Robinson Crusoe

            
             In Robinson Crusoe, a novel by Daniel Defoe, a boy leaves home against his father's will to seek out adventures at sea. But when he comes home after his many adventures, he finds himself alone. While away, everyone he loves dies. When he was on his adventures he would always have some sort of companion. The island that he is stranded on is the only place he is completely alone. Critic Jeremy W. Hubbell describes the novel as "A strange myth for a class of people dependent on an economic system that requires people to interact with one another- (Hubbell 1); Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe demonstrates that interaction with others is a necessity of life.
             Crusoe wasn't particularly religious when he left home, but finds God when he is shipwrecked on the island and becomes very ill. He asks God for forgiveness for any sins that he may have committed and when he recovers he believes that God saved him. Crusoe felt that God was with him on the island, so he had some company. He shows later on that he is becoming more and more religious by making Friday (his savage companion) change his religion to that of Puritan beliefs. Crusoe was spared when the rest of his crew drowned during the storm, so the only one with him was "He that miraculously sav'd [him] from death- (Defoe 49). So he saw God as his only companion.
             Being alone on an island for twenty-four years would make most people go mad, but "Crusoe thrives utilizing the Puritan principles "reason, work, and God- (Hubbell 4), finding several ways to compensate for being alone on the island. He masters himself by the way he works. He works on creating an organized civilization with normal middle class luxuries such as crops for producing various types of foods, and his shelter (or his "castle-). He begins to find ways of making himself seem to be the "king- of "his- island. He believes that "[He has] the lives of all [his] subjects (two cats, a parrot who is the only one permitted to talk, and a dog) at [his] absolute command- (Defoe 139).