ROBINSON CRUSOE AS A RELIGIOUS ALLEGORY

Robinson Crusoe has been regarded as one of the finest allegorical

pieces of English literature. Sin, punishment, repentance, remorse and
reconciliation ---- all goes together as an important theme of Robinson
Crusoe.
Robinson commits the sin of disobeying the wishes of his parents and
the dictates of God. He meets misfortunes at sea and on the island. He
regards these misfortunes as his due punishment and repents for
doing wrong. He was ultimately reconciled to the afflictions bestowed
upon him by Providence.
Crusoe commits the sin of disobedience to his father and God. He also
succumbed to the sin of pride, sin of rising faster and the sin of
running away from the island of imprisonment. Defoe had suffered
punishment, tortures and humiliation. This can also be read in the life
of Robinson Crusoe. Robinson is punished with slavery, with
imprisonment, and fear on the island. He is made to fear the foot
print, the dream in which a man descends from the cloud to kill him
with a spear and the cannibals. Moreover he is tormented by
loneliness. He longs for the company of humans.
sin : Robinson is obsessed with a passion of wandering abroad and to
visit around the world in a ship. He is almost obstinate in his wander
lust. His parents urged him not to leave them. His father says that if he
goes away for a sea faring life without his consent, God will not bless
him. But Robinson ignored all persuasions and entreaties of his
parents and ran away to London. Thus he committed sin against God
and his parents. He never consulted them nor did he send any word to
them. He left them without asking their blessings and the blessings of
God.
As soon as his ship began to move a furious sea storm raged and the
sea waves rose mountain high. Robinson thought that he is overtaken
by the judgment of God for leaving his parents in tears. Robinson was
terrified as the ship was about to wreck. He swears that if God spares
his life, he will return home and will never make any voyage. But as
soon as the weather calms down he forgets all his vows in a bowl of
wine.
He committed another sin when he was flourishing in Brazil. He
abandoned the middle path of life and adheres to his foolish
inclination of sea faring. He is sinful that he pursued a rather rash
desire of rising faster. He aspired to grow fast and thus he becomes the
willful agent of his own miseries.
Once again he becomes hostile to his father’s counsel and could not
restrain his rambling design. He regards his casting away on the
desolate island as the outcome of his sin. He was of the view that he
has lost his right of complaining due to his sin: “I ought not to
complain, seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins.”
Repeatedly he recollects his sin of disobedience, pride and
immoderate desire. He was of the view that most of human
miseries flow from not being satisfied with the station God and Nature
had assigned. God had placed Robinson in his plantation business but
he committed the sin of challenging the will of God. He regards his
‘opposition to the excellent advice of his father’ as his original sin.
PUNISHMENT: Robinson regarded all his afflictions as punishment
for his sin. When his ship, bound for London, is faced with turbulent
sea waves and his life was in danger, he believed that he is overtaken
by the judgment of Heaven. He realizes that what a punch Heaven has
given him for what he is expected if he persists the foolish adventure
against the mandate of his father and the will of God. He looked back
upon the prophecy made by his father when he became a miserable
slave at Sallee. He believed that Heaven has overtaken him and he is
undone without redemption. When he has been cast upon the desolate
island he feels that he has been punished for his sin: “I had great
reason to consider it as a determination of Heaven, that in this
desolate place and in this desolate manner I should end my life.”
He feels that he is the author of his own woes because he disregarded
the advice of his father who emphasized upon embracing the middle
station. The same has been repeated throughout the whole novel.
REPENTANCE: It is only after his punishment that Robinson
pondered about sin and repentance. He suffered the most severe kind
of affliction of wilderness and loneliness. He cursed the day when he
disobeyed his father. He was cast upon a secluded island and was
completely cut off from the world and was away from humans. He felt
repentant for committing the original sin. He regards himself even
worse than the prodigal son for not returning to his father. The feeling
of guilt storms upon him and he weeps like a child. He repents not for
the original sin only but also for leaving the plantation business.
He shed tears of repentance on the wild and desolate island. Not only
that he even reconciled himself to fate and accepted his sufferings as a
punishment for his sin. He rather feels that his punishment is less in
proportion to his sin as he is blessed with food and other things
required for life. Therefore he is thankful to God. The feeling of grief
becomes lighter and he rejoiced that he has been brought to this place
where he is redeemed. Here he feels no lust of eye or flesh and even no
pride. The most dreadful punishment which has been fallen upon him
has awakened his conscience. The place of despair was changed into a
heaven of ecstasy. He feels so because he started believing that he has
been allowed by God to repent and then his repentance has been
accepted by God. Thus he spoke: “the redemption of man by the Savior
of the world…..of the gospel preached from heaven, namely, of
repentance towards God.”
Thus we may say that Robinson commits the original sin,
suffers, is punished, repents and is forgiven and gets
reconciled to God. His soul is saved and he received the spiritual
salvation he longed for.And in this manner we can assume that
Robinson Crusoe can also be viewed as a Religious allegory.

Conclusion
Crusoe’s faith about God has a positive role in his life on the lonely
island. He gets hope in God’s words seen in the bible that say “call me
in the time of trouble and I will deliver, and you shall glorify me”.
These words highly inspire Crusoe. The hope of being delivered gives
him the reason to live. Rather than despairing in his condition, he is
able to produce the best from the situation with the hope of being
delivered eventually. He makes the best of the situation on the
desolate island. He decides to put his energy into use rather than
gloating about the situation. He manages to furnish himself with a lot
of things by utilizing the raw materials and the island. On a very
detailed perspective, Crusoe’s faith in God gave him something that
was indeed urgently needed than optimism (Defoe 10).

Crusoe was given a means through which he could communicate what

he was thinking about by being faithful in God. However, God is an
abstraction that needs imagination or belief so as to be seen as an
abstraction. As a result his mind was kept active and God kept him
from being insane. Without God, his loneliness perhaps could drive
him over the hedge (Defoe 98). His faith not only gave him hope for
liberty, but also played a role as an intangible “something” that worked
as a replacement for the communicator (person).

His faith dealt a big blow when he discovers a man’s footprint in the
beach in the island. Fear raged over his mind on seeing the footprint.
He was shocked and thought if the devil waned to contrive the man’s
image of the foot so as to scare him away. When the reason sets in, he
decides that the sign of the foot print could be the remnant of a
cannibal tribe’s visit to the island. He is terrified by the cannibals and
says that fear send away all his religious hopes and the previous
confidence in God that was based on an amazing as he had of His
goodness, now gone. His faith seems to be very small and one must
wonder on the validity of his conversation. He accepts the invasion of
his island as simply God’s punishment and vows that it was his
unquestionable duty to resign himself to the will of God and also his
duty to hope and pray and submit to the dictates of His divine
intervention (Defoe 60).

His resignation to God’s will does not mean that he is actually a

convert. It could be interpreted as the ultimate desperate attempt to
conciliate God. He certainly does not want to anger Him anymore than
he had done before. Perhaps he saw the footprint as a lure to live his
faith. Thus, when he resigns himself to the will of God, he might be
simply saying “God, I do not want to anger you any longer, in fact if
you are listening now I’m willing to accept it as part of my fate”. By
also accepting the footprint and the probability of alien cannibalistic
attack as God’s work and a section of fate, he liberates himself from
having to take part in any form of action. Once he resigns himself to
God is happy symbolizing a great load which is fear and worry having
been removed from his shoulders.