ways of self-reliance development: comparative study of the old man and the sea and Robinson Crusoe

This article discusses the similarities in developing self-reliance by the two main characters in two novels, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (i.e., Santiago) and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (i.e., Robinson Crusoe). Qualitative analysis with the frame of dynamic structuralism theory of Jan Mukarovsky discovered that both protagonist characters, Santiago and Crusoe, are doing several things as their ways to rebuild and develop their self-reliance in coping with several obstacles. To develop his self-reliance, Santiago recollects his past experiences, identifies himself as a powerful figure, and recognizes certain factors supporting his struggle, while Crusoe performs certain efforts to extend his survival, and recognizes God’s power in his life. Despite their different ways to build self-reliance, the two figures both show optimism to survive their odd and unfortunate yet valuable experience. Reflecting on Santiago and Crusoe’s life experiences, self-reliance is a pivotal attribute for ones’ survival and success and serves as a mental asset to face the common under-pressured life.

A Post-Colonial Re-Reading of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

The imperial project started to influence English national identity as early as the mid-seventeenth century, and the English began to relate their national prominence to their colonial activities, whether in trade or in the acquisition of foreign territories, throughout the eighteenth century. However, England experienced its share of anxieties on the road to imperial "greatness" in its dealings with both other European powers and its native subjects. The British people's tendency to examine themselves and their international achievements with intense pride helped to neutralize those anxieties, much like Crusoe's imagined responses to possible dangers alleviate his fictional forebodings. The English ameliorated their concerns about their international position by becoming an ever more self-referential society, thinking more highly of themselves on account of their contact with colonized peoples, as is epitomized in the personality of Crusoe. To the fictional Crusoe, the experience of his relationship with Friday validates his self-worth and his native culture more than anything else. Robinson Crusoe's affirmation of colonial power through the assertion of his authority over a particular (othered) individual corresponds with, and epitomizes, England's trading and territorial empire during the eighteenth century and the consequent effects on British subjectivity, at a time when the British were struggling to set up a trading empire and challenging other European powers for territory and markets abroad. Robinson Crusoe successfully resolves the insecurities relating to Britain's colonial activities by asserting, through Crusoe's character, the superior nature of the English subject.

Dr John Goodsir (1746–1816): The surgeon of Largo

The ancient fishing village of Lower Largo or the Seatoun of Largo stands quietly on Largo Bay along the north side of the Firth of Forth and is famous as being the birthplace of its famous resident, Alexander Selkirk, who inspired Daniel Defoe’s, Robinson Crusoe. However, it has another resident, Dr. John Goodsir, who, for forty-six years served as a medical practitioner and was a Minister of the Gospel at the Largo Baptist Church for twenty years. The current work describes the life of this ordinary early medical practitioner and surgeon, discusses his correspondences, and finally examines his role as serving as Largo’s Baptist minister.

Felipe Delgado, otro de los Robinsones

Robinson Crusoe, the extraordinary ship-wrecked protagonist of Defoe’s novel, is actually a modern transfiguration of the old myth of the “savage man,” a myth that this article revisits. Robinson is brought by Defoe into a savage existence because the author intends to demonstrate that it is possible to defeat savagery in one’s own land, turning Robinson into the virtuous and modern homo economicus. But there are other Robinsons that challenge the original: that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the urban Robinson, conceived in novelistic form by Antonio Muñoz Molina. Both serve as models for my reading of Felipe Delgado as a novel that exemplifies the marginal Robinson. As happens to some of the characters in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s novels, the Bolivian poet and novelist Jaime Saenz creates an urban, marginalized and eccentric Robinson that, unlike the previous mentioned, without a rational goal motivating him, secretly celebrates his incurable shipwrecks. Felipe is the Robinson born out of the lucid necessity of alcohol. Clairvoyant and repentant of his future, he is born for the night, a space and time that permits him to delve into the heart of the memory of his city.

J. M. Coetzee and the Failures of Reason

<p>In a speech delivered in Stockholm in acceptance of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, J.M. Coetzee told the story of Robinson Crusoe's life as a wealthy but haunted writer following his return to English society. Entitled "He and his Man," this brief narrative focuses on the absolute gap between the purportedly self-aware individual and the linguistic subject that stands behind the works of fiction set down on paper by this individual's hand; the imaginary figure - perhaps corresponding to Daniel Defoe himself, creator of the original Robinson Crusoe - who travels about the countryside collecting fantastical stories even as the writer sits at his desk waiting for inspiration to come. Crusoe himself lives a quiet life that for the most part involves walking the seashore and writing, and wonders what relation he, a man with an eventful but narrow past, can have to this shadow self that is the source of his stories:</p>

SOCIAL PROTEST AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

The early eighteenth century witnessed the early development of the dominant literary form of modern times, the novel. The novel emerged as a form with structure and interplay between individuals and their relationships to society. As a new form, the novel tends to make some significant, critical, and social statements about the society. Hence, the novel is used to create a new environment that is related to life and people. Indeed, this is what makes the novel appeal to readers as a new genre. Novelists either try to deal with daily social problems that happen in the lives of people or pretend that they are telling real stories. It is not surprising to find that Daniel Defoe molds his Robinson Crusoe (1719)on a real story while Samuel Richardson in Pamela (1740) turns out to be didactic to meet the needs of the growing numbers of female readers. On his part, Henry Fielding tries to expose his society to the readers in his masterpiece The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749); from now on Tom Jones. Accordingly, the novel becomes popular at this time because it has something relevant to the mob; it deals with their social life, and they can identify themselves with its characters in the actual daily life. Through Tom Jones, Fielding presented “a true and realistic picture of human nature” (Kettle, 71). As long as its main concern is the existing society, novelists feel so involved that their criticism becomes direct, frank, and effective. My paper deals with these concerns as depicted in the novels mentioned above.