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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God’s Providence
The work of God’s providence is a major theme in Robinson Crusoe. From beginning to end, Crusoe finds the work of God’s direction to be the force behind, and cause of, his circumstances. When first stranded, Crusoe decries what’s happened to him, wondering why the world has treated him in this way. Upon deeper reflection, Crusoe comes to consider his circumstances to be the result of his wretched life and choices, such as planning to help fellow merchants bring slaves to Brazil from Africa. But soon after, Crusoe believes his role of castaway provides the chance for his own deliverance from sin into a true Christian life. It’s important to note that often Crusoe strengthens his belief in providence only to later doubt it, before again becoming devout.
Once Crusoe is marooned on the island, and is the only sailor to have survived, he asks, “Why were not they sav’d and you lost? Why were you singled out? Is it better to be here or there, and then I pointed to the sea?” (45). Two years later, Crusoe thinks that “[i]t is God that has made it all: Well, but then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He guides and governs them all. And all things that concern them; for the power that could make all things, must certainly have power to guide and direct them” (67).
These sentiments deepen as the novel progresses and Crusoe faces a series of hardships that test his beliefs:
When we are in (a quandary) a doubt or hesitation, whether to go this way, or that way, a secret hint shall direct us this way […] and it shall afterwards appear, that had we gone that which we should have gone, and even to our imagination ought to have gone, we should be ruin’d and lost (128).
Other characters also show belief in providence. When Crusoe saves Friday from cannibal sacrifice, Friday believes it be the work of God, causing Friday to dedicate his service and loyalty to Crusoe. Likewise, during Crusoe’s twenty-sixth year cast away, when Crusoe saves the life of an English captain to a mutinied ship, the captain believes to have been cast away to this island and nearly left behind by his men so that Crusoe could save the captain’s life: “He must be sent directly from Heaven then […] All help is from Heaven” (186).By the same token, Crusoe believes the captain is part of God’s plan for Crusoe’s deliverance: “I look’d upon him as man sent from Heaven to deliver me, and that the whole transaction seemed to be a chain of wonders; that such things as these were testimonies we had of a secret hand of Providence governing the world” (200).
In addition to deciding it must be God’s plan and providence to let the Caribbeans practice cannibalism in this world, Crusoe so believes God directs Crusoe’s superiority to the cannibals. When Crusoe and Friday, along with others, attack the men who mutinied the ship on which Crusoe hopes to escape, Crusoe says he will let God direct his actions. From start to finish, providence in Robinson Crusoe is oftentimes explained through nature’s own patterns.
Deliverance
As the novel progresses, the concept of deliverance from one state of being into another becomes a major theme, especially for Crusoe, who undergoes many iterations in his levels of faith as he faces different hardships.
Crusoe opens the novel by saying he has ignored his father’s teachings that Crusoe should follow the middle station in life to remain happy and free from trauma. It’s Crusoe’s ambition for adventure, and greediness for riches, along with his desire to travel abroad at all costs—to the point Crusoe never informs his family of his departure—that gives rise to Crusoe’s need for deliverance from sin and wickedness: “It was a just punishment for my sin; my rebellious behavior” (64). Crusoe asks, “Why has God done this to me?” before answering this question himself, saying, “WRETCH! dost thou ask what thou hast done! look back upon a dreadful misspent life” (67).
Before becoming stranded, Crusoe chases gold in Africa, coming face to face with the slave trade in Guinea. After escaping slavery, Crusoe becomes a plantation owner in Brazil, then agrees—in exchange for free board and free slaves—on a journey to Guinea with fellow plantation owners to find slaves. When cast away, after calming his despair, Crusoe prays for his deliverance. From there, any circumstances that provide a beneficial change Crusoe interprets as deliverance at the hands of providence. Positive outcomes, deliverance, in the wake of events that seem damning, produce reflections like this: “In the worst circumstances they have always something to be thankful for, and sometimes are nearer their deliverance than they imagine” (185).
Indeed, when Crusoe is offered a chance off the island, deliverance is at hand. “If I venture upon your deliverance, are you willing to make two conditions with me” (187), Crusoe asks the Spaniard he saves from being devoured by cannibals, and who Crusoe sends off to Friday’s main island with hopes of being saved. Later, Crusoe, calling on providence before he acts, risks his life to save another man, who turns out to be captain of an English ship. Crusoe acts here because he sees the opportunity as one for deliverance from the island. Indeed, Crusoe and Friday depart the island on that English ship, after Crusoe spends more than twenty-eight years stranded.
The “Civilized” and the “Savage”
As the novel progresses, the superiority of Christian teachings to the ways of the Caribbean cannibals becomes an important theme. Crusoe’s belief in this superiority directs Crusoe’s behavior towards Friday. At the same time, Defoe undermines this superiority through Crusoe’s scathing critiques of the Spanish Inquisition and the Spanish enslavement of African and South American natives. This gesture on Defoe’s part suggests the author engages Crusoe on this adventure in part to explore the coupled ideas of the “civilized” and the “savage.” Crusoe’s many inner explorations lead him to logically conclude that the so-called savages act according to the same providence of God’s direction as Christians do.
One of Crusoe’s greatest fears is being eaten by the cannibals that he’s heard frequent Caribbean Islands, which is the area Crusoe deduces he must be in, while he’s a castaway. Crusoe dreams a savage escapes from a cannibal sacrifice and runs Crusoe’s way in need of help. Later, Crusoe is appalled by the cannibal scene he observes at a beach filled with scorched human torsos and bones; this is also marks the first time Crusoe observes humans in twenty-four years.
When Crusoe saves Friday from being eaten, Crusoe teaches Friday that it is wrong to eat human flesh, among other things. Crusoe, after teaching Friday English, and after learning about Benamuckee, God of Friday’s tribe’s religion:
began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God: I told him that the great maker of all things liv’d up there, pointing up towards Heaven: That he governs the world by the same power and Providence by which he had made it: That he was omnipotent, could do everything for us […] take every thing from us; and thus by degrees I opened his eyes. He listened with great attention […] and receiv’d with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us (158).
Crusoe tells Friday “he […] needs a greater God than their Benamuckee” (158). Crusoe says he teaches Friday about evil, the Devil, and the work of God against evil. “Nature assisted all my arguments to evidence him” (159) Crusoe assures.
This sense of superiority is also reflected in comments Crusoe makes about the superiority of his weapons and tools when Crusoe shows them to Friday. In addition to their master-servant relationship, this quote captures the sense of Christian superiority Crusoe enjoys: “I seriously pray’d to God, that he would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage, assisting by his spirit the heart of the poor ignorant creature, to receive the light of knowledge of God in Christ” (160).
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