ROBINSON CRUSOE PLOT

Robinson Kreutznaer (who in England becomes known with the

surname Crusoe) is a young man from a rich middle-class family. His main
purpose is to travel by sea, but his parents disagree with Robinson because
they want him to become a lawyer as his father. At first, he tries to
accomplish his fathers desire, but his passion for adventures is too strong,
so after having talked to him, he leaves for a little journey from York to
London with a friend. During this journey, there is a little storm and Robinson
is very scared about it, because he thinks that it is a sign of Gods
punishment for having disobeyed to his parents wants.
When he comes back home, he decides to ignore this little premonition
and leaves again to go to Guinea, in Africa. This voyage ends again in a
disaster: his ship is attacked by Moor pirates and Robinson becomes a
prisoner. One day, the pirates chief orders Robinson, a moor and a friend to
go fishing in the sea with a little boat. When they were in the middle of the
ocean, Robinson throws the moor in the water and the two men arrived on
the shore. After a few days, a Portuguese ship saves them, and Robinson
arrives in Brazil. There, he learns how to grow some plants, so, with the help
of some natives, he sets up a plantation and becomes very rich.
Unfortunately, he feels very unhappy because he wants to travel
abroad again, so when the other planters invite him to go to Guinea with
him, he accepts. This journey ends in a terrible shipwreck, where everyone
dies except for him who, with his last efforts, swims to the nearest shore. On
the following day, he realizes what has happened and decides to fetch as
many things as he can on the wreck of the ship before it sinks.
There, he takes a lot of tools and provisions that he considers useful to
survive on the island, including weapons and food. At first Robinson is
desperate because he knows that nobody will come and save him, but later
on he realizes that his shipwreck was a sign of Gods benevolence because
all the crew died apart from himself so he starts to settle down in the island
as best as he can.
Robinson also starts writing a journal, not to lose his reason and his
perception of time. In this diary, he thank God for letting him stay alive. On
the island he builds two places where he can live: one near the sea and one
in a beautiful valley where he grew a lot of food. He also finds some goats
and uses them for their milk and their meat. Besides he also learns how to
take care of himself when he is ill. Nonetheless he really missed a friend on
the island as solace to his loneliness. In fact he has been living alone on the
island for 28 years. So after 20 years of solitude, he discovers some
footprints in the sand and he finds some bones on the shore: he realizes that
there were some cannibals on the island. Thus he decides to attack but not
to kill them, because it was not his right to do that but it was Gods. Among
them he saves an escaped prisoner and calls him Friday, after the day

when he found him on the island. Robinson teaches him few English words
(like yes, no, master) and to read the Bible. Fridays submission
represents the great English Colonization because Robinson is the prototype
of the English colonizer. In fact their friendship is, as a matter of fact, a
master-servant relationship.
After some years a battle between Robinson and the cannibals starts.
During this event that seems horrible, Friday finds his father. A European ship
arrives on the island at the end of the battle. Thanks to the ship, Robinson
can finally return home, where he discovers that his parents died. He marries
a woman and has three sons. He also finds out that he has become very rich
due to his prosperous plantation in Brazil. After 10 years he wants to return
to the island with Friday for their last adventure. Unfortunately, Friday dies in
this journey and Robinson becomes Governor of the island.