Robinson Crusoe's Contradictions to Enlightenment Thinking

A detailed Summary of Robinson Crusoe's Contradictions to Enlightenment Thinking

Robinson Crusoe's Contradictions to Enlightenment Thinking

Robinson Crusoe, which was written by Daniel Defoe, was published in 1719. At the time of its publish, a revolution was taking place all across Europe known as the Enlightenment period. The Enlightenment period was a time of conflict, suffering, and also a time of growth for society. This revolutionary time period gave birth to such terms as deism, rationalism, skepticism, and empiricism. The period also saw an uprising in a new ideology towards human thought. This revolution started around the mid 1600's. Some of the ideas expressed by Robinson Crusoe contradicted some of the more common ideas of the time. To understand the contrasting principles in Robinson Crusoe as compared to the Enlightenment, you must fully understand how it began and what exactly it was.

It is impossible to overstress the importance of two factors that played heavily in the lives of Westerners by the year 1650. One of these was a growing sense of relativism about revealed or divine truth. Watching Protestants and Catholics slaughter each other in the name of the true Christian faith did nothing beneficial for the cause of "revealed truth" in the long run. Instead

it was a merry reflection, which I frequently made, how like a king I looked.

poor savage; assisting, by His Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature

less an executioner of His justice - that whenever He see fit He would take the

...(God) did not call me to take upon me to be a judge of their actions, much

due to the supreme being of God, as the consequence of our nature, yet

to receive the light of the knowledge of God in Christ...

This is a direct conflict of the Enlightenment thought. Later, Crusoe describes his resolution:

One good example of this is when Crusoe is trying to explain Protestantism to Friday. Crusoe states:

First of all, the whole country was my own property, so that I had an undoubted

Other Enlightenment writers and philosophers of the time would not have gone about the thought process in this manner. They would have tended to rely more on empirical or rational thought through individual observation, reason, and action to justify the savages' actions. This type of thought is common to Crusoe. Throughout the book, Crusoe judges others' behavior based on his own religious and moral convictions.

absolutely lord and lawgiver - they all owed their lives to me, and were ready to

In this quote, Crusoe expresses his dominion over his "subjects", and mentions that they "owe" him their lives. These monarchist ideas of kings and subjects are characteristic of Crusoe. They are mentioned throughout the book. These ideas aren't directly anti-Enlightenment, although they give birth to other ideas that contradict the Enlightenment period.

nothing but divine revelation can form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and

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Approximate Word count = 1680
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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