Study Questions Millennium I p 166 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 ID: 597417
Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Robinson Crusoe" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
Slide1
Robinson Crusoe
Study Questions
Millennium I p.
166 Slide2
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.
Try to summarize the story?
Open answer.
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.Slide3
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.
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.