Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dartvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!dartvax!karl From: karl@dartvax.UUCP (S. Delage.) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Robinson Crusoe should have drowned. Message-ID: <2273@dartvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 4-Aug-84 21:19:32 EDT Article-I.D.: dartvax.2273 Posted: Sat Aug 4 21:19:32 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 5-Aug-84 08:28:40 EDT Organization: Dartmouth College Lines: 22 Robinson Crusoe doesn't have much to do with the sea. In fact, as far as I could tell, it is an excellent advertisement for not wanting to live in those times, and not much else. What is the first things Crusoe does when he gets on the island? Starts building a wall, to keep savages out. Tries to find guns, so if they get past his wall, he can shoot them. Praises God for His mercifulness and bounty, when he had never been religious before. The religion goes to amazing lengths towards the end of the book, when he meets up with the so-called heathen Friday, a cannibal who takes to Christianity, and servility, like he was born to it. The thought that perhaps Friday was not destinied to be a servant never entered Crusoe's mind -- presumably as it never entered Defoe's. Lots of English classes read it. Without them, one would think it would have been out of print for several hundred years. dartvax!karl karl@dartmouth