tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/robinson-crusoe-78517/articlesRobinson Crusoe – The Conversation2023-04-19T04:20:15Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2008272023-04-19T04:20:15Z2023-04-19T04:20:15ZThe politics of the castaway story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518925/original/file-20230403-22-5lcdzh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shipwreck survivors played by, from left, Charlbi Dean, Dolly De Leon and Vicki Berlin in Triangle of Sadness.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperative Entertainment, Plattform Produktion, Film i Väst</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ruben Östlund’s 2022 film Triangle of Sadness has attracted both praise and criticism as a satire of the world’s rich. Triangle of Sadness follows the familiar plot of a castaway story. A luxury cruise ship capsizes after a disastrous drinking session between the captain (an American communist) and a passenger (a Russian capitalist) in the midst of a storm, leaves the ship vulnerable to pirates, who blow it up. Several passengers escape and fight to survive on a desert island. </p>
<p>However, their social rank, class and privilege are washed away with the shipwreck. To survive, they cannot rely on their prevailing social power: money. Instead, each person must act in self-interest. This situation provokes depravity from the survivors and it is this aspect of the film that brings the success of its satire into question. </p>
<p>Satires employ allegories and moral fables to expose social dynamics and, often, make a political critique. But the easy corruption and ruthless, self-interested competition of each character in Triangle of Sadness seem to confirm rather than confront the dominant ideologies of global capitalism: get ahead or die.</p>
<p>The trope of shipwrecked survival is probably most paradigmatic in Robert Zemeckis’ prize-winning blockbuster <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/">Cast Away</a> (2000), starring Tom Hanks. Surprisingly self-serious, the film presents the audience with a ready-made morality tale. </p>
<p>By no fault of his own, a lone individual gets stranded on a desert island. Forced to survive from the ground up in adverse conditions, Chuck Noland (Hanks), demonstrates the power of the individual to persevere, proving his strength, ingenuity and determination. The only company Chuck has on the island is a volleyball he personifies, naming it after the sports brand adorning its surface – Wilson. </p>
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<p>More recently, Ridley Scott’s The Martian (2015), had Matt Damon farming Mars, claiming “once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonised it”.</p>
<p>The castaway story has helped promulgate a view about human nature as eternal and unchanging. By taking human beings out of society, our supposedly fundamentally individualist survival instincts come to the fore. </p>
<p>However, the castaway story reflects on the relationship between individuals and society. A number of important questions arise from this relationship, including our place in nature, our autonomy as individuals, our ability to be collective and social, and the existence of different forms of power, inequality and domination. </p>
<p>The desert island story serves as an abstraction to think about what is “natural” in our interaction with others. On the island, would we fight or co-operate? </p>
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<p>Triangle of Sadness and other modern castaway stories, reach back to one of the first English-language novels, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). Today most people think of Robinson Crusoe as a children’s book and read it in a truncated edition with colourful cartoons of Robinson with a fur hat and a log canoe. </p>
<p>Robinson is overtly referenced in the works by many celebrated writers, including Alexander Pope, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and J. M. Coetzee. It might be a surprise, however, to learn that it is also one of the most referenced English language novels in the history of philosophy, appearing in works by philosophers as varied as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx and Robert Nozick. It is still used as a classic example in economic textbooks to discuss fundamental principles of production and consumption. </p>
<p>More than a survival tale of a man shipwrecked on a desert island, Robinson Crusoe is also a fascinating moral fable of individualism. While many readers see the novel as showing human beings in an ideal state of nature, I argue the book <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01914537211066863">can help shine light on capitalism as a social system</a>. </p>
<h2>Work and enslavement</h2>
<p>The general plot of Robinson Crusoe is very familiar, but the details are often forgotten. For instance, only a portion of the novel happens on the island. Robinson’s adventure starts with his success as a merchant trading slaves, a character embodying the spirit of both the history of European colonialism and the new voracious drive of early capitalism. Robinson remains true to this spirit once he is shipwrecked, claiming the island to have “no society” and declaring the land as his personal kingdom.</p>
<p>Robinson becomes a farmer (using seeds from the shipwreck), raises cattle in accordance with European agriculture, hunts with muskets and hoards gold. In one of the most shocking parts of the novel, he captures and enslaves a man, who he calls “Friday”, converting him to Christianity. Much of the novel is about work. Robinson meticulously records his daily labour and Friday becomes an instrument of production for his master. </p>
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<span class="caption">A first edition of Robinson Crusoe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
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<p>Robinson’s fear of others is confirmed with the presence of cannibals on the island. Luckily, Robinson is able kill a great number of the “savages” with his muskets. With the help of an English ship, he returns to England with Friday, his “most faithful servant”. Robinson has been on the island 28 years, two months and 19 days. But he sails again to Lisbon to recover the profit from his business ventures in Brazil, including slave plantations, before coming back to England. Defoe wrote a sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, in which Robinson and Friday return to the island, where Friday dies. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robinson-crusoe-300-years-on-defoes-unreliable-narrative-set-up-enduring-colonial-myths-126779">Robinson Crusoe 300 years on: Defoe's unreliable narrative set up enduring colonial myths</a>
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<p>Many of the book’s early readers eluded the colonial theme, focusing on Robinson’s individual self-sufficiency. This is partly because of the historical context. Defoe lived a varied life as a merchant and political pamphleteer in the aftermath of the English Civil War, a revolutionary process started in 1642 and lasting until 1688. </p>
<p>The political contest between the Stuart monarchy and the powers of the English Parliament was interwoven with the development of capitalism, the proliferation of a commodity and wage-labour market and the growth of private ownership in agricultural production. Colonial expansion brought in bountiful resources and the slave trade developed. </p>
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Daniel Defoe, National Maritime Museum, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>The 17th-century was also one of the most significant in English political philosophy. The publication of Thomas Hobbes’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91953.Leviathan?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=jATOzWFCV8&rank=3">Leviathan</a> in 1651 and John Locke’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/364550.Two_Treatises_of_Government?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=y3c9g6urHf&rank=2">Two Treatises of Government</a> in 1689 sought to offer political solutions to the new economic developments. In doing so, they helped establish distinctly modern conceptions of what it means to be an individual.</p>
<p>Hobbes thought human beings fundamentally individualistic. According to Leviathan, human beings in the “state of nature” are highly competitive, atomistic, war-like and motivated by fear. He argued that a strong political state would offer protection and he called this a “social contract”. </p>
<p>Locke followed Hobbes in his view that a social contract is the best model for individuals to form a society, focusing his attention on the justification of individual property rights. In his view, once human beings mix their labour with the natural world, we create private property. </p>
<p>Although scholars debate these issues, Hobbes supported colonialism and Locke justified the slavery of his time. Defoe was highly influenced by Hobbes and Locke, who provide the model individual for Robinson’s colonial adventure story. </p>
<h2>Beyond individualism</h2>
<p>Soon after its publication, Robinson Crusoe began its own adventure, appearing in crucial works of political and economic theory. By the middle of the 18th century, thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau identified the rising inequality of wealth as creating the ills of modern society. Rousseau envisaged a kind of democracy which allows for individuals to be free in their collective decision-making. </p>
<p>In Rousseau’s educational treatise, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Emile-or-On-Education">Émile</a> (1762), initially Robinson Crusoe is the only book the young boy is allowed to read. Rousseau thought the novel provided a helpful picture of the solitary individual in the state of nature, where he can fulfill his “authentic” needs and desires, far from the corruptions of society. Although he does not discuss slavery, Rousseau uses the novel as a moral fable to contrast the inequalities of the modern world with an idealised state of nature. </p>
<p>In 1789, the French Revolution ushered in modernity. Hierarchies of birth and privilege were overthrown and liberty was proclaimed for all based on the equality of human beings. (Although as many critics, including Mary Wollstonecraft, pointed out this idea of equality was limited, and excluded women.) The age of political revolution inspired a revolution in thought. The depiction of slavery in Robinson Crusoe and the politics of individualism were called into question by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel">G.W.F. Hegel</a>. In Hegel’s philosophy, individuals were always part of social relationships and needed to be thought of in relation to communities. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-an-introduction-to-the-mother-of-first-wave-feminism-201046">Mary Wollstonecraft: an introduction to the mother of first-wave feminism</a>
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<p>If human beings are both individual and collective beings, I, for instance, require that others recognise me as a person who has value and I recognise others for their value. For a person to be free as a subject, Hegel thought there must be mutual recognition that we are free, together with political and social institutions allowing for recognition to be reciprocal. However, to recognise others collectively requires overcoming domination. </p>
<p>When teaching a famous section of his difficult, yet breathtaking, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9454.Phenomenology_of_Spirit?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=XMQ8nqiUIO&rank=1">Phenomenology of Spirit</a> (1807), Hegel used the example of Robinson Crusoe to dramatise a philosophical abstraction where recognition is not mutual. In his discussion of “mastery and servitude”, Hegel addressed the contradiction between the master who dominates the slave and makes them labour, but at the same time, desires a slave who respects their authority. In the enforcement of this power, the master denies the humanity of the slave, while also depending on their labour. In the novel, Robinson insists that Friday is his friend, but refuses to recognise Friday’s subjectivity, dominating him and gaining from his work. </p>
<p>Karl Marx dramatically challenged the politics of Robinson Crusoe. In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325785.Capital?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ylCw0vsHyd&rank=14">Capital</a> (1867), he pointed out that its assumptions about human nature should be examined historically. According to Marx, capitalism is not “natural”, but a social system brought into being by processes of force and colonial dispossession. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/karl-marx-his-philosophy-explained-164068">Karl Marx: his philosophy explained</a>
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<p>Even (apparently) alone on his island, Robinson’s character reflects modern class relations and capitalist economic principles. Marx analyses Robinson’s labour, pointing out that he behaves like a capitalist, despite working directly for his own survival. He acts as if he is producing commodities for the market, recording like a bookkeeper the time taken for his labouring tasks such as making tools, crafting a canoe, harvesting crops and rearing cattle. Robinson has the advantage of the instruments, ink and muskets salvaged from the shipwreck. He also goes to great pains to save the money from the wreckage despite it having no value on the island. He acts as if his survival depends on the market, not as one man in nature. </p>
<p>Although critical of Robinson Crusoe’s depiction of individual self-sufficiency, Marx uses the novel to consider human co-operation, asking the reader to “imagine, for a change, an association of free human beings, working with the means of production held in common”. Robinson’s self-directed labour, he argues, can help us think about the possibility of people socially co-operating, with the process and results of their work under their collective direction.</p>
<p>As Marx explains, labour under capitalism is inherently social since the goods and services we rely on are created by the work of many people over many discrete labour processes in one interconnected social system. No human being is an island.</p>
<p>However, the problem for Marx, is that this labour is mostly structured to accumulate profit for individuals. For Marx, co-operation allows for labour to serve social goods, decided not by market logic, but by human beings deciding what kind of society allows the best life. A “socialist Robinson” would be able to socially recognise the labour of others, not as a constraint to his freedom, but as an essential constitutive element. In Marx’s view, capitalism prevents human freedom. </p>
<p>Castaway stories are premised on the idea that the freedom of human beings is fundamentally as individuals. With the continued proliferation of such moral fables in films such as Triangle of Sadness, it can seem that self-interest is inevitable, contributing to the staggering inequality of today’s world.</p>
<p>However, when understood critically, Robinson Crusoe and its contemporary iterations illustrate the need for collective solutions and co-operation, in order to make our social relationships just. The achievement of human freedom for individuals can only be realised socially as the freedom of all. Only then can we truly rescue Robinson from his island.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Lazarus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By taking human beings out of society, castaway stories suggest our individualist survival instincts come to the fore. But no man (or woman) is an island. True freedom comes through co-operation.Michael Lazarus, Dr Michael Lazarus teaches politics and philosophy, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1455272020-09-15T11:53:40Z2020-09-15T11:53:40ZCharlie Hebdo shootings served as an extreme example of the history of attacks on satirists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357713/original/file-20200911-14-akb40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=108%2C54%2C5044%2C3383&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting made by French street artist Christian Guemy in tribute to the members of those killed in the attack on Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/France-Attacks-Trial/f97618364f494b49b7bdbd0996778e33/22/0">AP Photo/Michel Euler</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the trial of alleged accomplices to the attack on Charlie Hebdo recently got underway in Paris, the magazine republished <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-cartoons-trial-france.html">caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed</a>. </p>
<p>It was a defiant act. The same images were cited as the grievance that led two killers to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html?searchResultPosition=44">shoot dead 12 people</a> at the magazine’s offices in a terror attack in 2015. </p>
<p>Previously, the paper’s offices had been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-magazine-in-paris-is-firebombed.html?searchResultPosition=3">firebombed</a> when a caricature of the Prophet Muhammed was run on the cover of a November 2011 issue. Charlie Hebdo runs cartoons <a href="https://forward.com/schmooze/212244/when-charlie-hebdo-lampooned-jews-too/">satirizing other religions</a>, <a href="https://qz.com/322550/charlie-hebdo-has-had-more-legal-run-ins-with-christians-than-with-muslims/">including Christianity</a>. </p>
<p>Depictions of the founder of Islam are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-theres-opposition-to-images-of-muhammad-36402">forbidden</a> in the Sunni branch of the faith. As a result, what was intended as satire was perceived as blasphemous by observant Muslims and as an unforgivable offense by extremists.</p>
<p>The attack on Charlie Hebdo was an extreme example of a long history of attacks on satire and those who create it. But satire can take many forms, as can its reprisals.</p>
<h2>Satire as criticism</h2>
<p>Indeed, condemnation of satirists has more commonly taken the form of censorship, public humiliation and imprisonment.</p>
<p>Aristophanes, who wrote satiric plays 2,400 years ago, was <a href="https://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_aristophanes.html">condemned during his lifetime</a> for his depictions of citizens of Athens. Plato criticized the playwright for <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2015/12/birth-comedy-socrates-aristophanes/">slandering Socrates</a> as vain and arrogant in his play “The Clouds.”</p>
<p>In 1599, the bishops of Canterbury and London <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2010.00701.x">banned the publication</a> of a variety of works, including those seen as satirical. Attacks on the privileged and powerful were seen as violating cultural norms and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/renaissance-papers-2011/reconsidering-the-1599-bishops-ban-on-satire/E032CFB6126BF6360C2BBE6E7B43B88E">corrosive to social order</a>.</p>
<p>And years before writing his best-known work, “Robinson Crusoe,” Daniel Defoe wrote satirical works that were critical of many prominent figures. Among his more popular work was “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44081/the-true-born-englishman">The True-Born Englishman</a>,” which highlighted xenophobic prejudice in England against <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44081/the-true-born-englishman">King William III</a>, a Dutchman by birth. </p>
<p>In 1703, Defoe also criticized individuals who wanted to separate from the Church of England. In “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Shortest_Way_with_the_Dissenters.html?id=m10UAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Shortest Way with the Dissenters</a>” he accused separatists of being responsible for the English Civil War, among other crimes. Since Defoe was himself a separatist, his critique is considered to be a satiric attack on the leaders of the Church.</p>
<p>Defoe’s call to “crucify the thieves,” that is, the dissenters, led to him being <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/daniel-defoe-put-pillory">accused of seditious libel</a>. He was fined, endured public humiliation in a pillory and was then thrown in prison.</p>
<p>Authors of what is known as Juvenalian satire, criticism of contemporary persons or institutions, engage in a full-throated condemnation. In appearing to be advocating for the public good, they could also end up with outlandish suggestions. Perhaps the best-known example of this is Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm">A Modest Proposal</a>,” in which he suggests that the Irish sell their babies as food for the rich. It was an attack on the attitudes of the wealthy and on British policies toward the Irish.</p>
<p>Needless to say, assaults like these can get under the skin of those being depicted as corrupt, cruel or dimwitted.</p>
<h2>Mild or hidden satire</h2>
<p>But there isn’t one form of satire. Satire can be fairly gentle as well. An example of so-called Horatian satire is Alexander Pope’s 1712 “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9800/9800-h/9800-h.htm">The Rape of the Lock</a>.” The poem describes a mundane incident – the cutting of a lock of hair without permission – in mock-heroic terms.</p>
<p>Pope’s poem is relatively good-natured. His goal was to poke fun at his own society and is therefore not particularly judgmental. </p>
<p>Then there is the use of caricature as a form of satire, which often gets away merely by exaggerating the physical characteristics of its intended targets. <a href="https://hughjnusscrapbookarnorfer7.weebly.com/caricature-humor.html">Barack Obama’s ears</a> and <a href="https://simplifythemessage.com/2014/06/ministry-caricatures/">Richard Nixon’s nose</a>, for example, were often depicted as comically large by cartoonists during their respective presidencies.</p>
<p>But then, a work intended to be satiric may cease, over time, to be recognized as such. As I describe in my book on <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/irony-and-sarcasm">irony and sarcasm,</a> an example may be the Historia Augusta, a fourth-century collection of biographies of Roman emperors.</p>
<p>Scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZzWehZ4AAAAJ&hl=en">Justin Stover</a> and <a href="http://www.mike-kestemont.org/">Mike Kestemont</a> have pointed out that the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2016.12043.x">manuscript is unusual</a> in its “lurid focus on emperors’ peccadilloes and personal habits to the detriment of their political accomplishments.” There has been some discussion over the intent and purpose of such a text. Scholar <a href="https://people.wright.edu/shawn.daniels">Shawn Daniels</a>, <a href="https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/uf/e0/04/59/15/00001/daniels_s.pdf">who has studied the text closely</a>, concluded that the language of “quips and bad puns” suggest that the work was intended as satire. </p>
<h2>Free speech and satire</h2>
<p>In modern times, the liberty of free speech can often protect even harsh examples of satire. </p>
<p>In the U.S., for example, criticism of public figures is protected speech, so satire <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/drawing-justice-courtroom-illustrations/about-this-exhibition/significant-and-landmark-cases/satire-is-protected-free-speech/">cannot be used</a> as a basis for libel or to seek damages for emotional distress. In countries such as Italy and Germany, satire is explicitly protected by the Constitution. And France has a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/01/why-satire-holy-french-islam-2015113124829607350.html">long tradition</a> of satirists mocking religious and political institutions.</p>
<p>With regard to Charlie Hebdo’s caricatures of the prophet, there are those who question whether religious sentiments should not be taken into consideration. Many have described the caricatures, such as one depicting a bomb hidden in a turban, to be <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/france-charlie-hebdo-reprints-prophet-mohammed-caricatures-200901103959129.html">offensive to religious feelings</a> and in poor taste. There have been <a href="https://theprint.in/world/charlie-hebdos-decision-to-republish-prophet-muhammad-cartoons-spark-widespread-protests/497447/">protests across several countries</a> condemning the republication.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357715/original/file-20200911-20-s36xkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of a religious group hold a rally to condemn the republication of caricatures in Lahore, Pakistan, on Sept. 10, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Pakistan-Charlie-Hebdo-Protest/f17365ebf3864f4f8403e4fe7e7739b9/9/0">AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://m.startribune.com/french-paper-attacked-in-2015-reprints-mohammed-caricatures/572282162/">an editorial</a> that accompanied the caricatures, the magazine has defended its actions. The editors stated that the drawings “belong to history, and history cannot be rewritten nor erased.”</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Support for freedom of expression was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35108339">evident in the slogan</a> “Je Suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie,” which was adopted by thousands soon after the attack in 2015. </p>
<p>Are there limits to such freedom of expression? The future of satire as a form of criticism may depend on a balance being struck between its practitioners and its targets.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248895/original/file-20181204-133100-t34yqm.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>Roger J. Kreuz is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/irony-and-sarcasm">Irony and Sarcasm</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger J. Kreuz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The French satirical magazine republished the controversial caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. An expert says satire has often been a subject of condemnation.Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1351332020-04-06T12:06:56Z2020-04-06T12:06:56ZShipwrecked! How social isolation can enrich our spiritual lives – like Robinson Crusoe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325128/original/file-20200402-74900-1dflhn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C675%2C1017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly lost at sea, Robinson Crusoe lands on an island only to reckon with isolation, solitude and his own life. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-life-adventures-of-robinson-crusoe-by-daniel-defoe-news-photo/171223990?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>He survived the last great plague in London and the city’s Great Fire. He was imprisoned and persecuted for his religious and political views. There was no happy ending for the journalist Daniel Defoe, author of “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/376/376-h/376-h.htm">A Journal of a Plague Year</a>.” When he died in 1731, he was mired in debt and hiding from his creditors. </p>
<p>Yet Defoe, born in 1660, left behind a work of fiction that is one of the most widely published books in history and – other than the Bible – the most <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/55a3d26cc0cd59c6afb7828db313d50a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1821481">translated book</a> in the world. Like many great works of fiction, it speaks across centuries, especially now as we face the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>The book is “<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe">Robinson Crusoe</a>,” written by <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/daniel-defoe">Defoe</a> and first published in 1719. Crusoe is an Englishman who leaves his comfortable life, goes to sea, gets captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Later, he emerges from a shipwreck the sole survivor. He sustains himself alone on a tropical island for 28 years, relying on grit, imagination and the few things he salvaged from the ship. His tale offers lessons for us all. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://medicine.iu.edu/faculty/6855/gunderman-richard">physician and scholar</a>, I have taught Defoe’s novel many times to my students at Indiana University. I believe it is one of the best books to read as we endure the uncertainty and isolation due to COVID-19, because it invites us to reflect on existential issues at the core of a pandemic.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1289&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325132/original/file-20200402-74885-1ee8obd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1289&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Title page of the first edition (1719) of Robinson Crusoe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/daniel-defoe-robinson-crusoe-title-page-first-edition-1719-news-photo/171095194?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What matters in our lives?</h2>
<p>For those hunkered down in the midst of a pandemic, one of Robinson Crusoe’s lessons is understanding the folly of <a href="https://doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.107.1.0065">worldly goods</a>. Crusoe finds gold but realizes it is of no value to him, not even worth “taking off of the ground.” In his former life, money had become a “drug.” Now, marooned on an island, he learns what is truly necessary and rewarding in life.</p>
<p>Like Crusoe’s shipwreck, sheltering in place during COVID-19 interrupts long-established habits and rhythms of life. With this interruption comes a chance to examine our lives. What is genuinely <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html">necessary</a> in life? And what things turn out to be little more than distractions? For example, where on such a spectrum would we situate the pursuit of wealth or caring well for loved ones?</p>
<h2>Making do with very little</h2>
<p>Crusoe quickly learns to be open to <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/55a3d26cc0cd59c6afb7828db313d50a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1821481">discovery</a>. When he first arrives on the island, he finds it barren, inhospitable and threatening, like a prison. Over time, he comes to recognize it as home. As he explores the island and learns to live in harmony with it, it protects and sustains him. The island emerges as an unending source of wonder that at first he couldn’t see. </p>
<p>As my family and I have sheltered in place, we have shared a similar experience. We are taking more walks and lingering longer at the dinner table. Now that we are not rushing as much from one thing to another, we’ve discovered what it means to be in one place and simply savor <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Family_Happiness">being together</a>.</p>
<h2>Necessity, the mother of invention</h2>
<p>Alone on an island, Crusoe can’t rely on anyone but himself to provide the things he needs. On the day of his shipwreck, he is naked, hungry and homeless. He laments that, “considered by his own nature,” man is “one of the most miserable creatures of the world.” Out of necessity, he figures out how to make the things he needs. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325133/original/file-20200402-74869-1ochgog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1900 lithograph of Robinson Crusoe building his first dwelling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/robinson-crusoe-building-his-first-dwelling-news-photo/587494064?adppopup=true">Leemage/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>A pandemic renews opportunities for necessity to give <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-tale-of-man-as-an-island-11574451989">birth to invention</a>. Just as Crusoe finds within himself a resourcefulness he didn’t know he had, confinement can reveal new ways of living and creating. Even simple things such as cooking, reading, handcraft, writing and conversation may turn out to have more to offer than we supposed.</p>
<h2>A wasted life and forgiveness</h2>
<p>One of the greatest challenges Crusoe faces is unburdening himself of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30225508?seq=1">guilt he bears</a> for his misspent life. It had been devoted to getting rich and dominating other people – at the time of his shipwreck, he had been on a voyage to secure slaves for his plantation. But on the island, he begins to see the beauty in simple things. For example, he finds trees indescribably beautiful, a beauty so profound that it is “scarce credible.”</p>
<p>Something similar can transpire in the lives of the homebound. Frustration and disappointment can fade, to be replaced by new and unexpected <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2018/11/20/where-americans-find-meaning-in-life/">sources of fulfillment</a>. It may be something that we experience, such as a bird singing in the morning, but it can also be of our own doing. The tools lie at our fingertips – mail, phone and social media provide all we need to reach out to others with a kind word or helping hand.</p>
<h2>Gratitude for what we have</h2>
<p>One of the most profound transformations that Crusoe experiences is <a href="https://beaconlights.org/sermons/robinson-crusoes-spiritual-journey/">spiritual</a>. Alone, he begins to meditate on the Bible he recovered from the shipwreck, reading Scripture three times per day. He attributes his newfound ability to “look on the bright side of my condition” to this habit, which gives him “such secret comforts that I cannot express them.”</p>
<p>By the time Crusoe is rescued after nearly three decades, he is a new man. He has formed the deepest friendship of his life with Friday, a man he rescued from death. He has learned the most profound lesson that “all our discontents about what we want spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325135/original/file-20200402-74885-21baj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crusoe’s social isolation changed him for the better.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/robinson-crusoe-views-the-new-shipwreck-illustration-for-news-photo/481659927?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A life of isolation</h2>
<p>Enforced quiet and separation because of coronavirus can reacquaint some of us with the value of peace, while solitude can whet our appetites for the joys of true fellowship. Just as the shipwrecked Crusoe is reborn, so trying times can clarify for us the true bounties of our lives. </p>
<p>A pandemic can seem like the end, but it can also serve as a beginning. We are, in a way, cut adrift. Yet a new and ultimately more fertile landfall lies ahead, at least for those of us who are not sick, broke or homeless. If we heed Defoe’s inspiration, these unprecedented challenges can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319219667_The_virtue_of_patience_spirituality_and_suffering_Integrating_lessons_from_positive_psychology_psychology_of_religion_and_Christian_theology/link/5cb5e382a6fdcc1d499a15cd/download">transform</a> us into wiser and more caring human beings.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Isolation. Despair. Facing our demons. What does the most-translated novel tell us about living with COVID-19?Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1267792019-11-12T16:05:56Z2019-11-12T16:05:56ZRobinson Crusoe 300 years on: Defoe’s unreliable narrative set up enduring colonial myths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301315/original/file-20191112-178480-1iypy3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C11%2C2538%2C1733&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Currier and Ives 1875 print of Robinson Crusoe and his companion Friday.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Everett Historical via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A major new series on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/494P41NCbVYHlY319VwGbxp/explore-the-list-of-100-novels-that-shaped-our-world">100 Novels that Shaped Our World</a> has been launched in the UK by the BBC. The wide-ranging journey through English literary history takes as its starting point the publication of The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), which has been hailed as the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/desert-island-risks-robinson-crusoe-at-300-1.3850833">first English novel</a>.</p>
<p>Despite an error-ridden plot and numerous structural quirks, Robinson Crusoe – which tells the story of a shipwrecked mariner – has had a profound impact on global literature (and the modern world at large) for the past 300 years. Despite the wealth of prose narrative that existed beforehand, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/the-rise-of-the-novel">some scholars believe</a> that Daniel Defoe’s book was the first to combine all the elements that have become the hallmarks of the novel.</p>
<p>Fiction masquerading as fact, it is so much more than a novelisation of the true-life misfortunes of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-real-robinson-crusoe-74877644/">Alexander Selkirk</a>, a Scottish mariner who spent four years and four months as a castaway at sea after being marooned on an island by his captain. Daniel Defoe’s novel is a gritty survival story with genuine threat. But it’s also a thought-provoking parable of Christian sin, a critique of capitalist individualism, an expose of imperialist paranoia, and even a tale of the triumph of the human spirit.</p>
<p>From the point of view of the natives, it’s a myth of invasion – Crusoe is a sunburned demon who imposes European belief systems on them. There’s no getting beyond the fact that Friday, a man the narrator “saves” from the hands of the cannibals and takes under his wing, is cloyingly subservient to the unkempt foreigner, which upholds a racist ideology of white supremacy (whether it’s Crusoe’s or the author’s own). But we might think of Friday as the true hero. His humility and grace under pressure can serve as a compelling model for anyone in any culture. And his apparent feebleness is the only logical response to seeing for the first time the explosive effect of a fully loaded gun. </p>
<p>Then there’s Xury, a cheerful and charming lad whom Crusoe casually sells to a Portuguese captain (on the apparently agreeable grounds that after ten years of service, and a conversion to Christianity, the boy will be freed). Prior to that, Xury had faced his own terrible choice: subject himself to Crusoe’s will or be tossed overboard. This all happens shortly before Crusoe is shipwrecked. Instant karma, perhaps?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301318/original/file-20191112-178511-gryhsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Daniel Defoe (1659-1731). Engraved by J.Thomson and published in The Gallery of Portraits encyclopedia, United Kingdom, 1834.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Georgios Kollidas via Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Defoe is certainly the master of visual motifs – and Crusoe’s gun is an especially potent one: it at once demonstrates the technological superiority of the Europeans, while signalling their moral deficiencies. After all, warfare does not a true civilisation make. </p>
<p>Seven years later Jonathan Swift spoofed the motif in Gulliver’s Travels, where the miniature protagonist ludicrously boasts of Britain’s prowess in modern weaponry to an astonished audience of gentle giants. Like Gulliver, Crusoe embodies the failings of his home society, even when stranded in strange lands.</p>
<h2>Big footprints</h2>
<p>The most terrifying moment in Defoe’s story, however, occurs when no one is around. Crusoe stumbles across a footprint in the sand on his seemingly deserted island. The footprint causes a profound crisis of consciousness. Who left it: a friend or foe? Man or monster? Will he be saved or brutally attacked? He’s never more alone than when the threat of uncertain human interaction looms. It’s a scene that has been retold throughout world culture for centuries.</p>
<p>Maxine Hong Kingston’s 1980 short story collection, <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/08/14/chinese-ghost-story/">China Men</a>, a densely woven tale of the lives of Chinese immigrants in America, features a story about a sailor named Lo Bun Sun, who is seized by a debilitating fear when he stumbles across a human footprint on a beach. Even after the wind and rain had worn away the footprint, he continues to be haunted by it – it’s a poignant parable about the ceaseless emotional turmoil of an immigrant’s experience, perhaps, or even an ironic take on colonial exclusionism. </p>
<p>The scene is replayed for laughs in Willis Hall’s children’s book Vampire Island. Count Alucard, Skopka the wolf, and Peppina the parrot lazily loll on a marooned island – until they discover an unfeasibly large bootprint in the sand, which, we eventually learn, belongs to Frankenstein’s monster. </p>
<h2>‘Robinsonades’: a cult is born</h2>
<p>Defoe’s story of the 17th-century shipwrecked sailor is so famous it has led to the creation of a large and loose genre known as the “Robinsonade” – to which authors as diverse as James Gould Cozzens and John Maxwell Coetzee have contributed. A quick definition might call it a narrative in which a sole protagonist (the notional “Robinson” after whom the genre is named) is suddenly isolated from the comforts of civilisation, usually on an inhospitable island or planet. </p>
<p>But a Robinsonade does not have to be a novel: the principal characters, themes and settings of Robinson Crusoe have always been reworked into non-fictional genres, poems, plays, pantomimes, films, advertisements, and material culture at large.</p>
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<p>Outside of literature, the most famous modern example is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/">Cast Away</a>, the 2000 movie starring Tom Hanks as Chuck, a hands-on FedEx executive. Stranded on a deserted tropical island for four years, Chuck desperately seeks to return home to the arms of his girlfriend Kelly (played by Helen Hunt) who, heart-wrenchingly, has mourned and moved on. </p>
<p>Chuck could not be more different from the workshy Crusoe who – despite claiming to be a keen advocate of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestant-ethic">Protestant work ethic</a> that shaped England’s economic progress – had rejected the cautions of his wise and grave father in the pursuit of adventure. Paranoid, guilty, hypocritical, and much more besides, Crusoe is not a hero. But he established the model of the flawed protagonist that remains so central to English culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Cook receives funding from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe was one of the first novels (in the modern sense) written in English. Some 300 years later, the complicated castaway and his misadventures continue to shape culture.Daniel Cook, Senior Lecturer in English, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.