Character
In Robinson Crusoe, the main character as you might expect is Robinson Crusoe himself. Crusoe is not all alone on the island though; he meets another character named Friday. When Defoe introduced Crusoe, he was seen as a rebellious, lazy, English boy who just wanted to leave his parents. Although his housing was not bad, he was a part of a middle class family with a nice home and loving parents, Robinson could not stand to get away and this caused some problems with his family, more specifically his father.
"He ask'd me what reasons more than a meer wandring inclination I had for leaving my father's house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortunes by application of industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other." (Defoe, Robinson Crusoe 5)
As a character, Crusoe doesn't really grow or develop many new thoughts or attitudes even though he is stuck on an island for over twenty-five years. It's not his attitude towards being stuck on the island and surviving that stalled, it's his attitude towards his father and family situation. As you see the reunion between Friday and his father, when Friday was only away from his dad for a few months, the reunion was a huge celebration because they were very close. Crusoe was not very close to his father and seeing the love that Friday had with his father, this still didn't change the opinion of his own family problems. It's not that there was no change in Crusoe at all; Crusoe did change as though he felt the island as less of a prison and more of a home. He mentions that he needs to travel back "home or "to the castle". It's almost as though Crusoe's new community was the island.
He knew he wasn't a part of any community and wouldn't receive any new supplies or people. Another thing that didn't really affect Crusoe was the lack of family that he had on the island, Defoe never really talks about an interest of making or having a family that wasn't cats or goats. It could have been that his family experiences in England were so traumatic that he might not have even wanted to raise a family. This leads me to believe that by the end of the novel, Crusoe infact starts to lower his standards of what a life style should be like and settles for the understanding of alienation. He knows that there is a very low chance of getting off of the island and decides to live life as life is given to him. "It was in vain to sit still and wish for what was not to be had, and this extremity rouzed my application." (41)
