Study Questions Robinson Crusoe 鲁滨逊漂流记阅读问题
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Study
Questions
1.
Defoe has his hero practice
two different types of writing in the novel. One
type is the
journal that Crusoe keeps for a
few chapters until his ink runs out. The other is
the
fuller type of storytelling that makes up
the bulk of the novel. Both are in the
first-
person voice, but they produce different effects.
Why does Defoe include both
types? What does a
comparison between them tell us about the overall
purpose of the
novel?
With his interest in
practical details, Crusoe naturally gravitates
toward the journal as
a form of writing. His
idea of journal keeping follows the example of a
captain’s
logbook rather than a personal
diary: it is objective and factual, sometimes
tediously
so, rather than emotional or self-
reflective. But Defoe could not sustain the whole
novel as a journal, since much of the moral
meaning of the story emerges only
retrospectively. Having survived his ordeal,
Crusoe can now write his story from the
perspective of one remembering past mistakes
and judging past behavior. The
day-by-day
format of the journal is focused on the present
rather than the past, and it
makes this kind
of retrospection difficult. The moral dimension of
the novel can best
be emphasized through a
full autobiographical narrative, with Crusoe
looking back
upon earlier stages of life and
evaluating them.
2.
Crusoe expresses very
little appreciation of beauty in the novel. He
describes the
valley where he builds his bower
as pleasant, recognizes that some of his early
attempts at pottery making are unattractive,
and acknowledges that Friday is
good-looking.
But overall, he shows little interest in
aesthetics. Is this lack of interest
in beauty
an important aspect of the character of Crusoe, or
of the novel?
A marked indifference to beauty
is indeed an important feature both of Crusoe and
of
the novel. Not only does Crusoe devote
little attention to the visual attractions of his
Caribbean landscape, but he also has hardly
any interest in more abstract forms of
beauty,
such as beauty of character or of experience.
Beautiful ideas like heroism or
moral
excellence, for example, rarely enter his head.
Moreover, since Crusoe is in
many ways a
stand-in for the author, we can say that Defoe too
seems resistant to
aesthetics. This lack of
attention to aesthetics is in large part his
revolutionary
contribution to English
literature. Rejecting earlier views that the
purpose of art is to
embellish and make
charming what is ordinary, Crusoe and Defoe show
that novels
can be profound by
focusing on the humdrum, unattractive facts of
everyday life that
nevertheless are deeply
meaningful to us.
3.
Crusoe spends much
time on the island devising ways to escape it. But
when he finally
does escape, his return to
Europe is anticlimactic. Nothing he finds there,
not even
friends or family, is described with
the same interest evoked earlier by his fortress
or
farm. Indeed, at the end of the novel
Crusoe returns to the island. Why does Defoe
portray the island originally as a place of
captivity and then later as a desired
destination?
Crusoe’s ordeal is not merely
the adventure tale it seems at first, but a moral
and
religious illustration of the virtues of
solitude and self-reliance. At the beginning,
Crusoe can only perceive his isolation as a
punishment. But after his religious
illumination, and after he has turned an
uninhabited island into a satisfying piece of
real estate, he learns to relish his solitude.
His panic at the sight of a footprint shows
how he has come to view other humans as
threatening invaders of his private realm.
His
fellow humans in Europe undoubtedly also represent
not the advantages of society,
but the loss of
empowered solitude, and so he dreams of returning
to the island where
he was king alone.
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Although he is
happy to watch his goat and cat population
multiply on his island,
Crusoe never expresses
any regret for not having a wife or children. He
refers to his
pets as his family, but never
mentions any wish for a real human family. While
he is
sad that his dog never has a mate, he
never seems saddened by his own thirty-five
years of bachelor existence. Does Crusoe’s
indifference to mating and reproduction
tell
us anything about his view of life, or about the
novel?
2. Although Crusoe proudly reports that
he allows freedom of religion on his island,
giving his Catholic and pagan subjects the
right to practice their own faiths, he
describes Friday as a Protestant. He attempts
to rid his servant of his belief in the
pagan
god Benamuckee. Why does Crusoe generally show
religious tolerance, but
insist on Friday’s
Protestantism?
3. During the return voyage to
England from Lisbon at the end of the novel,
Crusoe
and his traveling party encounter a
bear that is frightening until Friday turns it
into an
amusing spectacle. His teasing of the
bear, which prompts the group’s laughter, is the
first example of live entertainment in the
novel. There is no mention of Friday trying
to amuse Crusoe on the island.
Does this episode foreshadow a new role for Friday
after he moves to Europe from the Caribbean?
What is Defoe trying to symbolize in
having
Crusoe bring Friday with him to Europe at all?
4. In many ways Crusoe appears to be the same
sort of person at the end of the novel
as he
is at the beginning. Despite decades of solitude
and exile, wars with cannibals,
and the
subjugation of a mutiny, Crusoe hardly seems to
grow or develop. Is Crusoe
an unchanging
character, or does he change in subtle ways as a
result of his ordeal?
5. Crusoe’s religious
illumination, in which he beholds an angelic
figure descending
on a flame, ordering him to
repent or die, is extremely vivid. Afterward he
does repent,
and his faith seems sincere. Yet
Defoe complicates this religious experience by
making us wonder whether it is instead a
result of Crusoe’s fever, or of the tobacco
and rum he has consumed. We wonder whether the
vision may be health- or
drug-related rather
than supernatural and divine. Why does Defoe mix
the divine and
the medical in this scene? Does
he want us to question Crusoe’s turn to religion?
Questions for understanding:
What is important about the title?
What
are the conflicts in Robinson Crusoe? What types
of conflict (physical,
moral, intellectual, or
emotional) did you notice in this novel?
How
does Daniel Defoe reveal character in Robinson
Crusoe?
What are some themes in the story? How
do they relate to the plot and
characters?
What are some symbols in Robinson Crusoe? How
do they relate to the plot
and characters?
Are the characters consistent in their
actions? Which of the characters are fully
developed? How? Why?
Do you find the
characters likable? Are the characters persons you
would want
to meet?
How does loneliness,
fear, and isolation affect (and shape) the
characters?
Does the novel end the way you
expected? How? Why?
What is the
centralprimary purpose of Robinson Crusoe? Is the
purpose
important or meaningful?
How essential is the setting to the
story? Could the story have taken place
anywhere else?
How important is friendship
andor camaraderie to Robinson Crusoe?
Comparecontrast Robinson Crusoe with other
works by Daniel Defoe? How
does Robinson
Crusoe fit into Defoe's body of works?
Would you recommend Robinson Crusoe to a
friend?