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Introduction:

What makes some people to undergo the extremes in their life, and create the myths

of Atlas and Sisyphus?

What causes them to choose the path, to quote Frost, “less traveled by” that makes

“All the difference” in their life?

What’s that “urge” that lures those “reckless souls” to lead an adventurous life

ignoring the imminent danger?

What’s that madness?

Is it what John Webster says, “Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness”? (qtd.Encarta).

In fact it’s the indomitableness of human spirit that aspires to, in Robert Browning’s words,

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, /Or what's a heaven for?”(qtd. Encarta).

Defoe's first and most famous novel, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of

Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner is yet another “real” myth. It’s a fictional tale of a

shipwrecked sailor, based on the true adventures of a seaman, Alexander Selkirk, who had been

marooned on an Island for about five years. Robinson Crusoe was followed by some more

novels, and all his major characters reflect Defoe’s own turbulent life and his adventurous spirit.

Limitation of the Paper:

The paper will try to understand that universal human faculty that makes Robinson to leave

his safe and secure home for the dangerous realm of the unknown sea, and that unconquerable

quality to endure all the hardships for the decision chosen by himself.

Owing to the limitation of time and space, it will not dare to address any of those issues

that has baffled the anthropologists, the psychologists, the economists, the political scientists, the

sociologists, the geographers, the engineers, the agronomists, the theologians, and the strategists.
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Analysis:

When Robinson declares his decision to go to the sea instead of following his

father’s “design for the law”, father’s stern love reprimands him,

What reason, says he, have you to leave your native country, where there must be

a more certain prospect of content and happiness, to enter into a wandering

condition of uneasiness and uncertainty? He recommended to me Augur's wish,

"Neither to desire poverty nor riches"(Robinson Crusoe).

But nothing would stop the ‘wretch’ to pursue his own dream. “Yet nothing would

serve me but I must go to sea, both against the will of my father, the tears of my mother,

and the entreaties of friends.”

This ‘adrenalin rush’ has baffled all fathers and mothers from time immemorial.

When Hesse’s Siddhartha waits the whole night standing outside their hut for his fathers

permission to go to the jungles with the Samanas, the father is, obviously, in a great

dilemma.

“Will you go on standing till it is day, noon, evening?”

“I will stand and wait.”

…………………………..

“You will die, Siddhartha.”

“I will die.” (9-10)

Nor would his father’s warnings prevent Dedalus flying higher and higher. So what,

if his self-exploration would be deemed as a tragic mis-adventure by the posterity!

How, otherwise, can they establish their distinct identity unless they choose “The

Road Not Taken” (Frost), by refusing to tread on the beaten track?

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But they must go through the ordeals of loneliness, pain, and even the ultimate death for

disobeying the call of their loved ones.

One can only writhe in pain when Robinson in his “Island of Loneliness” writes in his

journal,
But judge you, if you can, that read my story, what a surprise I must be in when I

was waked out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several times,

‘Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe, poor Robin Crusoe ! Where are you, Robin

Crusoe? Where are you? Where have you been?

It was not his mother’s but his parrot’s fond calling…yet how true!

What makes Robinson, on his “Island of Despair”,

thinking, contriving, arranging, governing, studying, planting, …for eight and

twenty years – all alone – refusing to starve, refusing to go mad, refusing to lose

the power of speech; ever patient, ingenious, hoping on and on, for the best as

God shall order it, be it rescue or endless waiting, and at the last finding his own

soul. (Bennett 230)

But one does not necessarily have to believe in God, or some sort of divine power

to be rescued, or even the desire for rescue is irrelevant.

Even the “old man” of an atheist Hemingway would pursue on his anxious journey

into the vast unknown sea believing that, “Man can be destroyed, but can never be

defeated.”

That Robinson manages to come back to sermonize over his experience may have

some didactive purpose for the Presbyterian Defoe, but such adventures can not be

justified on the basis of religiosity alone.

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Crusoe’s experience, as Coleridge put it, is a staple of fancy projection, “a happy

nightmare”(qtd. Seidel 53).

Thousands of Robinsons are lost into the oblivion before one Robinson is found on

the shore back again.

Conclusion:

Robinson Crusoe is the saga of a “happy nightmare”, the celebration of indomitableness of

human spirit that always remains free from the fear of all the consequences, and remains true to

the only doctrine that one’s conscience commands.

Call it a tragic flaw, but the fear of consequence can not pervert the fiery defiance against

the tyranny of fate that humans possess. The religious color Defoe gives to his character and for

his survival can not undermine the human potential to endure everything for the decision they

make. Defoe himself was once put on the pillory for defying the Church, where an English

mob would torment him.

And what about that primordial disobedience of Eve and Adam, deciding to risk

the adventure of eating forbidden apple?

Whether one is Robinson Crusoe, Mr. XYZ, or Daniel Defoe, the conclusion remains the
same:

I have gone through a life of wonders, and am the subject of a great variety of

providences. In the school of affliction, I have learned more philosophy than

at the academy, and more divinity than from pulpit. (Daniel Defoe)
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Works Cited:

Bennett, James O’Donnel. “Defoe’s Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” A Key to

35 Best Sellers of the Ages Selected From Much Love Books. New York: Fawcett, 1965.

224-30.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of

York, Mariner. The Project Gutenberg eBook. 1801. 14 Feb. 2006

< http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/521>.

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” America’s Literature. eds. Hart, James D. and Clarence

Gohdges. New York: The Dryden Press, 1955.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952.

Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. Trans. Hilda Rosner. London: Picador, 1991.

“Quotations.” Encarta Encyclopedia. 2006. Microsoft. DVD-ROM.

Seidel, Michael. “Crusoe and Defoe.” Critics on British & American Fiction. Ed. Shaker Prasad

Bastakoti. Kathmandu: Durga Prakashan, 2006. 52-57.