the protagonist. The voice that
speaks offers the perspective of a life that has mastered its vicissitudes. The tone of the first
person narator suggests, the optimism of the Puritans The first person narrative of Defoe's novels is
alert, captivating the reader's attention through an accurate powerof observation and gift of
descriptjon. Defoe's technique, is called circumstantial realism

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner is a popular voyage-
adventure tale. Defoe's protagonist is able to do without society due to the training and skills that he had
learnt in society. Survival is his purpose. The message of the book is reassuring and inspiring: man can
ultimately become his own sustaining force all he has to do is keep his mind in a proper condition. The
Puritan sustains his morality by reading the Bible. The dialogue with God is both a means of salvation
and psychic therapeutics. By the attained meditative state, man can transcend his animal state and
create for himself a secondary, better world of abstract thoughts and feelings.. Theme Religion Robinson
Crusoe is first rebellious, then atones for his sins, and then converts himself and others to Christianity. The
character is also pretty similar to a Biblical figure who had his faith tested through many trials and a
tremendous amount of suffering.Wealth Crusoe is very interested in commerce, trade, and the accumulation
of wealth He makes money in Africa and also in the sugar plantations , in Brazil Society and class Robinson
Crusoe's family is of the middle class. The novel is concerned with what makes a society. We begin with
Crusoe alone on an island and gradually we begin to see the social order come together. First, there are his
animal friends (Poll and company), followed by Friday, the Spaniard, Friday's father, and then the mutineering
Englishmen.. Man and the natural world Crusoe believes himself to be at the head of the social order. When
he looks at the natural world, he sees its utility and the value of that. Instead of opining on the beauty of
things, he notices production value. He also very much believes in the concept of private property.Rules and
Order It is a novel that is very interested in hierarchy At the top is God next up Crusoe. He rules all that is
under him. His moral authority and his allegiance to God gives him dominion over other people, places, and
things. Family Crusoe must sort out his relationship to his biological father and his spiritual father (God)On the
island, Crusoe must learn how to manage his little family:Fridayand friends. Upon his return to England,we
notice that he takes a wife.. Slavery When Crusoe heads to Africa, it is to purchase slaves. He himself becomes
a slave and then soon becomes a slave owner..

Moll F1anders narrates a female-picaro's autobiography. It is

the story of a seventy year old woman who had to fight poverty, to move from husband to hushand,
who managed to preserve her sanity.Moll represents the active type of picaro (the one mastering his
own destiny) The novel lacks form, it is made up of a string of events: it starts and goes on to the
end.The protagonist is not seen in stable relationships with other characters. The novel was
conceived as a study into the social and economic conditions for sexual union as well as into the question
of why and how women should maintain their dignity.Theme Woman and Femininity Women have only
got a few options in life. They can be a wife, a mistress, a servant, a criminal, or prostitute. Moll moves
between categories because she perseveres, but also because she is unusually lucky, and skilled in
manipulation.Sex IWithin marriage, and outside that institution, women like Moll trade it, whether
consciously or unconsciously, for housing and food. Some women even make it their profession. Sex is
definitely not always associated with love, and sometimes not even with pleasure. For women, that's usually
getting pregnant; for men, it's usually losing money. Wealth Money is the driving force Moll Flanders – both
the book and the character Moll needs money in order to achieve freedom from the servant life, and once
freedom has been achieved, she needs money to support that freedom, let alone enjoy it. Money is what
pushes Moll to make all of her decisions, good and bad. Criminality Adultery, bigamy, prostitution, gambling,
thievery, murder, lying, and incest are all committed in Moll Flander. Whether the characters get caught or
not, nearly all of them have engaged in some kind of criminal activity or deceit. Other theme : Identity

(None of the people in Moll Flanders are who they say they are; We never learn Moll's real name, even when
she's in prison and about to die), Society and class (The strict rules of the society help to explain Moll's
downward spiral into prostitution and thievery. She's trapped in a society that gives her few options But the
rules also help to explain just what keeps Moll going).Morality and etics (Moll Flanders can be read as a story
with one big moral: be good. And when you can't be good, be clever.)

English 606: Books, Ms Prof. Cheryl Nixon Class Notes Robinson Crusoe and Novel Definitions Reading Notes
Before you dive into the novel, let’s consider why it is so famous: --considered the first novel (long, prose,
fiction) --uses one man’s life—one man all alone!—as the structure for the novel: plots extreme individualism
--has the enticing element of adventure: travel, shipwreck, survival --asks large philosophical questions about
the self: who am I? what is my purpose in this world? what does it mean to be human? --traces how the mind
works: how does a person keep his/her sanity? what is fear? what replaces human companionship? --raises
spiritual issues: why and how do we practice religion? why do we turn to a god? what do we look for in a god?
what does religion do for us? --explores issues of power: what is slavery? what is the state of war? --imagines
how an individual re-creates civilization in the absence of it; what elements create civilization: work, religion,
writing, language, hierarchy, kindness, order? --plots the idea of an “economy of one”: note how Crusoe is
consumed with work, cultivation, creating, saving --this is pointedly not a marriage plot: what can serve as a
plot if there is an absence of family, courtship, and marriage?
______________________________________________________________________ April 30: Robinson
Crusoe, first ! Novel Definitions: --Part I: A and B: Prefatory Writing: Fact/Fiction/ Truth and
Romance/History/Biography --Part II, A and B: Critical Essays: Fact/Fiction/Truth and
Romance/History/Biography

For each topic below, jot down a page #/scene from Robinson Crusoe (RC) and a page #/selection from Novel
Definitions (ND), as directed. 1. Fact/Fiction and Realism: Defoe claims that his novel is a “History of Fact”
(ND, pg. 65). The 18th-century critic aligned the novel with fact; how does this early novel support that
argument? See ND, pp. 40-43, 61-62. We know that the novel is fictional, yet it feels factual because of its
realism. How does the novel create a sense of realism? What scenes seem “factual” or realistic in the first half
of the novel? What writing techniques create this sense of realism?—for example, a scene might seem
realistic if it contains a lot of descriptive detail. A scene in RC that helps it to seem factual or realistic: An essay
in ND that helps to define the novel as “fact”:
2. Probable/possible Plots: The 18th century novel was very concerned with depicting not just “possible”
plots (ie: it is “possible” that a man would be shipwrecked), but “probable” plots (ie: it is not very probable
that a shipwrecked man would survive alone for 28 years). See ND, pp. 47-49. Find a scene in the novel that
seems to test the limits of probability. Does the novel take the “improbable” and make is seem possible (is
this a defining characteristic of the novel—think of the gothic, which makes the supernatural seem possible)?
A scene in RC that seems improbable: An essay in ND that helps to define the concept of “probable/possible”:
3. History: Many early novels try to distance themselves from the romance and align themselves with history
or factual narrative. Again, see ND, pp. 40-43, 61-62. Would the early novel have felt like a form of history to
its readers? The story of Robinson Crusoe does have historical sources, most notably the story of Alexander
Selkrik. Take a quick look at some of the sources of Defoe’s plot (this can be found easily by googling around);
for example see: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/defoe/selkirk.html A scene in
RC that seems connected to a historical event is: An essay in ND that helps to define the novel as a form of
“history”: ______________________________________________________________________ May 7:
Robinson Crusoe, second ! Novel Definitions, --Part I: C: Prefatory Writing: Plot/Character/Style --Part II: C:
Critical Essays: Plot/Character/Style --Part III: A and B: Cultural Commentary: Popularity and Morals --Skim the
Introduction

For each topic below, jot down a page #/scene from Robinson Crusoe (RC) and a page #/selection from Novel
Definitions (ND), as directed. 1. Character: The success of Robinson Crusoe rests on the creation of an
extended character. What elements of Crusoe make him a successful character? What aspects of “character”
does Defoe “get right”? The 18th-century critic stresses the “conservation of character” or a consistency of
character traits; does Crusoe meet that criteria? See ND, pp. 49-51 and 113. As criticism of the novel evolves,
the 18th-century increasingly argues that a character should not be “mixed” or should not blend virtue and
vice; does Crusoe meet that criteria? See ND, pp. 49-51 and 238. A scene in RC that illustrates a successful
element of character: An essay in ND that helps to define that key element of character: 2. Plot: Like Moll
Flanders, the plot of Robinson Crusoe is very straightforward: it uses the life of a person as a plot line,
following a sequential, chronological retelling of the events of that person’s life. What does Defoe add to that
basic plot structure to make it successful? The 18th-century critic emphasizes the idea of “unity” of plot. See
ND, pp.
51-52, 192-3. How does Robinson Crusoe meet—or help to invent—that expectation of unity? What basic
elements of plot structure does Defoe locate in this “life history” structure? What seems to be missing from
this early plot structure? A scene in RC that illustrates a successful or unsuccessful element of plot: An essay
in ND that helps to define that key element of plot: 3. Morality/immorality: The early novel is judged not just
according to realism, probability, and unity—it is also judged according to its morality. See ND, pp. 39, 52-55,
203-4. What makes Robinson Crusoe a “moral” plot? How is he an admirable “moral” character? What
elements of the plot strike you as “immoral”? For example, we might see the first half of the novel and his
cultivation of the wilderness as moral, but the second half’s depiction of Friday and the war against the
savages might seem immoral. How do you judge the novel’s morality; what is the “moral” of this story? Two
scenes in RC—one that illustrates the morality of the novel and one that illustrates its immorality: An essay in
ND that helps to the idea of a moral/immoral novel:

Hugo Blumenthal © 2006

Robinson Crusoe, Pamela Andrews, And The Writing Of The Self

by Hugo Blumenthal

That the assumed origins of the English novel should begin with Robinson Crusoe and Pamela Andrews, two
characters apparently quite able to write their own stories, almost to the point of supplanting their respective
authors, seems very remarkable; especially if we consider that in the Eighteenth Century approximately only
60 percent of the adult men and between 40 and 50 percent of the women population in England could read
and write, figures that were at least double those in the previous century.1 In such circumstances, and within
the limits of verisimilitude of the lives of Crusoe and Pamela (a verisimilitude that Defoe and Richardson took
so much care to create, pretending to be mere editors of their texts), their capacity for writing is certainly
exceptional. But leaving aside the improbable amount of time Pamela spends writing (though it can be argued
that she can hardly spend time in anything else), this capacity for writing is more than justified within both
novels. Robinson Crusoe is not difficult to conceive within the approximately 30 percent of literate men in
England by 1659, when he starts his island diary, if we remember that he belongs to a middle-class family and
had received an education specifically directed towards making of him a lawyer.2 Pamela, though, is more of a
challenge. The novel doesn’t include explicit historical dates or references, but it’s likely that her story could
have taken place between 1715 and 1725.3 By that time, that a maid servant could have been able to achieve
the style of Pamela’s letters must be regarded as highly improbable, despite the fact –as Ian Watt pointed
out– that they enjoyed more privacy, artificial light and spare time to read than many other women.4 But,
according to Richardson’s novel, Pamela is not only the daughter of two teachers (as Robert A. Erickson
remind us, her father used to teach grammar, her mother sewing) 5 but an exceptional young woman who
has been placed quite above her

J. Paul Hunter, ‘The novel and the socio/cultural history’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth
Century Novel, ed. by John Richetti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 19-20. Daniel Defoe,
Robinson Crusoe, ed. by J. Donald Crowley (Oxford: Oxford, 1998), pp. 4, 6. Hereafter all quotations, followed
by the letters ‘RC’ and a page number between brackets, are from this edition. Cf. Thomas Keymer and Alice
Wakely, note 58, in Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, ed. by Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 527. For the ‘origins’ of Pamela’s story, see also Alan Dugald
McKillop, ‘The Story of Pamela’, Samuel Richardson: Printer and Novelist (USA: Shoe String, 1960), pp. 26-27.
Ian Watt, ‘The Reading Public and the Rise of the Novel’, The Rise of the Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1985), p. 52. Robert A. Erickson, ‘The Needle and the Pen’, Mother Midnight: Birth, Sex, and Fate in
Eighteenth-Century Fiction (Defoe, Richardson, and Sterne) (New York: AMS, 1986), pp. 74-75.

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social level by Mr. B’s mother. In other words, it is the exceptionality of her character that helps to render her
as probable. That from all the possible forms of writing at their disposition Robinson Crusoe and Pamela
would ‘choose’ to write mainly letters and diaries (or journals) also helped to make them more credible.
Pamela writes mostly letters to her parents, and when she is imprisoned and restricted from sending letters
she starts a diary; a diary that is an extensive and delayed letter, in the same way that from the beginning her
letters are closer to the entries of a diary. Robinson Crusoe’s writing of his life and adventures, on the other
hand, can be seen from the beginning more like a ‘spiritual autobiography’ (a genre from which Pamela, as a
novel, is not far removed, in its insistent didacticism), but all the same he reveals the sources of his writing to
be mainly ‘journals’: his well known island-diary, or his ‘Sea-Journals’ and ‘Land-Journals’ (RC289). On top of
that, if we agree with Donald Crowley, for whom Defoe’s ‘rambling sentences, often paragraph-long, create a
sense of authentic life by seeming to render Crusoe’s experiences precisely at the moment he lives them […]’,
Robinson Crusoe doesn’t seem that far from the technique Richardson used to call ‘writing to the moment’,
by which the characters are supposed to consign through writing their thoughts and emotions as closely as
possible to the events that have originated them. 6 On the popularity of journal-writing at that time, Michael
McKeon notes that it was a very common practice among travellers, in part due to a recommendation by the
Royal Society.7 But more significantly, Paul Hunter reminds us that: Personal writings were in the seventeenth
century private writings, and they were legion. They came to exist because many Englishmen and
Englishwomen […] believed that their eternal salvation was closely linked to the events of their everyday lives
[…] The recording and analysis of these events, in minute and painstaking detail, became a sacred duty and a
common Protestant practice, and diary keeping (although primarily insisted upon by Puritan theorists)
became a national habit practiced by a large percentage of those who were literate.8 The effectiveness in
terms of verisimilitude of the recourse to first-person narratives is evident in terms of authority, regarding
experience and life. The format of letters, diaries and journals serve to document ‘history’, rendering ‘fiction’
(in the broad sense of creation) closer to ‘the reality of life.’ In that sense, neither Robinson Crusoe or Pamela
is writing a novel. The ‘editor’ of Robinson Crusoe’s writings ‘believes the thing to be a just History of Fact;
neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it […]’ (RC1), in the same way that the

Donald Crowley, ‘Introduction’, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, ed. by J. Donald Crowley (Oxford: Oxford,
1998), p. xvi. Michael McKeon, ‘Parables of the Younger Son (I): Defoe and the Naturalization of Desire’, The
Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), p. 316. Paul J.
Hunter, ‘The Self and the World: Private Histories’, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century
English Fiction (New York: Norton, 1990), p. 303.

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‘editor’ of Pamela’s writings believes they ‘have their Foundation in Truth and Nature’ (P3).9 It could be said,
then, that Crusoe and Pamela write to reproduce reality. What is real, however, is shown to be subjective,
because all they are interested in is their own individual realities. As Pamela recognises, the truth represented
through her writings is not necessarily what others will agree is the objective reality: […] I think I have no
Reason to be afraid of being found insincere, or having, in any respect, told you a Falsehood; because, tho’ I
don’t remember all I wrote, yet I know I wrote my Heart; and that is not deceitful. (P230) That her ‘Heart’ is
not deceitful means that her letters may represent not what others (like Mr. B) would acknowledge as the
truth of what had happened but what she felt had happened, reality as she lived it. On the other hand,
according to G. A. Starr, Defoe’s writing style in part can also be described as a rendering of things and events
‘as perceived, as in some sense transformed and recreated in the image of the narrator.’10 Reality, then, is not
necessarily what is told; the reader just gets one version –as Mr. B at the beginning repeatedly seems to try to
warn the reader (see for example P36: ‘[…] she has written letters […] to her Father and Mother, and others,
as far as I know; in which she makes herself an Angel of Light, and me, her kind Master and Benefactor, a Devil
incarnate!’) Curiously enough, later on the same character no longer recognises the difference anymore
between what Pamela writes and what happened. He even praises Pamela for her memory: ‘[…] thou hast a
Memory, as I see by your Papers, that nothing escapes it’ (P230). For Pamela, though, there is nothing to be
proud of. As she says: […] what poor Abilities I have, serve only to make me more miserable! – I have no
Pleasure in my Memory, which impresses things upon me, that I could be glad never were, or everlastingly to
forget. (P230) But despite what Pamela says, in her peculiar inversion of the mechanics of memory (where
memory is an agent that impresses ‘things’ upon Pamela, rather than ‘things’ leaving impressions upon
memory, or the mind, which is the usual metaphor, as in Robinson Crusoe (RC88)), she is determined not to
forget.11 As the ‘Editor’ points out, mirroring Pamela’s own words (P44), her compulsive writing seems then
due to her desire to:

Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, ed. by Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001). All quotations followed by the letter P (for Pamela) and a page number between
brackets are from this edition, which is based on the original text of 1740. Richardson’s rewriting of Pamela,
originally printed in 1801, posits slightly different questions on the subject of writing, which I have preferred
not to explore here. G. A. Starr, ‘Defoe’s Prose Style: 1. The Language of Interpretation’, Modern Philology, 71
(1974), 281 (author’s italics) Cf. Jacques Derrida, ‘Freud and the Scene of Writing’, Writing and Difference,
trans. by Alan Bass (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 246-291.
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[…] amuse and employ her Time, in hopes some Opportunity might offer to send it to her Friends, and, as was
her constant View, that she might afterwards thankfully look back upon the Dangers she had escaped […] that
then she might examine, and either approve of, or repent for, her own Conduct in them. (P98) Memory,
despite Pamela’s fears of not been able to forget, is evidently mistrusted from the start. In fear of forgetting
his ‘[…] Reckoning of Time for want of Books and Pen and Ink […]’ (RC64), Robinson Crusoe, as well, mistrusts
memory: life has to be recorded through writing.12 Pamela and Crusoe resort then to writing as an aid to
memory and a guarantee of truth. Their letters and diaries are not only written close to the original events
they want to represent, but their function is to preserve their memories in the long term. According to James
H. Maddox Jr., however, Crusoe seems to prefer ‘the more distant accounts he wrote later’, in which he ‘most
clearly shows his ability to dominate his fate.’13 After all, Crusoe is also his own first editor. But even then he
reverts to the ‘original’ versions written in his diaries and journals, refusing to write retrospectively. Maddox
Ford also points out that ‘there is from the very beginning of Defoe’s novel writing a strong suggestion of
disparity, a reminder of the distance between text and naked event.’14 Such a distance, inherent to the act of
writing, is mirrored by Crusoe’s and Pamela’s take of distance from ‘reality’ in order to render it through
writing: an inevitable distance in time, since all narration is after the event (even if it pretends to be closer to
its origins), and a distance in ‘space’: Crusoe starts his diary in the solitude of his island, Pamela has to retire
to her closet. Pamela, however, is more aware of her lack of mastery over her writings, not only because of
memory (‘I don’t remember all I wrote’ P230), but also because of possible misinterpretations (‘that is your
Comment; but it does not appear so in the Text’ P230), one of her reasons for concealing her writings from
Mr. B’s eyes. But despite the risk of misrepresentation, writing is considered, above all, as a form to preserve
or reveal the inner truth of the self. Pamela’s compulsive writing seems triggered as a defence mechanism
against Mr B’s attempts to her virtue; attempts that she perceives as the ‘greatest Harm in the World’ (P23)
because they entail forgetting herself along with the ‘memory’ that –to use Patricia McKee’s words – ‘keep
hold of things.’15 Her compulsive writing functions then as a way to affirm her true self, against the censures
and misinterpretations Mr B tries to impose on her; a way to regain possession of herself through the
memory of the dangers she has to face, which threaten to change who she thinks she really is. What she
ignores is that writing would necessarily change her, since writing –as Jacques Derrida has pointed out– ‘is
that

12 13 14

Cf. Homer O. Brown, ‘The Displaced Self in the Novels of Daniel Defoe’, ELH, 38 (1971), p. 587. James H.
Maddox, Jr., ‘Interpreter Crusoe’, ELH, 51 (1984), pp. 35-36. ‘Interpreter Crusoe’, p. 35. See also Homer O.
Brown, ‘The Displaced Self in the Novels of Daniel Defoe’, p. 585. Patricia McKee, ‘Corresponding Freedoms:
Language and the Self in Pamela’, ELH, 52 (1985), p. 625.
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forgetting of the self, that exteriorization, the contrary of the interiorizing memory […]’16; a ‘forgetting’ by
which she, rather than reproducing a supposedly stable self called Pamela, cannot but become her own text,
a ‘fiction’ with which Mr B, her most fervent reader, would fall in love. Writing is then the forger of her
happiness, because it is through her writing (and ‘through the leading role that she plays in her own
romance’)17 that Pamela is rewarded, as she acknowledges to Mr Longman at the end: ‘[…] you don’t know
how much of my present Happiness I owe to the Sheets of Paper, and Pens and Ink you furnish’d me with’
(P460). Robinson Crusoe doesn’t have to struggle against censure or misrepresentations, but against the
unknown dangers of his adventures and his guilt for the ‘original sin’ of disobedience to his father. Writing is
then not only a recourse to memory, to not forget what has happened to him, but a form of ‘thought’, to think
about what has happened, in order to understand the possible hidden reasons –a sort of rationalization of
‘Providence.’ (In that sense writing also implies a reading of the world and the self.) By supposedly finding
those hidden reasons Crusoe justifies himself, tries to find an absolution for his ‘original sin’; a ‘sin’ he seems
unable to stop performing in his incapacity to settle down, by his own will, in one place. Like Pamela, then,
Crusoe creates a new ‘self’ through his writing, becoming the product of his writings –what he also sought
from the beginning: a representation of his life by which he has accomplished more than his father ever did –
a representation that could stand as a justification of his life, in the same way Pamela’s writing stands as a
proof of her virtue.

Hugo Blumenthal London, 2006

16

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (London: John Hopkins University
Press, 1997), p. 24. Sheila C. Conboy, ‘Fabric and Fabrication in Richardson’s Pamela’, ELH, 54 (1987), p. 82.

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