Robinson Crusoe Summary | Chapterly
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: A Complete Summary "I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family." Overview Robinson Crusoe (1719) is often called the first English novel and is certainly the foundational text of survival fiction. Daniel Defoe's story of a man shipwrecked alone on a tropical island for twenty-eight years established a template that every castaway story since—from Swiss Family Robinson to Cast Away to The Martian—has followed. But Crusoe is more than an adventure story. It is a spiritual autobiography, an economic parable, and—more troublingly—a colonialist fantasy. Crusoe doesn't just survive; he domesticates, cultivates, and colonizes his island, recreating English civilization from scratch and asserting dominion over everything, including the man he names "Friday." Plot Summary Robinson Crusoe, a young Englishman, ignores his father's advice to pursue a stable career and goes to sea. After several adventures and a stint as a plantation owner in Brazil, he is shipwrecked on a deserted island off the coast of South America. Entirely alone, Crusoe salvages supplies from the wreck and begins building a life. He constructs shelter, grows crops, domesticates goats, makes pottery and bread, and keeps a calendar and journal. He...