| Author: Daniel Defoe Book Review By: Akshat Singh Class: 7 |
“Robinson Crusoe” written by Daniel Defoe is a story based in the 17th century. The story is about a man named Robinson, who was marooned on a deserted island for twenty-eight long years. This is a SAGA of a lonely human who shows indomitable courage. He creates his own world in an uninhabited island, coping up with reality and hardships in different unique ways and that too without losing hope for even a whisker of second.
The characters of the novel face all sorts of conflicts. Sometimes they face conflicts with other human beings, sometimes with nature and many a times their conflict is with themselves only.
It is a fictional tale about Robinson and his adventures on a lonely island. The main protagonist Robinson Crusoe wanted to be a sea merchant, but his family wouldn’t let him. He left his native place and parents at an early age without consideration of the outcomes. He proceeds on a voyage in search of challenge and adventures. He encounters a shipwreck by a devastating hurricane. Again, he sets off a trek out of his strong desire, but his ship was taken over by some pirates. He manages to escape from their slavery and again he is shipwrecked and remains the only survivor.
He faced several difficulties on the first few years on the uninhabited island. He chose a large log to make a calendar and used to mark each day that he spent on the island. In the third year of his stay, he even started making his own bread. A few years later, he rescued a native from a group of cannibals and named him Friday. Crusoe weaned Friday from his cannibalistic nature and taught him English. Later he turned out to be his extremely loyal companion. In nutshell, Robinson started his journey at the island by salvaging the supplies of the shipwreck and at the end he managed to create a kingdom.
The protagonist described as ambitious, powerful, brave, confident, cultured and overall, an adventurous person. He expresses his learnings and experiences in such a fascinating style that it creates a spell bounding effect on the readers. The journey of Robinson Crusoe contains adventure of pirates, shipwrecks, cannibals, Englishmen and so more.
One aspect I found little disappointing was a bit slower pace in the start. But overall, the novel was a fantastic read. Despite the slow start, the story unfolds into a gripping fictional autobiography and reader enters convincingly into a life full of adventures. I would recommend this book to anyone that loves adventures and survival instinct. I enjoyed the book because of the unexpected turnings and once I started flipping through the plot, the waves of excitement overpowered the reader inside me. To sum up this is an incredibly fun novel to read.
