Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe, the character

Robinson Crusoe and Colonial Expansion

Robinson Crusoe is the prototype of the English coloniser, the typical man who wants to expand his business throughout the world. His aim is to create his own identity, despite his father’s wishes, and his disobedience will be punished with the shipwreck on the island. That’s his opportunity to rescue himself, since he deserves to be saved by God because he’s the typical man of the period, puritan and tradesman.

The Island as a Primitive Empire

The island will be his primitive empire, he will behave according to a good life (reading the Bible and following God’s will) and he’ll dominate nature, creating a new world in which the individual can shape his destiny with his action and his efforts.
Crusoe, moreover, underlines his superiority to Friday, to the savage, by calling him not by his real name, but by the name he gave him, and by teaching him only the words “Master”, “yes” and “no”. He teaches him that his culture is superior, and by that, he transforms the savage into a man with European and positive features. He’s a pragmatic and rational man with an objective approach to reality proved by his journal-keeping, that givess an impression of realism (given also by the style, with precise and clear details dealing with numbers and extension, in order to create a clear image in reader’s mind and a concrete and simple language understandable by middle-class).