Important details of the novel "Robinson Crusoe" that many readers overlook

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

A Soviet child read a book about Robinson Crusoe with almost the same feeling with which modern children play Minecraft - rejoicing at the miracle of creating their little civilization out of almost nothing. When you look at a story from an adult perspective, questions arise - both to the author and to the character. And the shine of both fades a little.

The paths of the slave traders

Usually, the reader does not think about what kind of travel such that the father almost forbids the adult protagonist. England is a country that lived by the sea. Crusoe was not the first or the last to leave for the sea. But, by the way, where? The answer is known to everyone: Robinson traveled from Brazil to Africa. This was the route of the slave traders.

Crusoe was going to participate in a great historical crime. Needlessness pushed him - the first chapter emphasizes this. He is driven by a thirst for profit and only a little - by the spirit of adventurism. The fastest money at the time was the dirtiest. And already in the seventeenth century there were people who spoke about this - priests and lay humanists, although the movement against the slave trade and slavery became extensive only a century later.

In fairness, the first flights of Crusoe were still within the framework of the trade in products of European manufactories - in Africa they were highly valued, they paid for them in golden sand. But he liked to take big profits with small investments, and his appetite flared up.

Ubermensch syndrome

By the way, Crusoe himself was a slave, which not everyone remembers. One of his early travels ends with a capture by Muslim pirates. White youths, these beautiful blond blue-eyed Englishmen (and not only), were then left alive by pirates for a specific purpose - they were highly valued in the Ottoman markets, and sometimes pirates kept white slave concubines with them.

In the book, however, Robinson was "left on the shore to do the dirty work" - but this can be a bashful cover for issues of homosexual violence, which was often subjected to captivity. The owner constantly kept Crusoe - and with him a young boy - with him. No really dirty work is mentioned. Nevertheless, Robinson recalls that he spent every day of slavery in fear, and says: "every road is good - just to get out of bondage."

Nevertheless, Crusoe views people of color as slaves, clearly believing that slavery is not beneficial only to him. This shows the episode with Friday. When a rescued black man makes signs, the likes of which from a white Crusoe would interpret as "at your service, forever grateful" - in relation to Friday, Robinson unambiguously "understands" that he wants to be his slave. Until the end of my life.

By the way, until Friday, Robinson had a personal slave - a black boy named Ksuri. Strictly speaking, the boy belonged to the pirate who captured Crusoe. Robinson stole him, took him with him during his escape, and took an oath of allegiance from him under the threat of leaving him otherwise on the high seas.

The story of Ksuri's loyalty looks ambiguous further. On an unfamiliar coast, Ksuri volunteers to go on reconnaissance alone: they say, he does not feel sorry for himself, even if, if anything, they attack him, and not the owner. Likewise, it could have been the cunning of a slave who had just seen another slave escape and wanted his freedom too. But it is impossible to verify this - Crusoe went with the boy together. Later, by the way, he gives the boy as a slave to the Portuguese captain who saved them. But in the famous children's translation of Chukovsky you will not find this scene: the USSR had its own political correctness, and children's books were being adapted.

Robinson Island

History buffs conducted an investigation to find out which of the islands off the coast of Brazil fits the description of the island on which Crusoe spent part of his life. Many are convinced that this is Tobago, and in this case, from the coast of Tobago, Robinson saw not his mother, but the outlines of the neighboring, larger island of Trinidad.

Tobago, like many other small islands in the Caribbean, really did not have large predators. On it one could find many wild-growing edible fruits. True, to be honest, there was no "wild melon" that Crusoe ate. But he could have called that, in theory, and papaya. It is similar in fruit shape and pulp color.

It is not difficult to calculate the ethnicity of Friday. He appears unable to fight, and is very peaceful and humble. It seems that he is an Arawak - a representative of a tribal community, whose representatives often suffered from the raids of more militant neighbors, and even more so from the Europeans, whose arrival turned into a real genocide for the Arawaks. Most likely, also, Friday was not just going to be eaten - this would not require bringing it to a secluded island - but during a religious ritual.

Few also remember that Crusoe saved not only Friday, but also - later - his father, who was brought to this island for the same ritual, and with Friday's father - and an unfamiliar Spaniard. And the last thing that can be read in the book about the fate of Friday is how he is in Europe, in the Pyrenees, together with Crusoe, fighting off hungry wolves and a bear.

It is generally interesting to re-read your favorite books of childhood with an adult erudition: Details of Astrid Lindgren's Famous Tales That Only Adults Think About