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Zaitseva Marusya

In D. Defoe's work "Robinson Crusoe" the main character is Robinson Crusoe, who remained a man in difficult conditions.
Since childhood, Robinson was drawn to the sea, and he dreamed of becoming a sailor, but his father wanted him to become a judge and therefore cursed his son.
Robinson sometimes regretted that he had not listened to his father and ran away from home, because his father had warned him how many trials he would have to endure.
Robinson's first test was captivity. When he was sailing on a ship, they were attacked by pirates - the Moors. Robinson was in captivity for quite a long time, but there he learned cunning. In the end, he escaped captivity using his cunning.
The most difficult test was Robinson's arrival on the island, where many difficulties awaited him.
On the island, any person can become a savage, but Robinson stubbornly fought for life. Although Robinson was frightened by difficulties, he managed to cope with them.
Firstly, Robinson was constantly visited by fear, fear of wild animals, hunger, and attacks by savages. He was afraid of becoming a savage, of stooping to such a level.
Robinson heroically overcame all the difficulties of his lonely life. Robinson mustered all his willpower and remained a man in almost unsurvivable conditions.
On Robinson Island, not only did he remain human, he relived all the stages of technological development. He built himself a house, not missing a single detail, began to raise a herd of goats, he had his own barley fields, he made himself a wonderful fence, no worse than the Chinese wall, and, most importantly, he became a believer, but when he ran away from his parents' house, he was a stupid brat. In any case, the island helped him make himself an individual. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.
I believe that Robinson remained a man thanks to his work; another in his place would either turn into a savage or lie down and die. Robinson was helped by work and the ability to cope with difficult situations.

Martyakov Dima

In the work of D. Defoe, the main character is Robinson Crusoe. Robinson's first test was a conflict with his father. He ran away from his home when he was eighteen years old. The second test was captivity. Robinson ended up with the Moors. After 8 years, he escaped from the Moors using cunning.
The third test for Robinson was the island. He got there during a storm. Robinson did not know how to survive, since he had no food or water. But every day he adapted more and more to the climate of the island.
At first it was difficult for Robinson on the desert island. But then he learned a lot: to hunt, fish, build, sew.
Robinson was at first stupid and unbelieving, but after a few years he became very wise.
When Robinson returned from the island on an English ship, his parents died, since Robinson lived on the island for a very long time: 28 years, 2 months and 19 days, and his parents, when Robinson was eighteen years old, were already old.
Robinson remained human because he wore clothes and kept a diary and a calendar.
If he had not done this, he would not have been a man, but a savage.

Zaitsev Yura

The main character of D. Defoe's book is called Robinson Crusoe. The heir of a wealthy father, from the age of eighteen he experienced many difficulties.
He always thought about the sea, but his father strictly forbade sea adventures and even cursed him when Robinson decided to go to sea. Robinson did not listen. During the voyage, his ship was attacked by pirates - the Moors. After being captured for three years, he became a brave man. Soon he escaped from the pirates.
The next confirmation of his father's curse happened when Robinson Crusoe sailed from Brazil to Africa for slaves. He failed during a shipwreck. Soon I found myself on an island where there was no one to talk to.
Once on the island, he was scared and did not immediately get used to it. After a shipwreck he needed help. There were no clothes, it was extremely difficult to get food, so he was starving. He did not have the courage to enter the depths of the forest. And there were many more difficulties on the island.
But the time came when he got tired of being afraid, and he began to fight them non-stop. First, he moved all the things from the bow of the ship. There were guns, muskets, gunpowder, grapeshot and other things for life on a desert island. Secondly, he made a house, raised goats, learned to farm, and became a believer.
He ran away from his parents' house, self-confident in his actions, unbelieving, unintelligent, after all the trials he became completely different, changing his character.
He survived and remained human thanks to work and self-control.

From the site administration

Alexander Selkirk was born in 1676 in Scotland on the North Sea coast into the family of a shoemaker. He was bored in his father's workshop. But I was irresistibly drawn to the Red Lion tavern, where experienced sailors gathered. Hiding behind the barrels, he listened to stories about the “Flying Dutchman” - a sailing ship with a crew of the dead, about the land of gold Eldorado, about brave sailors and cruel storms, about daring raids of corsairs and looted riches.

At the age of eighteen he left home and went to sea. Alas: the ship was soon captured by French pirates. The young sailor was captured and sold into slavery. But he managed to free himself and was hired on a pirate ship.

He returned home with a gold earring in his ear and a tightly stuffed wallet. But the quiet life soon became boring. And at the beginning of 1703, Selkirk read in the London Gazette that the famous captain Dampier was preparing to sail to the West Indies for gold on two ships. This prospect suited the Scot who was “sick” of the sea and adventures, and Alexander signed up as a member of the crew. He was to serve as a boatswain on the 16-gun galley "Sank Port". In addition to her, the flotilla included the 26-gun brig "St. George" - a gift from the King of England.

The purpose of the campaign was to attack Spanish ships and capture cities on land. Course – southern seas, Latin American countries. In short, a typical predatory expedition for that time under the slogan of England’s struggle against hostile Spain.

Scrapped ashore

At first, ship life proceeded calmly, but the captain of the ship “Sank Port”, on which Selkirk served, suddenly died. Dampier appointed a new one - Thomas Stradling, a man famous for his tough temper and cruel character. The difficult voyage began. And not only because boatswain Selkirk did not have a good relationship with the new captain. Now the ships sailed through almost unexplored seas. For a year and a half, the ships wandered around the Atlantic Ocean, making daring raids on Spanish ships, and then, following the path of Magellan, they entered the Pacific Ocean. Off the Chilean coast, the English ships separated. "Sank Port" headed for the islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, where he hoped to stock up on fresh water. It was here that the events took place, thanks to which the name of Selkirk remained in history.

After another skirmish with Captain Stradling, boatswain Selkirk decided to leave the Sank Port, which by that time was already pretty shabby and leaking. In October 1704, an entry appeared in the ship's log: “Alexander Selkirk was decommissioned from the ship at his own request.” They loaded the boat with a flintlock gun, a pound of gunpowder, bullets and flint, clothes and linen, tobacco, an axe, a knife, a cauldron, and they didn’t even forget the Bible.

Selkirk chose to surrender to fate on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra, part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, 600 km west of Chile, rather than remain on a dilapidated ship under the command of a hostile captain. In his heart he hoped that he would not have to stay on the island for long. After all, ships often came here for fresh water. But before the ship appeared on the horizon, it was necessary to take care of food - food supplies were left for him only for one day.

Fortunately, there were many wild goats on the island. This means that as long as there is gunpowder and bullets, food is provided. However, time passed, and the rescue ship never appeared. Willy-nilly, they had to seriously settle on a piece of land lost in the ocean. Having examined the “possession”, Selkirk found that the island was covered with dense vegetation and was about 20 km long and 5 km wide. On the shore you could hunt turtles and collect their eggs in the sand. Birds were abundant, and lobsters and seals were found off the coast.

Island life

The first months were especially difficult for the newly minted Robinson. And not so much because of the hourly struggle for existence, but because of loneliness. As he later said, it took 18 months to come to terms with being a hermit. At times Selkirk was overcome by fear: what if this voluntary exile was for life?! And he cursed the land that sheltered him in the ocean, just like the hour when he decided to take a rash act. If he had known then that the ship Sankpor crashed shortly after its landing and almost the entire crew died, he might have thanked fate.

Every day Selkirk climbed the highest mountain and stood for hours peering at the horizon. It took a lot of work and invention to establish a “normal” life on the island. Like primitive people, he learned to make fire by friction, and when the gunpowder ran out, he began to catch wild goats with his hands. Once, during such a hunt, he fell into an abyss with a goat and lay there unconscious for three days. After this, Selkirk began to cut the tendons of the kids' legs, causing them to lose their agility.

More than four years have passed. One thousand five hundred and eighty days and nights alone with nature! What a strain of physical and moral strength, so as not to fall into despondency, not to let despair prevail! Hard work, perseverance in achieving goals, enterprise - all these qualities were inherent in Selkirk, just as his literary brother Robinson Crusoe would be endowed with them to an even greater extent.

Sail on the horizon

At the beginning of 1709, Selkirk's hermitage came to an end. On January 31 at noon, he noticed a dot from his observation post. Sail! First time in these years! But will the ship really pass by? We need to give a signal soon! But even without that it was clear that the ship was heading towards the shore of Mas a Tierra. The ship dropped anchor and the boat set sail from it. These were the first people he saw after 4.5 years of loneliness. One can imagine how surprised the sailors were when they met on the shore a “wild man” in animal skins, overgrown, who at first could not utter a word. Only once he was on board the Duke, the name of the ship that saved Selkirk, did he find the power of speech and tell what happened to him.

Selkirk himself was quite surprised: it turns out that he owed his salvation... to William Dampier! It was Dampier who managed to equip the expedition, which included the Duke, and, while circumnavigating the world, again visit the archipelago in order to pick up the unfortunate boatswain.

Only on October 14, 1711, Alexander Selkirk returned to England. When Londoners learned about the adventures of his fellow countryman, he became popular. But the public soon became bored with Selkirk. He failed to speak vividly about his experience. Eight years later, this gap was brilliantly filled by Daniel Defoe.

Maybe not everyone knows that the hero of my book about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe had a real prototype - the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who spent several years on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. His diary entries formed the basis of the novel.

Selkirk gave me the diary with his own hand when I was in Scotland on a diplomatic mission. Selkirk's notes struck me not only with their rare thoroughness, but also with their utmost frankness. Many lines in them are devoted to the sensual side of his life on a desert island, his unusual erotic addiction. When writing the novel, I felt that I had no right to avoid or hush up this delicate topic.

The novel was already ready for publication when rumors about it and its contents reached the ears of my enemies in Parliament, and in 1714 I was arrested on charges of violating morality. The London court, the tame court of George I, handed me a huge, ruinous fine and many years of imprisonment. The disgraced manuscript of the novel was destroyed by court decision.

After leaving prison in 1719, I prepared and published a new version of the novel, which has now become so widely known. In this version, as an attentive reader might have noticed, I, in defiance of my opponents, depicted an absurdly same-sex world - a world inhabited exclusively by men, with the exception of Robinson’s unfortunate mother, mentioned at the very beginning of the novel.

At the same time, based on an innate sense of justice and self-respect, I could not just come to terms with the arbitrariness of the judges and compiled a separate chapter from the forbidden pages of the novel, the manuscript of which I kept for ten years, and now, due to poor health, I am handing it over in a sealed envelope at the notary office "Fox and Associates".

According to my will, the manuscript should be handed over to my heirs for publication after 250 years, that is, on April 20, 1981. I hope that over such a long period of time, humanity will finally get out of the snares of bigotry and superstition and the time of free speech will come.

The narration in the mentioned chapter is conducted, as in the novel, on behalf of my literary hero Robinson Crusoe.

Thirty percent of all revenues from the publication, if any, belong to the office of Fox and Associates.

Forbidden pages of the novel “The Life and Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”

As the reader remembers, I built a hut that protected me from bad weather and wild animals on the steep slope of a high mountain. From here I could always see the ocean.

Every morning, as soon as I stepped outside the threshold of my wretched home, I peered for a long time with excitement into the distance of the sea. And my poor heart almost burst, first with happiness, and then with grief, when it happened that I noticed a white sail on the horizon, which, upon closer examination, turned out to be just a light cloud.

I knew that the uninhabited island to which evil fate and my own recklessness had brought me was located away from the usual sea routes. It may take a hundred or two hundred years before any ship anchors off its coast. Most likely, I will have to die completely alone on this piece of land, lost in the vast expanse of the ocean.

I could only hope that someone would get here the same terrible way as me - that is, after a shipwreck. Undoubtedly, this unfortunate man will be in better conditions than I was in my first days full of despair on this island: he will immediately have reliable shelter, hearty food and a faithful companion.

And how much more joyful and fuller my own life will become when I have the opportunity to talk with another person, share my thoughts with him, feel a friendly shoulder next to me!

Simple human speech - how I miss it! The old ship's dog, who escaped with me, could not, unfortunately, speak, and the parrot that came to me, despite all my efforts, only learned to scream heart-rendingly: “Poor, poor Robin Crusoe! Where did you end up?”, and, as the reader knows, at the most inopportune moments.

If the new resident of the island, I thought, turns out to be a strong craftsman, the two of us will be able to build a real house in which we will live not only in safety, but also in complete comfort. We will also be able to cultivate new fields and grow as much grain as is necessary to forever forget about the threat of famine.

But, to tell the truth, I dreamed more that the ocean waves would bring me some woman. Ever since I secured a relatively safe and well-fed existence for myself on the island, it was the absence of a woman that brought me the greatest suffering. When I felt really bad, I resorted to the method that teenagers usually use. The relief was, however, short-lived and far from complete. After all, I yearned not so much for physical intimacy, but for that special emotional affection that only a loving woman can give.

In my dreams, I saw myself and this woman sitting in an embrace on the shore of the quiet evening ocean. The golden trace of the moon lies on the water, the waves rustle softly. We are good…

I imagined how our many children were growing up on the island, how they were growing up and beginning to live separately... And, if God willing, decades later, some ship would still approach these shores, then not a single hut would be discovered by its passengers, but a whole a village with the English flag proudly flying over it...

However, month after month, year after year dragged on, and my dreams remained dreams, and I remained “poor, poor” lonely Robinson.

As readers know, it soon became clear that there were no dangerous predatory animals on the island. Thanks to this, there were many other animals on it, including a variety of birds, wild cats and hares. Herds of goats roamed the mountain slopes. These were quite large and, at the same time, graceful animals. At first I hunted them, but then, when supplies of gunpowder and lead began to dry out, it occurred to me to tame them. From then on I had not only meat, but also milk and wool.

Not far from the hut, I built a corral for my goats, fencing with wattle fence a large area of ​​​​a mountain meadow, overgrown with tender grass and bushes with succulent leaves. I loved watching these always cheerful creatures. In the way they behaved - how they were friends and quarreled with each other, how tenderly they cared for their young - I found a lot of humanity.

One day, when I was watching the play of beautiful young goats, the thought occurred to me that one of them could replace my wife. I thought about this with a laugh, but after some time the same thought came to me again and no longer seemed funny to me.

One of the goats, a very graceful build, with silky snow-white hair, a beautiful head and a gentle, languid look, especially attracted my attention. She recently turned six months old and has already entered puberty. However, I decided to postpone our wedding exactly one year, until she had reached full physical development.

I didn't make a mistake when I said about the wedding. I decided to formalize our relationship in the most serious and dignified way.

Thus, I had a whole year to prepare an extremely attractive, but essentially completely wild creature for the role of my wife and queen of the island.

First of all, I took my Juliet (as I named her) from the herd and placed her in a separate pen adjacent to the fence of the hut. I made a passage in the fence, and Juliet and I could visit each other at any time.

All this time before the wedding, I treated Juliet as a loving father and a demanding mentor.

On the very first day, I gave her a bath in a trough, which I had previously hollowed out from a single piece of wood. I haven’t had soap for a long time, so I used wood ash for hygienic purposes. Juliet was terribly scared; she decided that I wanted to drown her. I had to make a lot of effort and show remarkable patience to complete the bathing. Having dried off after the bath, Juliet became even more beautiful. Over time, she fell in love with this procedure, which we did once a week, and on bath day she usually twirled around the trough in the morning.

Goats are known to have a way of leaving their pellets wherever they please. It took me a lot of time to wean Juliet from this bad habit. Only six months later she began to constantly use the latrine.

I’ll say right away that one remedy helped me a lot in raising Juliet. On the island, among other types of vegetation, there grew a tree that I had never seen before, the leaves of which were very loved by goats. There were few such trees, and, in addition, their lower branches were always gnawed off. So these leaves (I called them nyaka-nyaka) were not only a desirable, but also a very rare delicacy for the goats. It was not difficult for me to climb to the top of such a tree and pick the most tender and juicy nyaki-nyaki in order to encourage my Juliet to acquire good manners.

In England, not to mention Brazil, where I spent my last years, the best means of education is considered to be the rod. I immediately promised myself that I would never raise my hand against my pupil.

I don’t know if there has ever been another goat in the world that would have been surrounded by such care and love as my Juliet! And she answered me the same.

In the mornings, Juliet woke me up with her gentle bleating. If I didn’t get up right away, she would poke her warm little face into my face, calling for a morning walk and games, without which she could not live. We wandered through the surrounding hills, ran races (how her slender legs flashed!), climbed rocks, and picked flowers. On steep slopes, mischievous Juliet would push me from behind with her horns, helping me climb.

One day I caught a cold and went to bed. Juliet never left my side. She climbed into my hammock and warmed my chilly feet with her body. And once she even brought me a withered nyaki-nyaki branch. Obviously, she took it out of some of her secret reserves. Thanks to such care and love, within a few days I completely recovered.

At first, Juliet showed displeasure when I put a collar and leash on her before walks, but gradually she got used to it and began to treat the collar as a kind of outfit. I made her a dozen beautiful collars from colored sailor scarves, and Juliet changed them every day. It’s not that I was afraid that my chosen one would completely run away from me during walks, but wild goats roamed the slopes of the surrounding mountains, which were very attracted by Juliet’s beauty. Considering Juliet’s youthful frivolity and inexperience, I quite sensibly decided that without a leash and without a gun, which I carried with me on walks, we were unlikely to be able to preserve her innocence until the wedding.

And now the day of the long-awaited celebration has arrived. A dog and a parrot were present at the wedding as guests. Juliet and I sat at the table, the parrot perched on the table next to the bride, and the dog sat on the floor next to me. I was very proud of teaching Juliet to sit on a chair. In front of her stood a large clay basin full of fresh nyaki-nyaki. The dog treated himself to hare, and the parrot enjoyed delicious hazelnuts. In addition, the menu included barley cakes, boiled rice and grapes. Wine was offered to the guests and the bride, but I preferred rum from the supplies I had taken from the wrecked ship.

Juliet was wearing a beautiful skirt. I sewed this skirt especially for the wedding (it’s impossible for the bride to sit at the table completely naked), and it took me almost a month to teach Juliet to wear it. Looking ahead, I note that after this holiday, Juliet never sat on a chair again and flatly refused to wear any clothes. Undoubtedly, this was a consequence of the dramatic events that occurred immediately after the wedding feast.

The wedding ended in a fight between a parrot and a dog. A drunken parrot, for no apparent reason, attacked the dog, trying to peck him in the eye. The dog waved his paw, feathers flew... I kicked them both out the door, and the bride and I were finally left alone.

I had been waiting for this moment for a whole year and now I was terribly worried. Juliet, while I was dealing with the fighters, got off the chair and stood at the table, thoughtfully chewing the remains of the nyaki-nyaki. I approached her from behind and gently, as she loved, scratched between her horns. She turned around, looking at me with love and gratitude. Then I lifted her skirt...

I will not bore readers with the details of what happened next. Firstly, for the reason that I didn’t remember everything, because I had too much rum, and secondly, the little that I remembered, I tried to forget all these years. My desperate efforts remain in my memory, Juliet struggling out of my hands, her pitiful bleating, her eyes full of tears, pleas and bewilderment, the incessant barking of the dog outside the door...

In short, I came ten times, but it was all over, and after the first wedding night, Juliet remained as virgin as she was on the first day of her life.

This morning I woke up later than usual and with a headache. Juliet didn't come to wake me up. I found her in the pen. When she saw me, she hid in a corner in fear. I returned to the hut and brought her a handful of nyaki-nyaki. She still continued to tremble when I, treating her with a treat, whispered tender words to her, hugged and kissed her. The poor baby still didn’t understand what his legitimate husband was trying to achieve last night!

I could only blame myself for what happened. I paid for ignoring the laws of nature. I knew very well that goats tend to accept a male only on certain days. It was on one of these days that our wedding day should have been set.

According to my calculations, Juliet’s next hunting period was supposed to begin in about a week. During this time, I needed to finally make peace with her and regain her trust. And I succeeded quite well.

In addition, knowing how exciting the smell of a goat is on goats, I decided to use one simple trick. A year or more ago, flattered by the length of the fur, I sewed myself a camisole from the skin of a wild goat. But the goat spirit did not want to disappear, and I threw this stinking jacket into the farthest corner of the pantry. Now I dug it up.

The day came when, based on special signs, I realized that Juliet had come to hunt. By evening, I decorated the hut with flowers and prepared a bouquet of thin, delicate nyaki-nyaki branches for Juliet. Then I put on the mentioned camisole and called Juliet to me. She entered and stopped indecisively, catching with her sensitive nose an unusual smell for my hut. I approached her, whispering kind words. Juliet pressed herself trustingly against me, and I felt a shiver of impatience seize her hot body. Without leaving my caresses, I turned Juliet around, and she herself moved her cute tail to the side...

From that night we began a full-fledged, quite measured and harmonious married life. My wife and I got along well, making mutual concessions and compromises when necessary. She surrendered herself to me without complaint even on those days when nature determined for her to show restraint, and even during these periods she did not resist my numerous experiments in the field of poses and positions. When the time for her hunt approached (and it lasted three or four days, coming in two or three weeks), then I tried, sparing no effort and health, for Juliet’s ardent nature demanded love almost every half hour. I will not hide, however, that sometimes I still could not maintain such a pace and ran away from home to hunt or fish.

Two or three months after the wedding, Juliet began to gain weight and become rounder. At first I decided that this was just a consequence of good nutrition, but when after some time I noticed how her udders had grown and were pleasantly heavy, I suddenly realized that I would soon become a father.

Words cannot describe my joy. I jumped, I stood on my head, I scared animals for many miles around with jubilant cries, I almost strangled Juliet in my arms, who clearly did not expect such a reaction from me to what was, in her opinion, a completely ordinary event.

I will have a child!.. Maybe more than one - goats are fertile! It would be nice if two boys and two girls were born... However, why did I decide that the cubs would be human?.. Little goats could also be born!.. No, no, human blood must kill the goat’s!.. On the other hand, maternal blood can be stronger than my father's...

I indulged in such thoughts all day, finally deciding that most likely the newborns would be a cross between a human and a goat. In ancient times, there lived centaurs - a cross between a man and a horse. I just couldn’t decide which children would be preferable to me: goats with human heads or people with goat heads?..

Then the idea occurred to me that through targeted selection I could gradually humanize my offspring, no matter how goatish they turned out to be in the first generation. The only thing that was somewhat confusing was that in this case I would have to engage in some kind of incest - to enter into relations first with my daughters, then with my granddaughters, then with my great-granddaughters, and so on. But the noble goal - to colonize this island under the English flag - in this case fully justified the means. I couldn’t neglect the possibility that a Spanish ship might enter the island and then I would have to hold the line (at the times described, England was at war with Spain - translator’s note).

Another three months passed, and in due time, Juliet was safely delivered of twins. No matter how much I looked at newborns, I did not find in them any resemblance to myself. Is it just the eyes and beard?.. In a word, these were typical kids. I will not hide the disappointment that befell me. For several days I wandered around as if lost, but then I thought that this was only the first attempt, that in seven or eight months Juliet would give birth to new children for me and the result could be completely different.

The astute reader, of course, has long been laughing at my simplicity and my naivety. My only excuse can be my inexperience in such matters and my blinding love for Juliet. Could I, devoted to my wife with all my heart, even briefly think that she might have someone else besides me! All the stronger was the blow that befell me when the terrible truth was revealed to me!..

On this unfortunate day, I returned from fishing earlier than usual, because there was a swell at sea and the fish weren’t biting. Juliet was not in the hut. I went into the pen and found her under a canopy... and not alone, but in the company of a seasoned goat, who was the leader and inseminator in my herd. The disgusting pose in which I found them was so eloquent that it excluded any other interpretation except the most terrible one for me.

My blood boiled in me, and I rushed into the hut for a gun. The adulterers, however, did not wait for me to exact just retribution, and rushed to their heels. Juliet was the first to slip through a narrow hole in the hedge that I had not previously noticed. The goat rushed after her. I raised my gun, but didn’t have time to fire. The last thing I noticed was a dark spot on his right thigh - then I remembered that my children had exactly the same spots in the same place...

A secret hole in the hedge led only to another, larger pen, where the whole herd was kept, and, by leaving the scene of the crime, Juliet and her lover only briefly reprieved the execution of the sentence that I had passed on them. However, while I was looking for them, the ability to reason sensibly returned to me. I thought about the damage I would cause to my farm if I killed a goat. Who will take care of my many goats? How can I maintain the number of livestock without a goat so as not to experience a shortage of meat and milk in the future?

I decided that a good spanking, after which he would forever forget the way to his master’s property, would be quite a sufficient punishment for him. Moreover, I considered it necessary to postpone this execution until the time when the goat and I were left alone, so as not to undermine his authority in the eyes of the goat society.

Now it remains to decide what to do with the insidious cheater. Killing her meant making orphans of the children to whom I sincerely became attached. I was also embarrassed by the dubious fairness of the trial, in which the accused does not have the opportunity to say a single word in her defense. Besides, is it possible to completely rule out violence or deception on the part of the goat?.. Of course not!.. Even though, as the investigation showed, the ill-fated secret passage was made from the inside of the fence...

Choosing a punishment for Juliet took me several days, during which I communicated with her only when absolutely necessary and did not give her nyaki-nyaki. As a result, the punishment was limited to this.

Most readers, no doubt, will accuse me of being weak-willed and spineless. I will answer them: no, no and no again! It’s just that my immense, all-forgiving love for Juliet turned out to be higher and stronger than resentment, jealousy and wounded pride!

In a word, the unrest and storms in the sea of ​​our family life gradually subsided, and we again began to live in harmony and love.

But after some time, the time of anxiety and worry came again: I discovered that the opposite shore of the island was visited by warlike savages, who used it as a place for eating their captives. I was afraid that the cannibals would discover my presence on the island, ruin my household, and kill my Juliet.

Days, however, passed, and the savages never appeared in our part of the island. Gradually I calmed down. Moreover, it occurred to me to capture one of these cannibals. With his help I hoped to build a boat suitable for sailing from the island in search of the mainland.

That's how I got Friday. Having barely taught him the first words of English, I was able to instill in him a complete aversion to cannibalism, reinforcing the words with dishes of boiled goat meat. He agreed that goat meat was much tastier than human meat and vowed never to engage in cannibalism again.

Although I put Friday in a separate hut, I still could not avoid explanations regarding my connection with Juliet. I got out of it quite deftly. I told Friday that in the advanced countries from which I came, copulation with a woman is considered as unacceptable and shameful as eating human flesh. Therefore, gentlemen use goats to satisfy their passion.

My authority with Friday was so great that he immediately, with the same enthusiasm with which he had previously renounced cannibalism, declared that he would never touch women again, but would only love goats.

Because of this love, he soon had a serious conflict with the goat. One day Friday came to me, rubbing his bruised butt. It turns out that the goat severely butted Friday during the moment of his intimacy with one of the goats. The offended Friday asked to give him a gun as soon as possible and even put forward something like an ultimatum: me or the goat?.. “Of course, the goat! – I answered, laughing. “After all, so far, as the Scots say, you’re as good as a goat’s milk!”

Several years passed, and something happened that I had been waiting for since that very day when, exhausted, the ocean threw me onto the island: a ship appeared near the shore. I was so happy that I almost lost consciousness. I didn’t yet know that the ship was captured by a mutinous crew who decided to engage in sea robbery.

I will not repeat what the reader already knows. How Friday and I freed the ship’s captain and his assistants, how we managed to capture the instigators of the riot, and then lure the rest of the crew to our side.

The rebel leaders undoubtedly faced the death penalty in England, but I took pity on them and allowed them to stay in my place on the island. I handed over my entire farm to them, including my goat herd.

The captain was so grateful to me for helping him get the ship back that without further ado he allowed me to take Juliet with me and even put her in my private cabin.

Juliet, although she was already old by goat standards, still had not lost her temperament and at the end of the second week of the voyage she cheated on me with the boatswain. When I found out about this, it was already going through my hands. Quarrels began on the ship, and the captain, fearing a new riot, sentenced my Juliet to death.

She was tied up in the galley pantry, and in the morning the cook had to take her life and prepare a roast. My faithful Friday and I tried to recapture her, but were disarmed and locked in our cabins.

At night I managed to get out of the cabin and free Juliet without unnecessary noise. I decided to run away with her in the ship's boat. It would be better for us to die together in the ocean than for me to witness her death at the hands of heartless people! However, I was not going to die so easily and grabbed water and food for several days from the galley.

However, fate was not on our side. As soon as the first wave rocked the boat, Juliet bleated in fear and attracted the attention of the sailor on watch. We were captured again. I was tied up and locked in the cabin again, and was released only when the morning meal was finished...

I despised all humanity and did not leave the cabin until the white cliffs of England appeared on the horizon. I promised myself that immediately upon arriving home I would get myself a new goat, with which, perhaps, I would find solace in the grief that had befallen me.

But all these vows immediately and forever flew out of my head when our ship entered the port of Gull, and on the embankment of this glorious city I saw many charming, sweet, graceful, gentle - there are no words! - girls and women.

The novel by English writer Daniel Defoe “Robinson Crusoe” is one of the most beloved books of our childhood. The image of a brave sailor who, thanks to his hard work and resourcefulness, managed not only to survive on a desert island, but also to preserve his human appearance and dignity, will forever remain in my memory. Robinson actively transforms the surrounding reality: he builds a home, tame wild animals, cultivates the land, trains Friday, etc.

However, not many people know that in Defoe’s novel Robinson is depicted as a deeply religious man who, having survived the trials that befell him, comes to the humble realization that all the hardships and hardships were sent down to him by God for the correction and salvation of his soul.

According to English researchers, the surname of the main character Crusoe (Crusoe) contains the Latin word “cross” (crux), from which the English word “crucifixion” (crucifixion) is derived.

In this interpretation, Defoe’s novel is not just a story about a lone hero changing the surrounding reality, but a philosophical parable about the transformation of a sinful soul through the humble carrying of the cross and the discovery of the Christian God.

In our country, Daniel Defoe's book was repeatedly published in Russian, but with numerous abbreviations: for censorship reasons, the hero's religiosity, his repeated appeals to God, and reflections on the inscrutable ways of Providence were reduced to a minimum. Children generally read the adapted text in Korney Chukovsky’s retelling (and most readers of the novel, unfortunately, limited themselves to this retelling).

Only in 2010, the St. Petersburg publishing house "Azbuka-Classics" published the full version of the novel. The publication is based on the translation by M. A. Shishmareva (1902); the author’s text has been completely restored, including the preface and some important fragments of the hero’s thoughts about God. In the new edition, much has been clarified and edited, and comments have been made on the text.

We decided to make several extracts from the novel in order to introduce this hitherto unknown, but most significant feature of Robinson Crusoe, which makes his image complete and the meaning of the novel truly Christian.

The initial spiritual state of the hero, who began life on a desert island, was full of despair and hopelessness. Robinson asked himself why God punished him so much,

why Providence destroys the creatures He created, leaves them without any support and... plunges them into such despair that one can hardly be grateful for such a life.

In the future, his inner transformation is traced step by step, an awareness of the meaningfulness and justification of everything that happens to him, filled with the deepest gratitude for the fact that God's Providence gave him this solitary life, which allowed him to gain spiritual purity.

Among the things from the sunken ship, Robinson found the Bible and began to read it regularly. Gradually, repentance for the previous vicious life (first of all, the sin of disobedience to parents) and turning to God in prayer came. He learned to see even in the most difficult cases the invisible hand of Divine Providence. I realized that

deliverance from sins is better than deliverance from suffering"and that what happened to him is not the worst that could have happened. He reflects on Providence and comes to the conclusion that “ all our complaints about what we lack stem, it seems to me, from a lack of gratitude for what we have.

Let's reflect and think about our own lives together with the hero.

Reviews of the book "Robinson Crusoe" allow you to get a complete picture of this work. This is the famous novel by the Englishman Daniel Defoe, which was first published in 1719. Its main theme is the moral rebirth of man in communication with nature. The book is based on real events. The Scottish boatswain Alexander Selkirk found himself in a similar situation.

Creation of a novel

Reviews of the book "Robinson Crusoe" are collected in this article. They allow us to find out what this novel, which today many consider the first in the literature of the Enlightenment, was dedicated to.

By the time of writing this novel, Daniel Defoe already had several hundred works under his belt. Many of them could not be recognized because the author often used pseudonyms.

Basis of the work

In reviews of the book "Robinson Crusoe" it is often mentioned that the work is based on a real story, which was told to a British journalist by Captain Woods Rogers. Defoe most likely read it in the newspapers.

Rogers talked about how the sailors abandoned his assistant Selkirk, who had an extremely violent and unbalanced character, on a desert island in the Atlantic Ocean. He quarreled with the captain and crew, for which he was disembarked, provided with a gun, a supply of gunpowder and tobacco, and a Bible. He spent almost four and a half years alone. When he was found, he was dressed in goat skins and looked extremely wild.

After many years in solitude, he completely forgot how to talk, and all the way home he hid crackers in different places on the ship. It took a lot of time, but they finally managed to return him to the state of a civilized person.

The main character Defoe is very different from his prototype. The author, of course, significantly embellished the situation by sending Robinson to a desert island for 28 years. Moreover, during this time he did not lose his human appearance at all, but was able to adapt to life alone. Therefore, in reviews of Defoe's book "Robinson Crusoe" it is often noted that this novel is a shining example of an optimistic work that gives the reader strength and enthusiasm. The main thing is that this book remains timeless; for many generations the novel has become a favorite work.

At what age do they read a novel?

Today it is worth recognizing that this novel is mainly read in adolescence. For young people, this is primarily an exciting adventure story. But we should not forget that the book poses important literary and cultural problems.

In the book, the hero has to resolve many moral issues. Therefore, it is useful that teenagers read the novel. At the very beginning of their lives, they receive a high-quality “vaccination” against meanness and cynicism; they learn from Defoe’s hero that money is not the main thing in this life. After all, one of the key roles in the work is played by the transformation of the main character. From an avid traveler who saw enrichment as the main thing in his life, he turns into a person who strongly doubts the need for money.

Significant in this regard is the episode at the beginning of the novel, when the hero is just thrown onto a desert island. The ship he was sailing on crashed nearby and can be reached without much difficulty. The main character stocks up with everything he might need on the island. Supplies, weapons, gunpowder, tools. On one of his trips to the ship, Robinson discovers a barrel full of gold and reasons that he could easily exchange it for matches or other useful things.

Characteristics of the hero

When characterizing the main character, it is worth noting that at the very beginning Robinson appears before us as an exemplary English entrepreneur. He is the embodiment of a typical representative of bourgeois ideology. By the end of the novel, he turns into a person who considers constructive and creative abilities to be the main thing in his life.

Talking about the youth of the protagonist, the author notes that Robinson dreamed of the sea from his youth, like many boys of his generation. The fact is that England at that time was one of the leading naval powers in the world. Therefore, the profession of a sailor was honorable, popular and, importantly, highly paid. It is worth recognizing that in his wanderings Robinson is driven solely by the desire to get rich. He does not strive to join a ship as a sailor and learn all the intricacies of seamanship. Instead, he travels as a passenger, seeking to become a successful merchant at the first opportunity.

Analysis of the novel

Analyzing this novel, it is worth noting that it became the first educational novel in literature. This is what made him go down in art history. At that time, work was perceived by many as a punishment and an undesirable necessity. The roots of this lie in a perverted interpretation of the Bible. At that time, it was believed that God punished the descendants of Adam and Eve with labor because they disobeyed his orders.

Daniel Defoe is the first author in whom labor becomes the basis of human activity, and not just a means of obtaining (earning) the most necessary things. This corresponded to the sentiments that existed among the Puritan moralists at that time. They argued that work was a worthy activity that should not be ashamed or avoided. This is exactly what the novel Robinson Crusoe teaches.

Main character progress

The reader can follow the progress in the development of the main character. Finding himself on a desert island, he is faced with the fact that he can do practically nothing. Only over time, overcoming many failures, does he learn how to grow bread, care for domestic animals, weave baskets and build a reliable home. He learns all this through trial and error.

For Robinson, work becomes a salvation that helps him not only survive, but also grow spiritually.

Character Features

First of all, Robinson Crusoe differs from other literary characters of that time in the absence of extremes. He is a hero who completely belongs to the real world.

In no case can he be called a dreamer or visionary, like Cervantes' Don Quixote. This is a prudent person who knows the value of money and work. He is like a fish in water in practical management. At the same time, he is quite selfish. But this trait is understandable to most readers; it is aimed at the bourgeois ideal - personal enrichment.

Why has this character been so popular with readers for several centuries? This is the main secret of the educational experiment that Defoe staged on the pages of his novel. For the author's contemporaries, the interest of the situation described primarily lay in the exceptionality of the situation in which the main character found himself.

The main features of this novel are verisimilitude and its maximum persuasiveness. Daniel Defoe manages to achieve the illusion of authenticity with the help of a large number of small details that, it seems, simply cannot be invented.