Religion in Robinson Crusoe

The religious elements dominate Robinson Crusoes story, just like a shadow follows
its creator. It is a story which has political and economical undersides, but which could also
resemble a parabole, a story which has a moral: do not defiy Gods will because he might
punish your disobedience.
After reading Robinson Crusoes story, a lot of questions emerge: Does Providence
send him punishments to point out his sinful nature and thus, to turn him to God? Could we
interpret the shipwrecks and his enslavement, his escape from slavery and then from the
island evidence of God's power and mercy or we it represents merely chance? Crusoe
converts Friday to Christianity; did he do that for spiritual reasons or for self-interest to make
Friday more compliant and reliable? Are "the secret hints and notices of danger" (Defoe 244)
evidence of Providence's warnings or just the expression of his unconscious or
unacknowledged desires and fears? Crusoe realizes that the date he ran away from his family
coincides with the date he was captured and made a slave; the day that he survived his first
shipwreck is the same date he remained exiled on the island; and the day he was born is the
same day he was cast ashore, "so that my wicked life and my solitary life begun both on a
day" (Defoe 129). Is this similarity of dates the working of Providence or it represents the
chance, a meaningless coincidence? Crusoe throughout uses religious language and Biblical
references (he quotes 20 passages from the Bible). Does this reflect the the fac that his belief
in Providence has permeated his life, or have his Bible studies and religious meditation
provided him with a language which has become habitual? A thing is certain: we must climb
upon the novelists shoulders and gaze through his eyes until we, too, understand in what
order he ranges the large common objects upon which novelists are fated to gaze: man and
men; behind them Nature; and above them that power which for convenience and brevity we
may call God (McLaurin 93).
A lot of critics associate Crusoes disobedience to his parents with the original sin,
that it was a just punishment for my sin my rebellious behaviour against my father or my
present sins, which were great or so much as a punishment for the general course of my
wicked life, (...)as a judgment from heaven, or as the hand of God against me (Defoe 77).
Ignoring his parents advice, causing sufference to those people whom, in the christian
perspective, he should have most respected and love, no matter if he was agree with them or
not, all this situation caused his unhappy experiences and, many times, his agony. I consulted
neither Father or Mother any more, nor so much as sent them Word of it; but leaving them to
hear of it as they might, without asking Godss blessing, or my Fathers, without any
Consideration or Circumstances or Consequences and in an ill hour, God knows (Defoe 7).
Thus, because of his rebellious nature, the fathers curse will follow him his entire life.
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We emaphasize the fact that Robinson himself regards his sin against his father as a
sin against God. As Leopold Damrosch remarks, the affinities of Robinson Crusoe with the
Puritan tradition are unmistakable: it draws on the genres of spiritual autobiography and
allegory, and Crusoe's religious conversion is presented as the central event (Damrosch 81).
Thus, in the Puritan family structure, the father was regarded as God's deputy; by rejecting his
father's advice, Crusoe is committing Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience. For Crusoe, as for
Adam, and Eve, disobedience grows out of the discontent with the station assigned by God.
Remembering his first voyage, Crusoe comments: "...my conscience, which was not yet come
to the pitch of hardness to which it has been since, reproached me with the contempt of advice
and the breach of my duty to God and my Father" (Link 1).
At first, we tend to believe that Crusoes parents have raised him in a christian spirit,
or at least, that they must have offered him this kind of example; thus, when Robinson refuses
to listen his father, the latter invokes Providences reaction to his disobedience: and though
he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that if I would
take this foolish step, God would not bless me (...) (Defoe 7). But later on, we find out that
I had hitherto acted upon no religious foundation at all; indeed, I had very few notions of
religion in my head, nor had entertained any sense of anything that had befallen me otherwise
than as chance, or, as we lightly say, what pleases God, without so much as inquiring into the
end of Providence in these things, or His order ingoverning events for the world (Defoe 68).
Crusoe is not only disobeying his father, but God, too. As Virginia Odgen Birdsall
points out, Crusoe becomes master of his fate, bending even God or Providence to his will.
He is a victorious rebel against restriction. He controls his circumstances (Birdsall 38).
Among the things that Robinson tries to recover from the wreckage, there are also
included three Bibles. For the fisrt time, this gesture might determine us to assume that
Robinsons faith was awaken, that the religious side of his spirituality represents an important
element. He could have renounced to them, the more so as his improvised raft couldent bear
more than a few things, the vital ones: ...also I found three very good Bibles which came to
me in my cargo from England, and which I have packd up among my things (Defoe 56)
The supreme question that may occur to us is whether Crusoes conversion was
sincere or not. Did his approachment to God was a manifestation of his profound faith and
gratitude towards Him or it represented just a temporary reaction to all the disasters that
showered our main character? Discovering the barley and rice inspires him with religious
feeling as long as he believes their growth miraculous; but once he finds the rational
explanation for their appearing, he loses faith. But how should we understand that dream
when a man comes down from the heavens and admonishes him for not yet repenting, and
tries to kill him with a spear? Is it a hallucination caused by fever? An expression of his terror
of being alone which the illness brought out? Or Does Crusoe consider it as a warning from
God? He sure does. He begins to see that his past behaviors have been sinful and his woes
represent a punishment for his rebellious behavior. He finally repents and utters his first
prayer. This is the beginning of Crusoe's spiritual life. But reason alone is not sufficient to
result in conversion, and Crusoe turns to the Bible; studying it reveals God's word and will to
him, and he finds comfort, guidance, and instruction in it. For the first time in many years he
prays, not for rescue from the island, but for God's help, "Lord be my help, for I am in great
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distress" (Defoe 88). After thinking about his life, he kneels to God for the first time in his life
and prays to God to fulfill his promise "that if I called upon Him in the day of toruble, He
would deliver me" (Defoe 91). His next step toward conversion is asking for God's grace,
"Jesus, Thou Son of David, Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour, give me repentance!"
(Defoe 93). He comes to realize that spiritual deliverance from sin is more important than
physical deliverance from the island. A little later, when he is about to thank God for bringing
him to the island and thus, saving him, he stops, shocked at himself and the hypocrisy of such
a statement. Then he "sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes, by whatever
afflicting providences, to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my
wickedness, and repent" (Defoe 110).
It would be very interesting to compare Robinsons faith in God with the changing and
unpredictable sea. At the begining of his adventure, the imminent danger which threatened his
own life determined Crusoe to ask for Gods help: in this agony of mind, I made many vows
and resolutions that if it would please God to spare my life in this one voyage, if ever I got
once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into
a ship again while I lived (Defoe 7). All the times he feels that he is in danger, he begs God
to help him and everything good that happens is because of God: But God wonderfully sent
the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have got out as many necessary things as will
either supply my wants or enable me to supply myself, even as long as I live (Defoe 57); but
when the danger disapperas, he forgets about all his promises and continues his initial way:
and I must confess my religious thankfulness to Gods providence began to abate, too, upon
the discovering that all this was nothing but what was common (Defoe 68). Robinson
mentions God on his entire adventure: we commited ourselves to Gods mercy and the wild
sea (Defoe 37), I was now landed and safe on shore, and began to look up and thank God
that my life was saved (Defoe 40) or God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the
shore (Defoe 57)? But we also get to know Crusoes bewilderment and even irritation
towards Gods actions: tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these
reflections; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why Providence should thus
completely ruin His creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable; so without help,
abandoned, so entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life
(Defoe 54) Robinson himself recognizes the fact that his faith wasnt always that strong: I
never had so much as one thought of what would become of me, or one wish to God to direct
me whither I should go (...) But I was merely thoughtless of a God or a Providence, acted
like a mere brute, from the principles of nature, and by the dictates of common sense only,
and, indeed, hardly that (Defoe 78)
As a conclusion, we could assert that Robinson Crusoe is a sort of spiritual
autobiography and an allegory of mans sin, repentance and salvation. When Robinson is
physically rescued, he is able to go back to England, but also when he has been spiritually
saved he is able to repent of his original sin, and to re-establish an alliance with his fatherGod. The sojourn on the island is a spiritual gestation and a rebirth according to religious
sentiments (Stroe 65)
Unfortunately, when back to England, his parents have already died, so he will never
be able to reconcile with them. Moreover, in spite of his frequent invocations and signs of
repentance, he never shows a feeling of true affection either to his father or to God, but only a
feeling of duty, the awareness of breaking an important rule.
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As an interesting perspective on Robinson Crusoes experience, Virginia Wolf

concludes: Nature must furl her splendid purples; she is only the giver of drought and water;
man must be reduced to a struggling, life-preserving animal; and God shrivel into a magistrate
whose seat, substantial and somewhat hard, is only a little way above the horizon. Each sortie
of ours in pursuit of information upon these cardinal points of perspective God, man,
Nature is snubbed back with ruthless common sense. Robinson Crusoe thinks of God:
sometimes I would expostulate with myself, why providence should thus completely ruin its
creatures. (...) But something always returnd Swift upon me to check these thoughts. God
does not exist...Nature does not exist...Death does not exist. Nothing exists except an
earthenware pot. Finally, that is to say, we are forced to drop our own preconceptions and to
accept what Defoe himself wishes to give us ( Link 2).
References:
Birdsall, Virginia Odgen, Robinson Crusoe: A Miserable and Almost Hopeless
Condition in Defoe's Perpetual Seekers: A Study of Major Fiction, Associated University
Press, 1985.
Damrosch, Leopold Jr., Myth and Fiction in Robinson Crusoe in Bloom,
Harold, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Chelsea House, 1988.
Defoe, Daniel, Robinson Crusoe, The Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Editor,
PSUHazleton, Hazleton, PA 18202.
Link
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/defoe/religion.html.
Link 2: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c2/chapter4.html.

1:

McLaurin, Allen, Virginia Wolf: The Echoes Enslaved, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 1973.
Stroe, Mihai A. English Romanticism in the Context of the Revolutions; Rise of the
British novel in the Context of Enlightenment (course support).