Robinson Crusoe鲁滨逊漂流记人物分析

The Characters of the Emerging bourgeoisie revealed in Robinson Crusoe

Abstract: Robinson Crusoe, based on a real fact, successfully creates a hero, an empire builder, and a super man. The author Defoe, because of this book, becomes the father of English realistic novel. People like to talk about Robinson Crusoe, with his adventure and everything he had done when he was facing the obstacles. To some people, Robinson is a hero, a giant, and perfect in all aspects. While some other people think that Robinson is the one who struggles only for property. This paper deals with him as an emerging bourgeoisie. In this way, all his behavior seems more reasonable.

Key words: adventure, property, material civilization

Robinson Crusoe is a classic adventure novel. In this novel, the spirit of adventure of the emerging bourgeoisie is highly praised. Robinson Crusoe, born as an emerging bourgeoisie, refusing to inherit property from his father, decides to leave his middle station family and begins his new adventurous life.

The motive of his adventure, as he first tells her mother “that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world”(Daniel Defoe,Robinson Crusoe, 5) [1] or as some people believes he is driven by his romantic ideas. However, there are neither any descriptions of his appreciation of the scenery nor any entertaining activities. Actually, in the 18th century, the word “adventure” does not refer to the impulse of romance to a large extent, but it refers to a fanatical pursuit of profit. [2] So the desire of Robinson’s adventure clearly reveals his willingness of getting more profit. Driven by this powerful force, he leaves his family although his father gives him serious and counsel against what he foresees is Robison’s design. Robinson is not a real adventurer; he leaves his family just because he is not satisfied with the current situation of his middle station family. He was not willing to stick to the old doctrines and lives a life of leisure and ease. And it is it that causes him to go out to sea three times to do business, even after he has established his plantation in Brazil.

“That evil influence which carried me first away from my father’s house, that hurried me into the wild and indigested notion of raising my fortune, and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as make me deaf to all good advice and to the entreaties and even command of my father” (Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 18). After the first accident, even Robinson is thrilled and feels regretful for a while, but this “evil influence” still supports him and makes him keep going sailing. This is only from one aspect, and in his later experience, we can see it more clearly. Once, he meets a captain and treats him as his good friend because from the captain he can learn a lot and “increased very considerably” as well as become “both a sailor and a merchant”(Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 20). Later in another voyage, “I did not carry quite ￡100 of my new-gained wealth, so that I had ￡200 left, and which I lodged with