In the following I will analyse, in how far the narrative situation in Robinson Crusoe supports the classification as a spiritual autobiography, on the basis of Franz K. Stanzel's Typological Circle. The narrative situation in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is of strident importance, because it has a massive affect on the way how the story is presented. According to Franz K. Stanzel's Typological Circle it can generally be said that the novel has a first-person narrative situation and an internal perspective because the narrator is part of the story.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Analysis of the Narrative Situation
2.1 Narrating "I"
2.2 Experiencing "I"
2.3 Spiritual Autobiography
3. Conclusion
4. Works Cited
1. Introduction
In 1660, Daniel Defoe was born as a son of the wealthy merchant James Foe. He received a Presbyterian education and his father wanted him to become a clergyman, but he had diverse professions. Defoe grew up in a political and religious situation in England, which was full of disturbances. After the death of the protestant Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell in 1658, Charles II was restored to the throne. In 1662, the Parliament resolved the Act of Uniformity, which required all clergy to obey the Church of England. But Charles II aimed for the extension of religious liberty for Protestants and Roman Catholics, so he tried to enact the Royal Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. The parliament forced the king to withdraw the declaration and introduced the Test Acts in 1673, which required all officeholders to swear allegiance to Anglicanism. The disturbances went on when Charles II dissolved the Parliament in 1681 and after his death in 1685, his brother James II ascended the throne. James II was in exile in France during the civil war under Oliver Cromwell, so the parliament suspected him of being pro-France and pro-Catholic. And indeed, the king introduced in 1687 another Declaration of Indulgence, like his brother Charles II, in order to achieve religious liberty. This declaration and also the birth of king James‘s catholic son James Francis Edward, which confronted the nation with the prospect of a Catholic dynasty, lead to the Glorious Revolution in 1888. James's protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange landed in southwest England with a small army. James refused to fight and went into exile to France. After some years of stabilization through the Bill of Rights in 1689 and the Act of Settlement with Ireland in 1701, James's second Protestant daughter Anne became queen. During her reign, new tensions embittered the nation. Especially the dismissal of the Whig ministers, those who are for a constitutional monarchism and against absolute monarchy, and the formation of a Tory ministry, which advocates monarchism, lead to disturbance. The Tory ministers employed writers like Daniel Defoe or Jonathan Swift and also Matthew Prior, who was commissioned to negotiate the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. When Queen Anne died one year later, George I became the first Hanoverian king. Under his reign, the Whigs returned to power and replaced the Tory government. So there was again a political shift in thinking. In this time of political and religious disturbances, precisely in 1719, Daniel Defoe wrote one of the first novels and spiritual autobiography Robinson Crusoe. In the following I will analyse, in how far the narrative situation in Robinson Crusoe supports the classification as a spiritual autobiography, on the basis of Franz K. Stanzel's Typological Circle.
2. Analysis of the Narrative Situation
The narrative situation in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is of strident importance, because it has a massive affect on the way how the story is presented. According to Franz K. Stanzel's Typological Circle it can generally be said that the novel has a first-person narrative situation and an internal perspective because the narrator is part of the story. This can be seen in the introduction already: "I was born in the Year 1632, in the city of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull" (Defoe 4). So, the basis is a narrator who is part of the story and familiar with the life of the hero. But the novel consists of two different kinds of narration.
2.1 Narrating "I"
The first perspective is the one of the narrative "I". This kind of narration is dominated by the perspective of the narrator telling the story several years after it happened. The introduction, or the first pages, where the background of the story is presented, are marked by the narrative "I", e.g. when the narrator explains the plans of the young Robinson Crusoe referring to his profession:
[...] I was now eighteen Years old, which was too late to go Apprentice to a Trade, or Clerk, to an Attorney; that I was sure if I did, I should never serve out my time, and I should certainly run away from my Master before my Time was out, and go to Sea[...] (Defoe 6).
The broad, but nevertheless detailed description of his early years and his professions show temporal distance, but also credibility, because "the narrator chains us down to an implicit belief in every thing he says" (Lamb 269). "Here, anolder Crusoe, the "narrating I" of the story, tells of the adventures of his younger self, the "experiencing I" of the narrative".1 So, it seems the "older Crusoe" is reading his story out of a log-book several years after his "younger self" has written it (cf. Lamb 269).
In conclusion, the narrating "I" serves to tell the background or the pre-history of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of an old man, looking back on his life, causing temporal distance.
2.2 Experiencing "I"
The counterpart of the narrating "I" is the experiencing "I". As we have already seen, it is the younger Robinson Crusoe, who is telling his story directly after experiencing it, without temporal distance. This has the effect, that the reader comes across the real feelings of the hero right in the moment he experienced something. Furthermore, the reader is perfectly introduced Robison Crusoe's position and its "easily imagined and most picturesque circumstances" (Wordsworth 270). An example could be the passage, where Robinson Crusoe searches a place for his first camp:
In search of a Place proper for this, I found a little Plain on the Side of a rising Hill, whose Front towards this little Plain, was steep as a House-side, so that nothing could come down upon me from the Top; on the Side of this Rock there was a hollow Place worn a little way in like the Entrance or Door of a Cave, but there was not really any Cave or Way into the Rock at all (Defoe 44).
In addition to this aspect, the descriptions and explanations of the experiencing "I" are easy to understand and "written in so natural a manner, and with so many probable incidents, that, for some time after its publication, it was judged by most people to be a true story" (Cibber 262). The assumption, that "the account of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who was put ashore on the island of Juan Fernandez in 1704 and survived a solitary life for four years and four months until his rescue in 1709."2, supports this realistic character of Robinson Crusoe.
So, the experiencing "I", or the younger Robinson Crusoe, creates the imagination, that the story is true or realistic, because of the natural manner and the probable incidents (cf. Cibber 262) of the novel.
2.3 Spiritual Autobiography
Robinson Crusoe is often called a spiritual biography and before we come to the analysis of the impact of the narrative situation on this aspect, I would like to show why that is so. "All spiritual biographies share one pattern: the tracing of a rebellion-punishment-repentance-deliverance sequence described from the earliest of Christendom as characteristic of fallen men who are accorded God's grace" (Hunter 252). This applies to Robinson Crusoe. His rebellion takes place very early in the novel, when he decides to go to sea against God's and his parent's will: "if I did take this foolish Step, God would not bless me (Defoe 6); "without asking God's Blessing, or my Father's" (Defoe 7). Crusoe knows that he sinned because he mentioned "the Breach of my Duty to God and my Father" (Defoe 7). Nevertheless, he ignores God and his Father and, as a consequence, should suffer the punishment, which was the shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe. The interesting thing in this case is the "similarity of meaning given to stories of physical and spiritual castaways" (Hunter 250). So, it can be clearly seen that his physical situation showed his inner spiritual position. This position, namely complete independence and total indifference towards God, changed a little bit, when Crusoe sees, that "God had miraculously caus'd this Grain to grow without any Help of Seed sown" (Defoe 58). But this was by far not the repentance, because his "religious Thankfulness to God's Providence began to abate too upon the Discovering that all this was nothing but what was common" (Defoe 58). There is another event presented which had the same result:"I had not the least religious Thought nothing but the common, Lord ha' Mercy upon me; and when it was over, that went away too (Defoe 60). So, it took a while to build a relation to God and to come to repentance. But another striking event was needed to make Robinson Crusoe repent. He suffers from ague and imagines himself to be threatened by a man with a spear. Then that he what he "understood, was this, Seeing all these Things have not brought thee to Repentance, now thou shalt die" (Defoe 65). Crusoe sees his condition "as a Judgment from Heaven" (Defoe 66) and recognizes that his "Father's Words are come to pass: God's Justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me: I rejected the Voice of Providence" (Defoe 67). All this leads to real repentance:"I cry'd out, Lord be my Help, for I am in great Distress. This was the first prayer, if I may call it so, that I had made for many Years" (Defoe 67). The last, but probably most pleasing aspect of the sequence is the deliverance. Again, it is possible to identify his outer deliverance with Crusoe's inner situation. Shortly before Robinson Crusoe is rescued, the author allows us a look into his thoughts:
[...]
1 http://narrativetheoryandtheearlynovel.weebly.com/first-person-narration.html (February, 28, 2017)
2 Shinagel (vii), in the Preface of the Norton Critical Edition of Robinson Crusoe
- Quote paper
- Jonathan Vogel (Author), 2017, The Narrative Situation in Daniel Defoe's "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1354972
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