Loneliness

thither adv. 在那边

charity n. 慈善，施舍

subsisence n. 勉强生存，维持生计；赖以活命的食物（或钱）；<法律>有效 adj. 自给自足的，仅够自用的 

"I will carry you thither in charity, and those things will help your subsistence there and your passage home. "

In my opinion, it is a growing story. The main character has been changed a lot by going through his distinctive adventure experience. In his experience, he is lucky enough to meet some charitable people and they were willing to give a hand to him. 

Just like what is said in the first sentence in this book:

“I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country. . . ”

It is easy for us to find that he was a rebellious child who born in a rich family in th beginning. He tried his best to escape from his family in order to seek for excitement and adventure. He have a naive dream for getting a large amount of fortune happened overnight. While he had suffered from lots of trouble and difficulty in fact when living only depending on himself. He learned to express his gratitude to the people and be thankful for the thing he processed. He began to miss his home but he be afraid to back his hometown because of shame. 

“I lived just like a man cast away upon some desolate island that had nobody there but himself. But how just had it been, and how should all men reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange and be convinced of their former felicity by their experience. ”

According to his confession, it implies that he attributed his tragic experience to his own greed. It also indicates the author’s attitude and opinion that people need to be satisfied with their present conditions because you cannot imagine what kinds of terrible status you might meet in the future. Therefore, we all have to cherish our present conditions instead of chasing fortune blindly.

“But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our greatest adversity, so was it with me. ”

“All these miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination of wandering abroad and pursuing that inclination, in contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good in a fair and plain pursuit of those prospects and those prospects and those measures of life which Nature and Providence concerned to present me with and to make my duty. ”

From these statements by Robinson, we can understand his regret for refusing to enjoying a quite, retired life which was recommended by his father. 

Besides, the most improtant thing is that his actions against his duty shown by the Nature and Providence. 

In this book, the strong power of religion and civilization happened everywhere, which is associated with the background of this book and the author. 

“I was now landed and safe on shore, and began to look up and thank God that my life was saved in a case wherein there was some minutes before scarce any room to hope.”

The purpose of this book is to teach us how to be faced with the terrible situation in a peaceful way and try to get comfortable with trouble. When someone always live in a quiet, retired life and follow all the arrangements unconditionally by their parents and family, they may hard to realize what is the trust. 

Robinson Crusoe, in full The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years, All Alone in an Un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, Near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having Been Cast on Shore by Shipwreck, Wherein All the Men Perished but Himself. With an Account how he was at last as Strangely Deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself., novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in London in 1719. Defoe’s first long work of fiction, it introduced two of the most-enduring characters in English literature: Robinson Crusoe and Friday.

Crusoe is the novel’s narrator. He describes how, as a headstrong young man, he ignored his family’s advice and left his comfortable middle-class home in England to go to sea. His first experience on a ship nearly kills him, but he perseveres, and a voyage to Guinea “made me both a Sailor and a Merchant,” Crusoe explains. Now several hundred pounds richer, he sails again for Africa but is captured by pirates and sold into slavery. He escapes and ends up in Brazil, where he acquires a plantation and prospers. Ambitious for more wealth, Crusoe makes a deal with merchants and other plantation owners to sail to Guinea, buy slaves, and return with them to Brazil. But he encounters a storm in the Caribbean, and his ship is nearly destroyed. Crusoe is the only survivor, washed up onto a desolate shore. He salvages what he can from the wreck and establishes a life on the island that consists of spiritual reflection and practical measures to survive. He carefully documents in a journal everything he does and experiences.

Loneliness and the Human Experience

Robinson Crusoe is the tale of a lonely human being who manages to survive for years without any human companionship. It's a story about the different ways that men cope with reality when hardship comes, but it's also the tale of a man creating his own reality, rescuing a savage and fashioning his own world out of the untamed wilderness of a desert island.

The tale has influenced many other tales, including The Swiss Family Robinson, Philip Quarll, and Peter Wilkins. Defoe followed up the tale with his own sequel, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, but that tale was not met with a much success as the first novel. In any case, the figure of Robinson Crusoe has become an important archetypal figure in literature — Robinson Crusoe was described by Samuel T. Coleridge as "the universal man.”

“You are to understand, that now I had, as I may call it, two Plantations in the Island; one my little Fortification or Tent, with the Wall about it under the Rock, with the Cave behind me, which by this Time I had enlarg’d into several Apartments or Caves, one within another. One of these, which was the driest, and largest, and had a Door out beyond my Wall or Fortification; that is to say, beyond where my Wall joyn’d to the Rock, was all fill’d up with the large Earthen Pots, of which I have given an Account, and with fourteen or fifteen great Baskets, which would hold five or six Bushels each, where I laid up my Stores of Provision, especially my Corn.”

Defoe may have believed that the colonialism that was taking place when this book was written was justified. The Europeans had created a society with what was considered modern technology at that time, so it was only right that they take control of the Americas and use it to spread this technology since they were the ones who first acquired it. Especially when it came to Friday, 

Crusoe was more overbearing and believed that he was the superior one because he was unfamiliar with the culture and language of Friday. By asserting his dominance, Crusoe basically exploited Friday to gain resources and tried to get him to convert to Christianity, much like the colonists did. Just like the people who were colonized by European countries, Friday willingly subjected to the rule because he thought that Crusoe was helping him. The flip side to this can be seen in Foe. Although Susan Barton is grateful towards Crusoe for taking her upon his island and giving her the basic necessities for survival, she is unwilling to submit to his colonist-like actions because she knows better. If a similar situation were to happen today in which a man crashes upon an island and spends years there trying to figure everything out, but then he suddenly finds someone of a different culture with different practices upon his island, this man would be expected to act very differently than Crusoe. 

It would be assumed that his first instinct would be to try and work together with this unfamiliar person to get off the island, instead of subjugating him to his rule. In this way, it can be said that the story of Robinson Crusoe not only highlights the negative effects of isolation but does so in a way that allows Defoe to promote colonialism.

Within Defoe’s novel, one is able to get a glimpse of the stereotypical gender roles from the 17th century because patriarchy reigned supreme. Women were property while men were authoritarians. 

The novel is shown through the eyes of a middle-aged white male during colonization. Crusoe “owns” the island and instructs those living there just as if he were the “governor” or political leader-just as any British colony would be governed. By this, the reader is able to see through the eyes of Robinson Crusoe about the issues of not only gender but with race and independence. 

“It is impossible to express here the Flutterings of my very Heart, when I look’d over these Letters, and especially when I found all my Wealth about me; for as the Brasil Ships come all in Fleets, the same Ships which brought my Letters, brought my Goods; and the Effects were safe in the River before the Letters came to my Hand.”