Isolation in Daniel Defoe Novels

Robinson Crusoe

The historic significance of Robinson Crusoe derives from Defoe’s focusing attention on a lone man because it was possible for the novel to develop as a literary form only when society became interested in the individual human being^[1].

Watt says that the isolation theme is prominent because Crusoe’s most eloquent utterances are concerned with solitude as the universal state of man^[2]. In the novel itself, much greater emphasis consciously or unconsciously, is placed on the struggle of man against his environment. Defoe leads the reader to believe that man, by his own efforts, may succeed in life.

From the beginning it is apparent that Crusoe is isolated. He is, in effect, an only child because one of his two brothers has been killed in the battle and the other has simply disappear^[3].

Young Crusoe can find no parental sympathy for his ambition for wealth and adventure therefore; he leaves home against the pleadings of his parents^[4].

Thus Crusoe is finally isolated from his parents. Even before his lonely life on the island Crusoe finds himself in isolation. Willfulness, ambition, and greed lead Crusoe select a kind of life which certain separates him from his family and his friends.

Crusoe is religiously isolated all of his life although he never expresses great concern over the matter while living alone on the island. Except during relatively states in England, he never associated with anyone but unconverted Englishmen, Roman Catholics, pagans.

As a matter of fact, an immunity to the effects of isolating circumstances is typical of Defoe’s heroes, although Crusoe is the only one who is able to name a cause of such immunity. Judging from Crusoe’s many expressions of loneliness it is clear that religion has not made him entirely insensitive to his isolation, but the problem of evaluating the significance is difficult because many of them seem to be simply statements of fact of any emotional coloring.

Of course, solitude and isolation are inherent in Crusoe’s situation, but it would appear that Defoe did not wish to assign a position of major importance to Crusoe’s broodings. Self-assertive and self-sufficient Crusoe has his survival and material progress to attend to.

Perhaps the extreme isolation is one’s insensitivity to the condition. So long as Crusoe yearns for companionship. The fact that Crusoe is satisfied with the small amount of companionship provided by Friday.

If the reader had been given a reason to think that isolation were especially odious to Crusoe, he could feel sorrier for him. But Crusoe seems too insensitive to be depressed by his lonely state for any considerable length of time. On his island Crusoe lives with lonely majesty in prosperous kingdom which is completely under his rule.