Robinson Crusoe Study Questions Millennium I p. 166

1.What is the background to Robinson Crusoe? Defoe based his story on the true account of a Scottish sailor, Captain Woodes Rogers, who had managed to survive on a deserted island off the coast of Chile. 2.Try to summarize the story? Open answer. 3.Why is Defoe’s novel known as the first modern novel? Because for the first time the story is presented as a true one. Defoe narrative, although fictitious, presents realistic elements: –the places are carefully described and set in their geographical context; – time is referred to in the most precise manner; The use of a first-person narrator makes it a fake- autobiography.

4.In what is it a celebration of the English mercantile spirit? The novel celebrates the English mercantile spirit of adventure in faraway countries. Robinson is armed only with his own strength and intelligence and with the firm Puritan conviction that he has God on his side. 5.Why can Robinson be defined as “the archetypal colonist” ? The relationship between Robinson and Friday is that of a colonist towards an enslaved native, a master towards his servant. His only interest in the native he has come into contact with is to submit him to his own culture and rules, giving him a new name, new (European) clothes, a new language and a new religion. On the other hand, he doesn’t teach him to use the new scientific technical devices so as to maintain his superiority. Robinson’s education of Friday in “Robinson Crusoe” recalls the processes of modern colonialism.