Miguel

Robinson Crusoe was written by Daneil Dafoe in 1719. It is widely considered as the first English novel because of the writing style in addition to historical references within the text. In my opinion, Crusoe's success lies in the facts that the novel gathers the feeling of the contemporary society. This feeling dealt with exploration, the recognition of that unconquered lands in which savages an wild beats were supposed to live. As the actual explorers that reached the undiscovered lands of America, the rest that stayed in their homeland would be wondering about living overseas. Defoe's novel brung together those topics that were actually appealing to the population. I would like to point out that despite the novel is smoothly written, it is not very profound. His narrative is very objective, direct, it is followed by several facts that fills page after page. My critic has to do with the palpable lack of feelings in the novel, in my opinion the emotional of each novel is the vehicle to bring those feelings to the reader. The main character is also the narrator so that the events are presented always from his perspective and he is not specially empathetic with the others. He even made some profit from the island after leaving.

The tone of the novel is very individualistic, it is notable the frequent use the form “I” all through the book. In fact, the most influential English societies, such as UK and US, are based on the principles of individualism. Throughout the novel, we notice so many facts but not so many feelings or emotions between the characters. This, in part, deals with the mentality of survival in which staying alive is the most important issue. Consequently, Crusoe is aimed to defend himself from the wilderness so he is determined to survive and return, if possible. Therefore each event that follows the narration is merely an instrument used by Crusoe to achieve his goal. For instance, the character of Friday seems to be made merely to serve R. Crusoe. Despite Crusoe has admiration for Friday at some passages there are no evidence of respect for him as a human being.
To sum up, I would like to state that individualism is the essential of the book addressing survival and that the lack of feelings in the novel fosters the situation in its own, describing each detail trying to evoke the image as clear as possible. This novel is a masterpiece of the English literature and in my opinion is such relevant because of the combination of realism and fiction made by Daniel Defoe.