Close Reading of Robinson Crusoe

Seminar Exercise – Vivek Pandya, 2356096P, Tutor: Faye Hammill

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

At a first glance of this passage written by Defoe, you read how the character of Crusoe describes Friday however it is itself built up in many ways, with the author using different narrative features to build up the extract and thus our understanding of both Crusoe and Friday.

 The first thing of note is the sentence structure that Defoe uses in Crusoe’s description. The first sentence is long, comprised of 3 shorter parts all separated by a semi colon. The effect of this is repetitive style of description allows for a much more in depth build up of character. Within the first sentence, Crusoe seems to be almost infatuated by Friday’s ‘perfectly well made’ appearance. Crusoe’s repeated use of adjectives including ‘straight’, ‘strong, ‘tall, and ‘well-shap’d’ all enables the extract to not only develop our understanding of the character of Friday (by developing his physical attributes), but it also Crusoe as we begin to understand his relationship with Friday. The use of the semi colon, read like somewhat like a stanza in a poem, and thus allows Defoe to list off Friday attributes seemingly characterising Friday as a detailed man with much to offer. Defoe continues to write Crusoe’s description of Friday in a similar manner as the extract continues. A large sentence, built up by some short bursts of individual sentences, separated by a comma or a semi colon, allow Defoe to highlight Crusoe’s underlying thoughts. The semi colon serves as break and itself adds weight to the description of Friday as just when you think the sentence is over, there is more to be said about him. It also adds a little speed when reading the passage and could arguable mimic the feelings or potential physical urges that Crusoe may have when he is admiring Friday. When reading the opening to the extract, the swift repeated description coupled with the punctuation could be mimicking the act of sexual intercourse, with repetitive, frequent physical descriptions, aided with semicolons creating a sense of passionate pace. Furthermore when analysing the physical description of Friday in general, it ‘very agreeable’, in that Crusoe doesn’t seem to find any perceived flaws with the way Friday looks. This again can be interpreted as Crusoe having some form homoerotic passions towards Friday.

The fact the Friday is merely described by Crusoe through just his physical feature in this extract highlights how Crusoe sees Friday in terms of standings; Friday is beneath him and is considered in crude terms to be his slave. There seems to be two key pieces of evidence to suggest this, the obvious being how Crusoe ‘taught him to say master’, but the second being how Friday’s physical description always seems to be in aligned with nouns. Defoe couples an adjective such as ‘good’, ‘fierce’, ‘surly’, or ‘manly’ and always uses them to describe a feature of Friday physically including his ‘countenance’, ‘Limbs’, and his ‘Face’. This word choice combination of adjectives and nouns used by Defoe highlights Crusoe perspective that Friday is exactly that, a noun. Friday in Crusoe’s eyes, is nothing more than a physical being or object that is his to describe, own and command. The beginning of extract in the context of the time it was written in, supports this view and as the later part of the passage shows, Friday is taught about the master slave relationship between the two of them. There is definitely a clear indication the Crusoe sees Friday as a servant, as seen by the him describing how Friday lay his head, ‘close to my foot’ but the word choices that Defoe also uses subtly help to paint the sense of ownership. The slight assonance of ‘Signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission’, all have a strong resemblance of the letter S, and coincidently so does the word Slave. So whilst Crusoe as the character is clearly talking about the dynamics of owning a slave, Defoe word choice of letters beginning with the letter S has a slightly more subtle impact on the reader and thus makes the extract itself of more note as our understanding of the two characters is developing.