Defoe

Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 and he was a dissenter (puritan) and studied at Newington Green. His father wanted him to work in a religious job but he became an apprentice and then started to write on his own. He started as a journalist and wrote for The Review in which he published political essays. He was bankrupt twice and managed to face it both with legal and illicit means. He wrote for the Whigs and Queen Anne did not like it so she had him imprisoned a few times. in his 60s he started to write novels such as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. He liked using a journal façade for his writing because he wrote a diary of the Plague Year 1665 in which he described truthfully and accurately the figures and facts of that time. He obviously made other believe that the journal was real but it couldn’t have been because he was 5 during the plague. His novels are fictional autobiographies always pretending to be true stories and his novels represented the new social class.

ROBINSON CRUSOE (1719)

Robinson Crusoe is the first english novel and it’s a diary of a man, Robinson Crusoe, who decides to leave home at nineteen and leave his job as a trader and comfortable life to follow adventure. He voyages until he is captured by Moorish pirates and then he escapes and is rescued by a ship and brought to Brazil where he becomes a plantation owner. He sails the sea again to purcase more slaves but he is shipwrecked on a desert island in which he will reside for 28 years. He lives for 12 years alone and then he notices foot prints on the sand and discovers that on that island a cannibal tribe makes their sacrifices and he fights them and frees a captive that he calls Friday. After some time Robinson returns to England where he discovers that his brazilian plantation has made hime very rich. This story was probably based on the story of Alexander Selkerk who was a man who really shipwrecked on an island for 5 years and survived returning home at the end. This novel is very realistic and full of details and Robinson’s journey in the novel is a way to atone himself because he has sinned against God leaving his home and his father. Robinson as all middle class men is pratictal and sensible and uses reason to behave. He manages not to change on the island and becomes at the end a selfmade man. AFter he shipwrecks he manages to save some provisions such as food, ink, paper, tools and weapons and he starts a diary. He doesn’t panic and makes a pros and cons list of the island and then starts to build a shelter.

Footprint scene:

1. he sees the foot print and is astonished

2. he listens for sounds and takes in his surroundings

3. he searches for other footprints but finds none

4. he questions himeself about the reality of the footprint because he thinks he imagined it

5. he sees that it is a real foot print and is scared out of his mind

6. he runs towards his shelter turning around every now sìand then to see if anyone was following him

7. his imagination runs wild and he sees every stump as a persone and a lot of bad visions came to his mind

8. he doesn’t know how he entered his home because he was more scared than a hare or a fox

9. he doesn’t sleep because he starts to wonder of what it could be, whom it could be and he has terrible ideas

10. he even thinks it could be the devil but dismisses that idea

11. Then he thinks that it could be his own footprint and if that is the case then he acted as a fool that is scared by his own scary stories

12. With this thought he exits his lair because he needed to take provisions and milk the goats

13. he is still skittish and checks round him

14. after a few days starts to return to normal but encounters the same footprint and checks it with his own and finds that his foot is much smaller so he is frightned again and runs again in the shelter

MOLL FLANDERS( 1722)

Moll Flanders is a girl born in prison, daughter of a thief, that is sent to Virginia. Moll starts to work as a maid in a rich family but she is seduced by the son of the Lord and thrown out of the house. She goes through five marriages and children, to survive becomes a thief and prostitute and then she is imprisoned and sent to Virginia to serve her years where she works in a plantation and then buys her own plantation and becomes rich, she returns to London as a wealthy respectable woman of the middle class. Just as in Robinson Crusoe her journey is a journey of redemption and rapresentation of the middle class, class full of self-made men and women. The story is narrated by a old Moll Flanders that tells her story to the reader.