Line #0 Literature/RobinsonCrusoe


1	[[quoteright:240:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2004_01_crusoe_4952.jpg]]
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3	Written by Creator/DanielDefoe and first published in 1719. [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory Probably inspired by]] real-life castaways Pedro Serrano and Alexander Selkirk. Depending on who you ask, it might be the first true novel written in English.
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5	''Robinson Crusoe'' is a classic novel about the title character's various adventures, the primary one being his shipwreck on a deserted island off the [[UsefulNotes/TheCaribbean Caribbean]] coast of UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica. After a tumultuous early life at sea, Crusoe is stranded on his famous island, where he learns important survival skills, fights off cannibal natives, saves a native prisoner (Friday, who becomes his loyal servant and friend) from being eaten, and so on until his dramatic rescue. It was an immediate success after its first release, which inspired a whole lot of imitators and stories using [[{{Robinsonade}} similar plots]].
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7	There was also a sequel, ''The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe'', and a collection of essays/part 3, ''Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe'', and well... since the story has become public domain, quite a few recycled versions JustForFun/{{IN SPACE}} and the like.
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9	!! ''Robinson Crusoe'' provides examples of:
10	* AdaptedOut: In the original book; Crusoe sells a boy into slavery, enslaves many people on his plantation in {{UsefulNotes/Brazil}}, and is wrecked on the island as his ship was on a voyage to pick up still more people in {{UsefulNotes/Africa}} to enslave in UsefulNotes/TheAmericas. All of this has been removed from many of the later stage play and movie adaptations of the story, even those that otherwise keep the original setting, both to focus on the TropeCodifier deserted island survival scenario and to make Crusoe something other than a VillainProtagonist.
11	* TheAloner: Until he rescues Friday from the cannibals, Crusoe is alone as an inhabitant of his island.
12	* BarbarianTribe:
13	** Played straight with the cannibals, but briefly inverted when Crusoe muses that the Spanish are themselves guilty of horrible atrocities in the New World to the extent that the cannibals almost seem innocent in comparison. But he quickly goes back to seeing them as worthless barbarians.
14	** In the second book, Robinson would come to see pretty much anyone who is not a Christian as a barbarian. Africans, Chinese, various other Asians, you name it.
15	* BerserkButton: Cannibalism is this for Crusoe. However, he is barely able to restrain himself and eventually almost able to excuse the practice... until he sees a white man about to be eaten.
16	* BittersweetEnding: When you take the lesser-known sequel into account. [[spoiler:He is eventually rescued and returns to civilization a rich man. But in the next book Crusoe finds he has trouble acclimating and Friday later dies.]]
17	* CapturedByCannibals: One of Crusoe's biggest fears. He's even convinced that Friday's people will eat him if he ventures over to them, despite Friday's insistence otherwise. Actually happens to the Spaniard they later rescue.
18	* ClothingDamage: After nearly 10 years on the island, the clothes that Crusoe had been wearing began to wear out, forcing him to create new clothes from animal fur.
19	* TheCavalierYears: The time period.
20	* DarkestAfrica: During his pre-island days, when Crusoe is fleeing Moorish slavery in a boat along the African coast.
21	--> But it is impossible to describe the horrid noises, and hideous cries and howlings that were raised, as well upon the edge of the shore as higher within the country, upon the noise or report of the gun, a thing I have some reason to believe those creatures had never heard before: this convinced me that there was no going on shore for us in the night on that coast, and how to venture on shore in the day was another question too; for to have fallen into the hands of any of the savages had been as bad as to have fallen into the hands of the lions and tigers; at least we were equally apprehensive of the danger of it.
22	* DatedHistory: It's since been established that reports of cannibalism among the Carib Amerindians were ''hugely'' exaggerated, if not outright fabricated. Most of the myth seems to have its roots in the tribe's practice of keeping the bones of their ancestors in their homes so that their spirits would watch over them. Furthermore, there has been no archaeological or anthropological evidence of cannibalism ever found in the Caribbean.[[http://www.da-academy.org/caribhist.html#myth1]][[http://www.amazon.com/Realities-Caribbean-History-Archaeology-Ethnohistory/dp/0817355340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346002640&sr=1-1&keywords=Myths+and+realities+of+Caribbean+history]]
23	* DayOfTheWeekName: Friday.
24	* DesertedIsland: One of the most famous examples.
25	* TheEveryman: Robinson himself. His character is studied as one of most prominent examples in Western literature.
26	* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: With the exception of Friday, Xury and the mutineer Will Atkins, most characters are never given names. Instead we have "the Spaniard," "the captain," "Friday's father," "my wife," etc.
27	* FilmOfTheBook: Several, beginning in the 1920s.
28	%%* GirlFriday: Trope Namer (although the Trope Namer is actually male).
29	* HappinessInSlavery: Friday is ''really'' devoted to Crusoe.
30	* HeroicBSOD: Crusoe has one when he almost dies of disease, but eventually snaps out of it.
31	* HeterosexualLifePartners: Crusoe and Friday.
32	* ImAHumanitarian: The cannibals who briefly visit the island, and from whom Crusoe rescues Friday.
33	* ImprovisedClothes: Crusoe learns to make clothes out of goat hide.
34	* InformedFlaw: Friday is ''supposed'' to be from a savage, wretched cannibal tribe. Except we never see him as anything but handsome, kind, intelligent, brave, and loyal - hardly qualities anyone would connect with a "savage."
35	* IOweYouMyLife: Friday becomes Crusoe's devoted servant after Crusoe saves him from being eaten by cannibals.
36	* {{Keet}}: Friday, occasionally. Is prone to singing, dancing and jumping around when happy.
37	--> As soon as I saw the place I called for Friday, and asked him if he knew where he was? He looked about a little, and presently clapping his hands, cried, "Oh yes, Oh there, Oh yes, Oh there!" pointing to our old habitation, and fell dancing and capering like a mad fellow; and I had much ado to keep him from jumping to the sea to swim ashore to the place. "(From the sequel, when they return to the island.)"
38	* TheLastManHeardAKnock: In a variation of this trope, Crusoe, after some twenty-odd years alone on his island, comes across a man's footprint in the sand. It's actually a genuinely creepy moment but ultimately paves the way for the introduction of Friday.
39	* MadeASlave: Crusoe is briefly enslaved by the Moors, but eventually escapes.
40	* NakedOnArrival: Friday, being an ignorant, wretched savage and all. The novel associates nudity with savagery to the extent that Crusoe refuses to ever go naked despite being all alone on a tropical island. Giving Friday clothes is one of Crusoe's first steps towards "civilizing" him.
41	* NobleSavage: Friday. Though completely subordinate to his master, Crusoe nevertheless admires Friday for his honesty and loyalty, as well as his devotion to his father. He also considers Friday to be a much better Christian than he himself is.
42	* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted}}. Robinson encounters several people with the same first name, even another Robinson.
43	* ParanoiaFuel: {{Invoked}} when Crusoe finds the mysterious footprint. For all he knows, the person who left it is still on the island. He freaks out and even wonders if it might have been the devil. He ends up reinforcing his fortifications as a result.
44	-->How it came thither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, 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 my 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.
45	* PlotHole:
46	** There's a very famous one involving Crusoe swimming out to the ship naked... and then filling his pockets with biscuits.
47	** In the same scene he has to climb up over the side of the ship on a rope, but manages to get heavy boxes of goods down over the side onto his rickety raft without dropping them into the water.
48	* ProtagonistTitle
49	* PublicDomainCharacter: Well, it's been 300 years since it was first published, so this is to be expected.
50	* {{Robinsonade}}: Trope Namer and originator of the genre.
51	%%* SalvagePirates
52	* TheSavageIndian: The cannibals, being identified as Carib Indians. Includes Friday, until Crusoe reformed him.
53	%%* {{Sidekick}}: Friday
54	* SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality: There are no women, with the exception of Crusoe's widow friend at the end. At the end of the first book, Robinson describes how he would eventually send the remaining castaways some cows, sheep, hogs - and women.
55	* SmallSecludedWorld: The island is essentially Crusoe's entire world until his rescue.
56	* SoleSurvivor: Crusoe himself. Also Friday, who is the only one of the cannibals' prisoners to escape.
57	* TropeCodifier: Defoe was inspired by true stories of marooned and shipwrecked sailors from the 16th to early 18th centuries and by earlier novels using a deserted island setting; but this is the book that codified and inspired the Robinsonade genre for the next 300 years.
58	* TurnToReligion: Crusoe spends his life being mostly indifferent to religion and God until he becomes stranded on the island. When he comes down with a fever, he awakens to religion. After Crusoe recovers, he often prays to God and thanks Him for giving him what he needs to survive.
59	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The UrExample of the trope. Having experience traveling through Spanish territories, the author likely based the novel in the tales of Pedro Serrano, who was marooned in the Caribbean, and Alexander Selkirk, who did so in the Juan Fernández Islands.
60	* WhiteBreadAndBlackBrotha: The UrExample. While Friday is a native Carib in the original novel, so many adaptations have {{Racelift}}ed him as black that [[AdaptationDisplacement many exclusively imagine him as such]]. Crusoe and Friday also share the traditional characteristics of this trope as a straight-laced, rather stodgy white man and his more flamboyant, exotic, and "ethnic" sidekick.
61	* WhiteMansBurden: After rescuing Friday and taking him in, Crusoe views teaching him to become a good Christian convert as his duty.
62	%%* WoodenShipsAndIronMen
63	* YouNoTakeCandle: Friday's English is pretty butchered and never improves, even after (in the sequel) he's been with Crusoe in England for several years. Also Xury, Crusoe's companion when he escapes the Moors.

Context Literature / RobinsonCrusoe