Robinson Crusoe, the illusion of self-sufficiency

Autonomy and complete freedom of action - strategic credo Robinson. In this he is close to us, we tend to withdraw into themselves, and our social existence is built around a private life, family, friends.

Robinson Crusoe, the illusion of self-sufficiency

I think our generation (I was born in 1951) and those who are younger, unlike previous generations, "Robinson Crusoe" is not stuffed in a primary school. It was more common name than a literary character. So Daniel Defoe novel I read only after school. Reading was not a revelation to me - rather, it confirmed my expectations. The fact that Robinson Crusoe - a character so rastirazhirovanny that everyone knows about it even before the time to read the novel. "Most people do not remember when they first heard about Robinson - wrote the English novelist Jane Garda. - He has always been. " In addition, this mythical (rather than literary) hero anticipates in many devices of our modern world. This figure expresses the ambivalent position of the representative of urban civilization, which attracts the society and who, nevertheless, it runs away from him. In addition to a desert island Robinson went to another and absolutely free time, living in its sole discretion, is the rhythms of social life. Is this not the dream of many of us? And while on their return Crusoe thinks his constant desire to leave the island "real disease", the realization of this fact does not make the same desire less strong. But he is just as eager to return and - like the rich merchants, ever moved from town to village and back, which saw Defoe in London. Attractive and repulsive, free and self-centered, Crusoe - very ambivalent teacher of life, as, indeed, and its creator.

His date

  • 1632: in York (UK) was born literary character Robinson Crusoe.
  • 1659: he swims in Africa and as a result of the shipwreck is on an uninhabited island near Chile.
  • 1660: Born in London by Daniel Defoe. Before you go into politics and become a writer, he will be engaged in trade.
  • 1686: Robinson found; he returned to England.
  • 1695: he comes to his island for twenty-five days.
  • 1704: sailor Alexander Selkirk as a result of a quarrel with the captain planted on an uninhabited island of the archipelago of Juan Fernandez near Chile, where he spent five years. He became the prototype of Robinson.
  • 1719: Defoe published a book, "The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York", followed by five more novels.
  • 1731: the death of Daniel Defoe.

About the Author

Jean-Didier Urbain (Jean-Didier Urbain) - an anthropologist, sociologist, professor at the University of Paris to them. Rene Descartes, the author of travel books.

The keys to understanding the


Robinson Crusoe, while a craftsman, a farmer and cattle breeder, who lives on the island - an example of successful implementation of self-sufficiency, understood as economic isolation, and as personal independence from the outside world. This utopia fascinated by Rousseau and Jules Verne, but Karl Marx subjected her to harsh criticism that was addressed and economist David Ricardo with his "Robinson Crusoe" and utopian socialists Fourier and Owen: a weak point of their theories of Marx considered illusory autonomy on a dream based on self-sufficiency and on the denial of social realities. In Robinson has something of Club Med Systems, says the writer Michel Tournier. The success of this formula relax with a variety of "settlements" for tourists is largely due to the fact that the holidays can entertain the illusion of a common (communal) life.

His range of

"I have nothing not tolerate flaws, EXCEPT HUMAN SOCIETY".

How does Crusoe to other people? His failure to communicate with savages anticipates the current practice of disengagement from public life. I would argue: what then is the faithful Friday? But Robinson quickly ceases to perceive it as an independent personality, leaving him only a "feature" companion in misfortune. Crusoe does not need so much in society as in the company, which he would choose himself. The same thing happens with the space: Robinson did not adapt to the land where it skidded fate. Instead, he seeks to bring it in line with their values ​​and beliefs. The desire to always be at home turns into a denial of everything alien and unfamiliar.

The duality of

While Rousseau, this radical follower Robinson, prefer privacy, Robinson himself is staggering. He flashed the thought to get away from the coast - the only place where contact with people - and settle in the interior of the island. In the end, he chooses the shore and swim back to England. But he'll be back. The two men concluded Robinson: one committed to social life, the second - to the world that belongs to him alone. His choice - not to make a choice; he chose a lifestyle that Londoners times Defoe considered alternative. Today, this "ubiquity" has become quite commonplace: just look at the car flows, migrating out of town for the weekend, and the fashion for different types of "second home".


  • Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", Amphora, 2010.
  • Michel Tournier "Friday, Pacific or limb", Amphora, 1999.
  • Boris Vasilevsky "Russian Robinson, or" would run it all ... "Friendship of Peoples, 2000, number 5.