40 pages • 1 hour read
Daniel DefoeRobinson Crusoe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1719A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
The Sea
In Robinson Crusoe, the sea is a driving force that subjects men, beasts, and land to its storms, current and ebbs, and to a point represents God in the novel. Crusoe first goes to sea unconcerned about thoughts of God, yet after his hardships he returns home a man of Christian ways, albeit with some doubts. According to Crusoe’s logic, God’s providence works just as the sea will toss a ship, killing all passengers, with indifference. On the island, as Crusoe trusts more in providence, the island symbolizes God’s refuge. Just as Crusoe was cast away, lost at sea, he had previously led a wicked life, by his own account. When encountering his first storm on his virgin voyage, Crusoe prays to God to spare his life, so Crusoe may “[l]ike a true repenting Prodigal, go home to my father” (5). Defoe links, through the story’s structure, Crusoe’s experiences at sea to Crusoe’s thoughts of God.
The Cross
Twelve days after his arrival on the uninhabited island, Crusoe sets a cross on the shore, marking the day he arrived: “30th of Sept. 1659. Upon the sides of this square post, I cut every day a notch with my knife, and every seventh notch was as long as the rest” (46). In this way, Crusoe keeps tracks of each day that passes, and though he loses track of the day of the week, he does not lose track of the date. The nailing of the cross symbolizes Crusoe accepting the burden of his experiences and circumstances. It also foreshadows his future inner explorations into God’s providence and further devotion to daily study of the Scriptures.
The Burning Man
During his second year cast away, Crusoe dreams of a man in flame descending from a black cloud to earth: “He was no sooner landed upon the earth, but he mov’d forward towards me, with a long spear weapon in his hand” (63). On the next page, Crusoe laments his life, his own “seafaring wickedness […] A certain stupidity or soul, without desire or good, or conscience of evil, had entirely overwhelm’d me, and I was all that the most hardned [sic], unthinking, wicked creature among our common sailors” (64). This imagery of a burning man represents Crusoe’s conscience; this event foreshadows a turning point in Crusoe’s way of life.
The Footprint
Fifteen years after being cast away, Crusoe chances upon a footprint along the shore that alights his fear of cannibals. The level of fear Crusoe demonstrates relates to his ambiguous perception towards humanity at large. By now, Crusoe has developed his tent and cave to include many apartments; it is nearly grown over with woods, and he has the bower and boat. There are the savanna fields and lemon and lime trees, and the plentiful fowl meat and tortoise eggs. Crusoe is not living in Eden, but he is living perhaps as close to natural state of being as a human can. This footprint, then, represents the fears or apprehensions Crusoe has towards having to re-navigate any sort of human culture. “I stood like one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition” Crusoe says upon seeing the footprint, “I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrify’d to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man” (112). At the most superficial level, Crusoe is concerned, quite justifiably, by being set upon by a group of cannibals who he knows would kill him. At a deeper level, however, Crusoe is concerned that any interaction with human society figuratively kills his connection to the natural state he’s discovered while a castaway.
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By Daniel Defoe
