Editing Robinson Crusoe (section)

== Interpretations of the novel ==
[[File:Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday Offterdinger.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Crusoe standing over [[Friday (Robinson Crusoe)|Friday]] after he frees him from the cannibals, illustration by [[Carl Offterdinger]]]]
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=left|quote="He is the true prototype of the British colonist.&nbsp;... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity."|source=Irish novelist [[James Joyce]]<ref>{{cite journal |first=James |last=Joyce |year=1964 |title=Daniel Defoe |translator-first=Joseph |translator-last=Prescott |edition=English translation of Italian manuscript |journal=Buffalo Studies |volume=1 |pages=24–25}}</ref>}}

The novel has been subject to numerous analyses and interpretations since its publication. In a sense, Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of the island, while the captain describes him as the "governor" to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is referred to as a "colony". The idealized master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of [[cultural assimilation]], with Crusoe representing the "enlightened" European while Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his cultural manners through assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nonetheless, Defoe used Friday to criticize the [[Spanish colonization of the Americas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dspace.bracu.ac.bd/bitstream/handle/10361/2579/10363004.pdf?sequence=4|format=PDF|title=Colonial Representation in Robinson Crusoe, Heart of Darkness and A Passage to India|website=Dspace.bracu.ac.bd|access-date=27 October 2018}}</ref>

According to J.P. Hunter, Robinson is not a hero but an [[everyman]]. He begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand, and ends as a [[pilgrim]], crossing a final mountain to enter the [[promised land]]. The book tells the story of how Robinson becomes closer to God, not through listening to [[sermon]]s in a church but through spending time alone amongst [[nature]] with only a Bible to read.

Conversely, cultural critic and literary scholar Michael Gurnow views the novel from a [[Rousseau]]ian perspective: The central character's movement from a primitive state to a more civilized one is interpreted as Crusoe's denial of humanity's [[state of nature]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Gurnow |first=Michael |date=Summer 2010 |title='The folly of beginning a work before we count the cost': Anarcho-primitivism in Daniel Defoe's ''Robinson Crusoe'' |magazine=[[Fifth Estate (periodical)|Fifth Estate]] |issue=383 |url=http://www.fifthestate.org/archive/383-summer-2010/folly-beginning-work-count-cost/ |url-status=live |access-date=17 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140317190719/http://www.fifthestate.org/archive/383-summer-2010/folly-beginning-work-count-cost/ |archive-date=17 March 2014}}</ref>

''Robinson Crusoe'' is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was a [[Puritans|Puritan]] moralist and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing books on how to be a good Puritan Christian, such as ''The New Family Instructor'' (1727) and ''Religious Courtship'' (1722). While ''Robinson Crusoe'' is far more than a guide, it shares many of the themes and theological and moral points of view.

"Crusoe" may have been taken from [[Timothy Cruso]], a classmate of Defoe's who had written guide books, including ''God the Guide of Youth'' (1695), before dying at an early age – just eight years before Defoe wrote ''Robinson Crusoe''. Cruso would have been remembered by contemporaries and the association with guide books is clear. It has even been speculated that ''God the Guide of Youth'' inspired ''Robinson Crusoe'' because of a number of passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hunter |first=J. Paul |year=1966 |title=The Reluctant Pilgrim |series=Norton Critical Edition}}</ref> A leitmotif of the novel is the Christian notion of [[Divine providence|providence]], penitence, and redemption.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Greif |first=Martin J. |date=Summer 1966 |title=The Conversion of Robinson Crusoe |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=551–574 |journal=SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 |jstor=449560 |doi=10.2307/449560}}</ref> Crusoe comes to repent of the follies of his youth. Defoe also foregrounds this theme by arranging highly significant events in the novel to occur on Crusoe's birthday. The denouement culminates not only in Crusoe's deliverance from the island, but his spiritual deliverance, his acceptance of Christian doctrine, and in his intuition of his own salvation.

When confronted with the cannibals, Crusoe wrestles with the problem of [[cultural relativism]]. Despite his disgust, he feels unjustified in holding the natives morally responsible for a practice so deeply ingrained in their culture. Nevertheless, he retains his belief in an absolute standard of morality; he regards cannibalism as a "national crime" and forbids Friday from practising it.

=== Economics and civilization ===
{{Main|Robinson Crusoe economy}}
In [[classical economics|classical]], [[neoclassical economics|neoclassical]] and [[Austrian economics]], Crusoe is regularly used to illustrate the theory of production and choice in the absence of trade, money, and prices.<ref name="isbn0-393-95924-4">{{cite book |last=Varian |first=Hal R. |title=Intermediate microeconomics: A modern approach |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-393-95924-6}}</ref> Crusoe must allocate effort between production and leisure and must choose between alternative production possibilities to meet his needs. The arrival of Friday is then used to illustrate the possibility of trade and the gains that result.

{{Quote box
 |quote = One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand.
 |source = Defoe's ''Robinson Crusoe'', 1719
 |width  = 30%
 }}

The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilization; as a manifesto of economic individualism; and as an expression of European colonial desires. Significantly, it also shows the importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe's religious convictions.  Critic M.E. Novak supports the connection between the religious and economic themes within ''Robinson Crusoe'', citing Defoe's religious ideology as the influence for his portrayal of Crusoe's economic ideals, and his support of the individual. Novak cites [[Ian Watt]]'s extensive research<ref>{{cite book |first=Ian |last=Watt |author-link=Ian Watt |title=Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe}}{{full citation needed|date=September 2020}}</ref> which explores the impact that several Romantic Era novels had against economic individualism, and the reversal of those ideals that takes place within ''Robinson Crusoe''.<ref name=Novak-1961>{{cite journal |last=Novak |first=Maximillian E. |date=Summer 1961 |title=Robinson Crusoe's "original sin" |series=Restoration and Eighteenth Century |journal=SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=19–29 |jstor=449302 |doi=10.2307/449302}}</ref>

In Tess Lewis's review, "The heroes we deserve", of Ian Watt's article, she furthers Watt's argument with a development on Defoe's intention as an author, "to use individualism to signify nonconformity in religion and the admirable qualities of self-reliance".<ref name=Lewis-1997/>{{rp|page=678}} This further supports the belief that Defoe used aspects of spiritual autobiography to introduce the benefits of individualism to a not entirely convinced religious community.<ref name=Lewis-1997>{{cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Tess |year=1997 |editor-last=Watt |editor-first=Ian |editor-link=Ian Watt |title=The heroes we deserve |jstor=3851909 |journal=The Hudson Review |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=675–680 |doi=10.2307/3851909}}</ref> J. Paul Hunter has written extensively on the subject of ''Robinson Crusoe'' as apparent spiritual autobiography, tracing the influence of Defoe's Puritan ideology through Crusoe's narrative, and his acknowledgement of human imperfection in pursuit of meaningful spiritual engagements – the cycle of "repentance [and] deliverance".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Halewood |first=William H. |date=1 February 1969 |title=The Reluctant Pilgrim: Defoe's emblematic method and quest for form in Robinson Crusoe. J.Paul Hunter, Defoe, and spiritual autobiography. G.A. Starr |journal=Modern Philology |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=274–278 |doi=10.1086/390091}}</ref>

This spiritual pattern and its episodic nature, as well as the re-discovery of earlier female novelists, have kept ''Robinson Crusoe'' from being classified as a novel, let alone the [[First novel in English|first novel written in English]] – despite the blurbs on some book covers. Early critics, such as [[Robert Louis Stevenson]], admired it, saying that the footprint scene in ''Crusoe'' was one of the four greatest in English literature and most unforgettable; more prosaically, Wesley Vernon has seen the origins of [[forensic podiatry]] in this episode.<ref name=west>{{cite book |first=Richard |last=West |year=1998 |title=Daniel Defoe: The life and strange, surprising adventures |place=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |isbn=978-0-7867-0557-3}}</ref> It has inspired a new genre, the ''[[Robinsonade]]'', as works such as [[Johann David Wyss]]' ''[[The Swiss Family Robinson]]'' (1812) adapt its premise and has provoked modern [[Postcolonial literature|postcolonial]] responses, including [[J. M. Coetzee]]'s ''[[Foe (Coetzee novel)|Foe]]'' (1986) and [[Michel Tournier]]'s ''[[Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique]]'' (in English, ''Friday, or, The Other Island'') (1967).  Two sequels followed: Defoe's ''[[The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe]]'' (1719) and his ''Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world'' (1720). [[Jonathan Swift]]'s ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' (1726) is in part a parody of Defoe's adventure novel.