Robinson Crusoe is a novel by the British author Daniel Defoe, published in the 1700s. It tells how a sailor, Crusoe, ignored the advice of his father and insisted on taking long sea voyages. This resulted in a shipwreck which required him to survive on a deserted island for 28 years, mostly alone. The title character’s unusual last name was adapted from the name of his German father, Kreutznaer. As a student, Defoe had a classmate named Timothy Cruso who would later write books about religious education, so some scholars suggest that he may have inspired the name Crusoe. As narrator, Crusoe tells how he survived on a tropical island near Trinidad despite threats from cannibals and other dangers, before he is finally rescued. A number of real-life stories of shipwrecked sailors whose difficulties were described in books may have inspired Defoe. The story is told in British English of the 1700s, so it sometimes seems odd to readers today. Yet its style is direct and plain, making it enjoyable to read. Crusoe may be admired by the reader for his courage to face new challenges and get past failures. He must build shelter and arrange for food by himself, without any help, and after many failures he manages to do so. This kind of determination described in detail can also seem admirable. Because the descriptions in the book are very convincing, the dramatic situation seems real and Robinson Crusoe has been adapted many times on film and television.
Island problems.
Crusoe did not choose to be alone on his island, and life was often painful, especially if he felt ill. To get through such times, he would make a list of positive and negative aspects of his situation, which some readers still like to do today when confronted by problems in life. He would write down on the negative side that he was alone on a desert island, but on the positive side that he was alive, unlike his fellow sailors who had all drowned in the shipwreck. Crusoe called the place where he lived the Island of Despair. Sometimes Crusoe did not act in admirable ways. Apart from not following the advice of his father, he also participates in the slave trade from Africa before he is shipwrecked. Only he, the captain’s dog, and two cats manage to swim to the island safely. He gets weapons and building supplies from the ship before it breaks into pieces and floats away from the land. Killing animals for food, he also grows barley and rice and makes raisins by drying grapes. He has lots of time to read the Bible and becomes more interested in religion. After some years alone, he is surprised to find a footprint on the sand that was not made by himself. Crusoe describes this with typical detail in the following passage, making sure that it really is a footprint by examining it thoroughly:
It happened, 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 in the sand. I stood like one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition; I listened, I looked round me, I could hear nothing, nor see any thing; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one, I could see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the very print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot; how it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least imagine. But after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of my self, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man; nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.
Long after this was written, the author Robert Louis Stevenson claimed that the discovery of a footprint in Robinson Crusoe was one of the four greatest scenes in English literature. Readers who are students of medicine may note that Dr. Wesley Vernon, Head of Podiatry Service, Sheffield Health & Social Research Consortium, UK has claimed that the modern field of forensic podiatry, analyzing feet and footprints to solve crimes, was first presented in this scene by Defoe.
In the novel, the island is sometimes used by local cannibals who kill their victims there. When one of the prisoners escapes, Crusoe helps him, calling him Friday because this was the day on which he appeared. Friday becomes the servant of Crusoe. Later in English, the expression Man Friday or Girl Friday was used to describe an office assistant, although this is now considered old-fashioned and disrespectful of employees. Finally, after many more adventures, Crusoe and Friday are rescued by a British ship. Defoe was always concerned with the money earned by characters, so we learn that when Crusoe returns to England, he was left nothing by his father, who thought he was long dead. As a result, the former sailor must travel to Brazil to get money he had earned by owning plantations there years before.
Influences.
Robinson Crusoe influenced many later works, including the children’s book The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss. Unlike this and other later adaptations for children, the original Robinson Crusoe is not really a story aimed primarily at a young audience. Even so, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, or On Education, young children are recommended to read Robinson Crusoe to learn self-reliance in life. Such novels as J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986) and Michel Tournier’s Friday (1967), as well as Muriel Spark’s Robinson: a novel (1958) all specifically refer to Defoe’s work. There have been many film adaptations of Robinson Crusoe, with the title character played by such actors as Peter O’Toole, Aidan Quinn, and Pierce Brosnan. The 2000 film Cast Away, which may be seen at the Rewat Buddhinan Collection of the Pridi Banomyong Library, stars Tom Hanks as a castaway who has many things in common with Crusoe.
Thailand and Robinson Crusoe
In the Kingdom, Robinson Crusoe is often mentioned, but usually in reference to delightful island vacation places. These mentions do not take into account the fact that the fictional character Crusoe did not choose to go to an island, and then faced many dangers and other unpleasant things after he got there. So, for example, Mu Ko Surin National Park is described in the travel pages of The Daily Telegraph newspaper:
To find your inner Robinson Crusoe, head to the Moo Ko Surin Marine National Park, a tiny archipelago afloat in the Andaman Sea close to the Burmese border. The five hilly isles are covered in evergreen forest populated by monkeys, birds, giant crabs and monitor lizards, while the surrounding coral reefs are amongst the best in Thailand with regular sightings of turtles and reef sharks. Visitors can join twice daily long-tail boat snorkeling trips to the reefs. Basic but excellent seafood is served in just two park restaurants and electricity stops at 10pm, leaving one in awe of star-strewn skies and a jungle soundtrack.
Clearly, Mu Ko Surin National Park is pleasanter than Crusoe’s island was. Conde Nast Traveller Magazine makes it clear that Koh Yao Noi and Koh Yao Yai in Phangnga Bay, midway between Phuket and Krabi, are
not a Robinson Crusoe experience.
If Robinson Crusoe had landed on this less developed version of Koh Phi Phi, he would never have come home.
Time Out magazine describes Koh Rok Nok, with its camping ground at Had Koh Rok:
With its powder beach, offshore coral reef and virgin waters, this offers the real Robinson Crusoe experience. You can hire a four-person tent for around £7 per night, with electricity provided between 6pm and 8pm. Don’t forget to take food, drinking water and mosquito protection because there are no shops.
Rickshaw Travel proposes a holiday on Ko Hai as Relaxing on Robinson Crusoe Island. LuxurySocietyAsia.com offers a Robinson Crusoe Luxury Adventure at the Soneva Kiri resort on Koh Kood, where tourists are welcomed by Miss Friday.
In 2012, The Bangkok Post also reported on Soneva Kiri on Koh Kut:
There’s one place in Thailand where you have to set your watch one hour ahead, walk around bare foot, refrain from reading and hearing about any news, and your requests are fulfilled by the butler called Friday… That may make you feel like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, albeit one who doesn’t have to think about surviving on a remote island and instead go along with a slow life.
And in 2014, The Bangkok Post explained:
The carbon-free cooking at Aleenta Resort and Spa Hua Hin-Pran Buri gives you a sense of Robinson Crusoe, but a gourmet food version. Meals are cooked in an open-air garden, a few kilometres away from the hotel and brought to the hotel’s kitchen by bicycle. Forget European imported pricey stoves. The heating process is done in a solar oven and the stove is fuelled by discarded wood chips. Head chef Pornpirom “Tom” Khanwong said that the confit sea bass fillet is cooked in a solar-oven at 63C for 23 minutes.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).