Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is a heavily religious novel. This is signified through three instances in which religion emerges as a major theme at pivotal points in the plot. At the debut of the narrative, Robinson Crusoe deserts his middle-stationed home against the demands of his father. This signifies his simultaneous abandonment of his father and his religion. After shipwrecked upon his “island of despair,” Crusoe has a religious vision that causes him to devote himself to repentance. When an English ship lands on the island and Crusoe is able to save the captain against his mutinous seamen, Defoe insinuates that Providence placed Crusoe on the island for the purpose of rescuing him. The captain enables Crusoe to leave the island; meanwhile, the captain’s entrance into the plot signifies the religious climax of the novel.
The beginning of Robinson Crusoe can function as a religious allegory. Crusoe’s father is described as “very ancient,” (5) and “a wise and grave man” (5). His sage benevolence seems to mirror the traditional idea of the Christian God himself. Crusoe places references to God and to his biological father adjacently several times: Crusoe leaves “without asking God’s blessing, or my father’s” (8) and later realizes “the breach of my duty to my God and my father” (9). The father a is truly prophetic character, perhaps in a lesser parallel of God’s omniscience: “he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me, and I would have leisure to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my recovery” (7). The plotline of a son leaving the home of his father is a traditional one, and is paradigmed by the biblical story of Adam and Eve’s departure from Eden. Crusoe’s father describes their living situation as a paradise- “the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness” (6). Crusoe, like Adam and Eve, is tempted by the Tree of Knowledge: a yearning for adventure and a thirst for the exotic. When Crusoe leaves his home, he is fallen in a religious sense.
Before his religious vision, Crusoe alternates between an attitude of piety and then, as if amnesic, a forgetfulness of his former devotion. In his first near-disaster at sea, Crusoe states: “I resolved that I would, like a true repenting Prodigal, go home to my father” (9). Here, Crusoe is referring to his biological father and perhaps to God, as well. One day after this resolution, Crusoe “drowned all [his] repentance, all [his] reflections upon [his] past conduct, and all [his] resolutions for the future” (10). Even after Crusoe is shipwrecked on the island and falls ill, he describes a superficial religiousness: “all this while I had not the least serious religious thought, nothing but the common, Lord ha’ mercy upon me; and when it was over, that went away too” (65). Crusoe exhibits a pretense of piousness. He is devout only in times of convenience.
After such religious inconstancy, Crusoe’s vision is breath-taking: “I saw a man descend from a great black cloud, in a bright flame of fire, and light upon the ground… when he stepp’d upon the ground with his feet, I thought the earth trembled” (70). It is significant that this vision occurs a short time after he is shipwrecked, in such prompt succession to a major turning point in the plot. This timing exemplifies the interwoven nature of religion and plot in Crusoe’s journey. Crusoe’s divine vision saves him, and not only in terms of religion. In times of desperation, Crusoe inevitably turns to the bible: “I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happen’d providentially the very day that reading the scripture, I came to these words, He is exalted a prince and a saviour, to give repentance, and give remission. I threw down the book, and with my heart as well as my hands lifted up to Heaven, in a kind of extasy of joy” (77). On the island, religion becomes a psychological stabilizer and a mental savior for Crusoe.
Eventually, a captain soon to be murdered by his mutinous seamen arrives on the island. Crusoe capsizes the situation; the captain regains control of the sailors. Soon after, the captain reads Crusoe’s memoirs of his experience on the island: “indeed, as my story is a whole collection of wonders, it affected him deeply; but when he reflected from thence upon himself, and how I seem’d to have been preserv’d there, on purpose to save his life, the tears ran down his face, and he could not speak a word more” (203). Because the captain is the first and, consequently, the paradigm reader, one can interpret the reaction of the captain to be a representation of what Defoe intends for our reaction. As Providence placed Crusoe on the island with the ultimate purpose of saving the captain, so Defoe articulates the purpose of Crusoe’s journey as a religious enlightenment of the reader. As Crusoe’s presence saves the captain, Defoe hopes to save us. In this essential passage, we see Robinson Crusoe as a text concerned with religion. Defoe offers us the story of Crusoe in an attempt at religious illumination.
The three discussed moments in the plot can be identified as major catalysts for action and hugely significant occasions in the storyline; the weighty presence of religion in these moments demonstrates the interwoven nature of religion and Crusoe’s story. In Robinson Crusoe, Defoe presents a synchronization of plot and religion. In the religious climax of the novel, Defoe suggests that as providence placed Crusoe on the island to save the sea captain, providence allows Crusoe to relate his faith-flavored tale for the purpose of saving the reader. The presence of religion in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is not without motive.
