Tuesday, 21 February 2012

How does Robinson Crusoe's state of mind enable him to live on the island?

More than
anything else, 's a businessman, and a very hard-headed businessman at that. He looks at the
world largely in terms of the bottom line, of profit and loss. Over the course of his business
career, he's encountered quite a few serious setbacks, the most serious of which was undoubtedly
his mercifully brief experience of captivity as a slave. All things considered, then, being
washed up alone on a desert islandespecially one that has everything he needs to surviveisn't
really that big of a deal to him. He's been in far worse situations before, yet has always
managed to come out on top in the end.

Crusoe's life experiences have given
him the kind of practical, down-to-earth mindset that he'll need if he's to survive in his new
environment. At the same time, it also makes him more than a tad complacent; at no point does he
acknowledge the hand of God in his good fortune, and for someone living in the seventeenth
century, that would've been unusual, to say the least. Thankfully, Crusoe snaps out of his
arrogance due to a dramatic religious conversion. From now on, he'll adopt a more humble
demeanor toward the world, even though there will still be many moral lapses along the bumpy,
treacherous path of righteousness.

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