"I Call Him Friday": The Epitome of the "Noble Savage" in Robinson Crusoe

One of the most important relationships that exist in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is that between Crusoe and Friday, the "savage" who becomes Crusoe's companion during his last few years on the island. Yet, notice that although I have termed Friday as being Crusoe's "companion,' I am using it in the strictest sense of the word. The use of the broader definition would imply the presence of comradery or the Christian idea of "Brotherly Love." To use this definition is impossible. One cannot truly love another as a brother when that other person is one's slave, which Friday apparently is. After all, Friday is not even worthy enough to call Crusoe by any other name but "Master." Not only is Friday a slave, but he fits into the category of the "Noble Savage," the cannibal that can be taught and trained how to be acceptable in Crusoe's world. Crusoe even presents Friday's physical appearance in a manner acceptable to his readers: he makes him seem European. Crusoe states that:
He had a very good countenance, not a fierce and surly aspect, but seemed to have something very manly in his face, and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of an European in his countenance too, especially when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled like wool; his forehead very high and large; ... The color of his skin was not quite black, but very tawny; and yet not of an ugly yellow, nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and Virginians ... but of a bright kind of a dun olive colour that had in it something very agreeable, though not very easy to describe. His face was round and plump; his nose small, not flat like the Negroes', a very good mouth, thin lips, and his fine teeth well set, and white as ivory (Defoe, 203).
Crusoe "alters" Friday's appearance. Yes, his hair is black, but it is not curled like wool. Have no fear, no low brow here! He's "not quite" black -- he's TAWNY--tanned by the sun, and his facial features do not represent those of the Negroes either. Now that we have proven how physically acceptable Friday is, let us look at some of the even more "pleasing" aspects of his attitude.

Friday (if that's what your name really is) is a very complying man. He is given "truths" by Crusoe which he readily accepts. A perfect example can be found in the title of the nineteenth chapter--"I Call Him Friday." Yes, and that is just how it is: It is not "His Name is Friday" or "The Closest That I Can Come to Pronouncing His Tribal Name is Friday." Crusoe gives the name to the man, and the man does not object (at least as far as we know from what Crusoe tells us).

But, is this not how Crusoe deals with every barrier in their relationship? The way that things are to be done is Crusoe's way, not anyone else's. Crusoe teaches Friday English, but does learn any of Friday's language. Crusoe does not point to a goat and say "This is a goat" and then signal to Friday to say what it is called in his language. Crusoe points to a goat and says "This is a goat-- end of discussion." Crusoe even clothes Friday in his way. Crusoe's reason for the donning of clothes was that the sun shone too brightly on his unprotected white skin. Yet, Crusoe cannot let go of the social convention that one cannot go running around half naked--only SAVAGES do that. Friday is obviously comfortable and "protected" by his "tawny" skin in this environment, but Crusoe dresses him anyway in accordance with European convention.

An important aspect that Crusoe replaces of Friday's is his religion. He converts Friday to Christianity with the same explanation that are used by missionaries--that of Providence:
... I had not only been moved myself to look up to Heaven and to seek to the Hand that had brought me there, but was now to be made an instrument under Providence to save the life of, for aught I knew, the soul of a poor savage, and bring him to the true knowledge of religion, and of the Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus, to know who is life eternal ... (Defoe, 217)
As expected, Friday is only too willing to embrace his master's beliefs. He does so well that Crusoe even remarks on how "The savage was now a good Christian, a much better than I..." (Defoe, 217). But, perhaps the most important thing that Crusoe does (and the thing that I find the most terrible) is that he does not even see Friday's needs as relevant enough to mention. The best example of this is when they leave the island before Friday's father and the other shipwrecked European sailors return from Friday's island (Defoe, Chs.23,24). Crusoe never even stops to think of how this will affect Friday, and we never hear of Friday's opinion on the subject. I find it very hard to believe that he would forget about his father out of his "love" for his master, especially when we are shown how emotional he becomes upon finding his father on the island (Defoe, Ch.21).

Thus, I have a problem believing that all of Friday's compliancy to Crusoe is done out of love. I believe that there is an aspect of fear working as well. Let us go back to the scene in which Crusoe saves Friday from his captors. Crusoe states that:
The poor savage who fled, but had stopped, though he saw both his enemies fallen and killed, as he thought, yet was so frightened with the fire and noise of my piece, that he stood stock still and neither came forward or went backward, though he seemed rather inclined to fly still than to come on; I holloed again to him, and made signs to come forward, which he easily understood, and came a little way, then stopped again, ..and I could then perceive that he stood trembling, as if he had been taken prisoner, and had just been to be killed, as his two enemies were (Defoe, 200).
In a book entitled Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World, the author, Stephen Greenblatt, discusses how 11 ... the experience of the marvelous, central to both art and philosophy, was manipulated by Columbus and others to the service of colonial appropriation" (Greenblatt). One of Greenblatt's central themes and concerns is that of "wonder" and its effect. He states that:
A moderate measure of wonder is useful in that it calls attention to that which is "new or very different from what we formerly knew, or from what we supposed that it ought to be" and fixes it in the memory, but an excess of wonder is harmful, Descartes thought, for it freezes the individual in the face of objects whose moral character, whose capacity to do good or evil, has not yet been determined. That is, wonder precedes, even escapes, moral categories. When we wonder, we do not yet know if we love or hate the object at which we are marveling; we do not know if we should embrace it or flee from it(Greenblatt, 20).
The above citation expresses the predicament that Friday is in when he is saved by Crusoe. He is left in awe by the power of Crusoe's gun. Even Crusoe himself states that "... that which astonished him most was to know how I had killed the other Indian so far off ..." (Defoe, 201). To Friday, this is something that cannot be believed without going over to the man and seeing the bullet hole for himself. He stands like " ... one amazed, looking at him, turned him first on one side, then on t'other..." (Defoe, 201).

This reaction of Friday's parallels once again with Greenblatt when he states that:
Wonder--thrilling, potentially dangerous, momentarily immobilizing, charged at once with desire, ignorance, and fear--is the quintessential human response to what Descartes calls a "first encounter" (p.358). Such terms, which recur in philosophy from Aristotle through the seventeenth century, made wonder an almost inevitable component of the discourse of discovery, for by definition wonder is an instinctive recognition of difference, the sign of a heightened attention, "a sudden surprise of the soul," as Descartes puts it (p. 362), in the face of the new. The expression of wonder stands for all that cannot be understood, that can scarcely be believed. It calls attention to the problem of credibility and at the same time insists upon the undeniability, the exigency of the experience (Greenblatt, 20).
I feel that Crusoe's "power" cannot be believed by Friday because he has no explanation for it. For all he knows, Crusoe could be a god. I feel that Friday bows to Crusoe not only out of love for saving his life, but out of the fear that Crusoe can take it away as mysteriously as he did the lives of his captors.

So could it, be possible that Crusoe has misinterpreted the "signs" that Friday has given him? or, at least, misinterpreted the motives behind them? Crusoe states that:
... I smiled at him and looked pleasantly and beckoned to him to come still nearer; at length he came close to me, and then he kneeled down again, kissed the ground, and laid his head upon the ground, and taking me by the foot, set my foot upon his head: this, it seems, was in token of swearing to be my slave forever (Defoe, 200).
According to Greenblatt, "... charades or pantomimes depend upon a shared gestural language that can take the place of speech" (Greenblatt, 89) . Even though I too saw Friday's bowing as an act of subservience, I thought of a couple of different meanings that it could have. It could have meant "I am indebted to you forever" or "I will love you forever." Owing someone your life does not necessarily mean that you are to be their "slave forever," as Crusoe seems to believe. Crusoe never once considers that Friday could be his "friend forever." He cannot even think of a non-European in those terms.

Thus, I apply the term of "Noble Savage" to Friday, as represented by Crusoe. Is that not the perfect way of presenting Friday to his readers without causing their dismay? Is not the "Christianizing" of Friday also one of Crusoe's crowning achievements on the island? Another one of his projects to keep his mind off of things? This may be so, but we will never know for sure because we have never seen anything from Friday's point of view. After all, everything else is done Crusoe's way or it is not done at all--so why should the telling of this story be any different?


Works Cited

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Signet Classic: New York, 1960.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. University of Chicago, 1991.

Robinson Crusoe--"True" or "Convenient" Convert?

Often, one finds oneself in a difficult situation. Many times, the situation ia entirely caused by the individual, and therefore, easily understood. However, situations often arise that are not easily explainable. It is in these situations that many turn to religion for answers. Using religion to solve, or help solve problems, though, does not necessarily entail a "true conversion." Oftentimes, the individual becomes a transient or "convenient convert," whose faith lasts for the duration of the problem, and no longer. In Daniel Defoe's eighteenth century novel, Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe is faced with many problems. These problems force Crusoe to look to God for help. The reader is left to decide, though, as to whether Crusoe undergoes a "true" religious conversioin or whether he simply becomes "conveniently religious."

 

Crusoe makes his religious "conversion" while shipwrecked on a desolate island and mired in the throes of an ague. Upon awakening from a sleep, Crusoe recollects and reflects upon his past wicked life. Crusoe decides his detainment on the island is God's punishment for his past foolish life in which he had "not... the least sense ... of the fear of God in danger or of thankfulness to God in deliverances." Crusoe then remembers his father's warning that if he embarked on his "seaward journeys" God would not bless him. Realizing that he had rejected God's counsel in his father's advice, Crusoe says his first prayer,"Lord be my help, for I am in great distress." This marks the beginning of Crusoe's religious life, in which he draws hope for, his deliverance from the island.

 

Crusoe's faith in God has a positive function in his life on the deserted island. He Found hope in the words of God, manifested in his Bible. "Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me," are the words of Crusoe"s inspiration. Hope of deliverance gives Crusoe a reason to live. Instead of despairing about his situation, Crusoe, with the hope of eventual deliverance in the back of his mind, is able to make the best of his situation on the island. He puts his energy to use, instead of gloating about his situation, and he is able to "furnish himself with many things" by using raw materials an the island. On a deeper level, Crusoe's faith in God provided him with something even more urgently needed than hope.

 

Faith in God gave Crusoe a means through which to communicate his thoughts. Granted, God is an abstract entity, but God is an abstraction that requires belief or imagination, in order to exist as an abstraction. Through the communication of ideas and hopes, coupled with the mind power that was needed in order to conceptualize God, Crusoe's mind was therefore kept active. God kept Crusoe from insanity. Without God, Crusoe's loneliness probably would have "driven him over the edge." Crusoe's faith in God then, not only provided him with hope for deliverance, but God also functioned as an intangible "something" that functioned as a replacement for a tangible "Communicator" (person).

 

Crusoe's faith is dealt a severe blow, however, when Robinson discovers a man's footprint on the beach of "his" island. Fear raged through Crusoe's mind at the sight of the footprint. He wondered if the devil had contrived the image of a human's foot in order to scare him. Then, when reason sets in, Crusoe decides that the footprint must be the remnant of a cannibal tribe's visit to the island. He was terrified of the cannibals! In wake of this new found fear, Crusoe says:

..Fear banished all my religious hope, all that former confidence in God, which was founded upon such wonderful experience as I had of His goodness, now vanished.

Crusoe's faith seems to be "paper thin" here, and one must wonder about the validity of his conversion. Then, however, Crusoe accepts the "invasion" of his island as just punishment from God. Crusoe decides that "'twas my unquestioned duty to resign myself ...to His will; ... and my duty to hope...pray...and attend to the dictates...of His providence."

 

Crusoe's resignation to the will of God does not necessarily mean that he has truly converted. His resignation could be interpreted as a final desperate effort to placate God. Crusoe certainly didn't want to anger God any more than he had already. Maybe Crusoe saw the foot-print as a temptation to abandon his faith (he already intimated the workings of the devil in creating the footprint). Therefore,when he resigns himself to God's will, Crusoe might be simply saying, "God, I don't want to anger you anymore, if you're even listening, and I'll accept this as part of my fate." Also, by accepting the footprint, and the possibility of "foreign cannibalistic invasion," as a work of God, and part of his fate, Crusoe frees himself from having to take any action. Once Crusoe resigns himself to God, he is happy, signifying a great load (worry, fear) having been lifted off his shoulders.

 

The next time that Crusoe uses his moral reasoning is not long after he sights the footprint on the beach. One day, Crusoe finds the beach littered with human bones, obviously the remnants of a cannibal feast. Crusoe abhors this sight, forgets about the cannibal's presence as being God's punishment for him, and decides to put an end to the cannibalistic feasting. He sets about making elaborate plans to murder some of the cannibals, all of them if necessary. Then however, Crusoe decides that he has no "authority ... to be judge and executioner" of the savages. Crusoe reasons that the cannibals had committed what he decided were crimes for so long and had gone unpunished by God so that HE the sinner)" had no right to harm them. This may signify the birth of Crusoe's morality, for the remainder of his detainment on the island. Through Friday, Crusoe fulfills an unwritten obligation to God. The words upon which Crusoe made his initial conversion, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me," function as an agreement between God and Crusoe. Crusoe needed a companion and God furnished Friday. Crusoe responded to this by glorifying God's name to Friday; he converted Friday to Christianity.

 

This "contract" is merely a symbolic interpretation. Crusoe never explicitly mentions the already mentioned words of God as the motive for Friday's conversion, nor does he cite a contractual obligation to God. Maybe the fact that Crusoe DOESN'T mention an obligation or contract signifies that Crusoe actually DID undergo a very strong religious conversion while he was detained on the island. Now, perhaps Crusoe considers glorifying God "matter-of-fact." At any rate, Crusoe did convert Friday to Christianity and this conversion seems to have rested favorably with God. Not too long after, Friday is converted. God "delivers" Crusoe home, after Robinson had spent thirty-five years detained on the island.

 

Crusoe's behavior when he returns home is a testament of his religious ambivalence. It is evident that Crusoe is a changed man. However, he doesn't really attribute his change to God. As a matter of fact, God seems to have become a secondary factor in his life. Crusoe affirms his belief in God, and won't be shaken from his belief. This is evident in his selling of his plantation in Brazil. He sold it because he feared religious persecution. Brazil was in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition, and Crusoe had no intentions of converting from Protestant to Roman Catholicism in order to escape the Inquisition. Here, one sees Crusoe's belief in God, but what does this belief mean?

 

Does his belief mean faith and devotion to God? It appears not. When Crusoe arrives in England, he doesn't go to Church to thank God for his safe homecoming. He rather inquires about his financial situation. Crusoe is generous when he returns to England(he supports the widow), but how much of this generosity does Crusoe attribute to God's workings? None. Crusoe's "generosity motives" are clearly secular. He responds to kindness. Crusoe's actions aren't controlled by spiritual obligations. In short, it seems that Crusoe has gained a true, underlying belief in God through his experiences on the island, but that this belief becomes secondary to his own life once his detainment on the island is over.

 

Now, can one term Crusoe a "true convert"? Before he was detained on the island, Crusoe had no belief or fear of God. During his detainment on the island however, Crusoe "finds" God, and returns to England with a belief in God. In this sense, one can say that Crusoe has converted. Whereas he had no belief in God before he was detained on the island, Crusoe returns with a very strong belief, a belief that even caused him to sell his rich plantation. How far does this belief take Crusoe though? On the island, Crusoe set aside parts of every day in order to pray to God. Back in England however, Crusoe hardly communicates with God at all. By the end of the novel, the reader sees Crusoe returning to his old self. He ignores the warnings of the old widow and sets out to find "his" island. Even with a belief in God, then, Crusoe is ruled by impulse.

 

One can conclude then that Crusoe experienced a "partial" conversion. He is a convert in the sense that he at least gained a belief in God while detained on the island, but this is where the conversion ends. The remainder of the faith that Crusoe displayed while on the island evaporated once he returned back home. His faith on the island was convenient. Crusoe, in this case, is the epitome of the "convenient convert." His great faith and devotion to God expired once his problematic situation was alleviated. The combination of Crusoe's belief, but shallow faith in God, then, makes him a "Partial convert."

Religious Allegory in Robinson Crusoe

Apart from being an exciting account of a man’s adventures on an uninhabited island, the book, “Robinson Crusoe” has been found to possess a profound allegorical significance. For many, perhaps most readers, Crusoe's many references to God, to Providence, to sin are extraneous to the real interest of the novel. Readers through the nineteenth century read Robinson Crusoe in the light of religion. For example, a reviewer for the Dublin University Magazine called the book "a great religious poem, showing that God is found where men are absent" (1856). In deciding whether or to what extent Robinson Crusoe is a spiritual autobiography and "a great religious poem," one might consider the following:

In the "Preface," Defoe announces that his intention is "to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances" (xv).

Moreover, Robinson Crusoe can be viewed from two levels: 01. Theological and 02. Practical level. If we see from the Theological level, we will find that man's extreme aspiration is the cause of sin. As we see in “Paradise Lost” by John Milton that Adam and Eve were banished from the Heaven because of their aspirations and disobedience to God, here in the same was Crusoe is thrown on an uninhabited island because of disobedience towards his father.

Crusoe receives warnings against the rashness of going to sea from his father and from the captain of the first ship he sails on. Both are figures of authority and can be seen as proxies for God. In ignoring their warnings, he is also denying God's providential social order in the world. By "God's providential social order in the world" I mean that God arranged the world hierarchically, endowing the king with authority in the political realm and the father with authority in the family.

Crusoe's conversation with his father about leaving home can be interpreted from a religious perspective. Crusoe repeatedly refers to leaving home without his father's permission as his "original sin"; he not only associates God and his father but regards his sin against his father as a sin against God also. Remembering his first voyage, Crusoe comments: "...my conscience, which was not yet come to the pitch of hardness to which it has been since, reproached me with the contempt of advice and the breach of my duty to God and my Father" (5). In the Puritan family structure, the father was regarded as God's deputy; in rejecting his father's advice, Crusoe is committing Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience. For Crusoe, as for Adam, and Eve, disobedience grows out of restlessness and discontent with the station God assigned.

When Crusoe is cast ashore on a deserted island, he sees his situation as the fulfillment of his father's prediction that if Crusoe disregarded his advice, Crusoe would find himself alone with no source of help. As his father said with a little sigh, “That boy might be happy if he would stay at home; but if he goes abroad, he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born”. Alone on the island, Crusoe is Everyman, alienated from God because of sin.

One way of reading Robinson Crusoe is as a spiritual autobiography. The spiritual biography/autobiography portrays the Puritan drama of the soul. Concerned about being saved, having a profound sense of God's presence, seeing His will manifest everywhere, and aware of the unceasing conflict between good and evil, Puritans constantly scrutinized their lives to determine the state of their souls and looked for signs of the nature of their relationship with God (i.e., saved or not). The spiritual autobiography usually follows a common pattern: the narrator sins, ignores God's warnings, hardens his heart to God, repents as a result of God's grace and mercy, experiences a soul-wrenching conversion, and achieves salvation. The writer emphasizes his former sinfulness as a way of glorifying God; the deeper his sinfulness, the greater God's grace and mercy in electing to save him. He reviews his life from the new perspective his conversion has given him and writes of the present and the future with a deep sense of God's presence in his life and in the world. Here we also find the touch of spiritual autobiography.

Crusoe throughout uses religious language, imagery, and Biblical references (he quotes 20 passages from the Bible). Crusoe narrates his life story long afterward, and from the beginning of his tale Crusoe presents events not only from his point of view as a youth but also from a Christian perspective; he looks at his past through the eyes of the convert who now constantly sees the working of Providence. He tells of his first shipwreck and of his then ignoring what he now perceives as God's warning, "... Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to leave me entirely without excuse. For if I would not take this for a deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened wretch among us would confess both the danger and the mercy" (7). And he found “the secret hints and notices of danger" (244)

After his dream and the beginning of his regeneration, Defoe reviews his life (89-94) and his understanding and sense of God deepen. But reason alone is not sufficient to result in conversion, and Crusoe turns to the Bible; studying it reveals God's word and will to him, and he finds comfort, guidance, and instruction in it. For the first time in many years he prays, and he prays, not for rescue from the island, but for God's help, "Lord be my help, for I am in great distress" (88). After thinking about his life, he kneels to God for the first time in his life and prays to God to fulfill his promise "that if I called upon Him in the day of toruble, He would deliver me" (91). His next step toward conversion is asking for God's grace, "Jesus, Thou Son of David, Jesus, Thou exalted Prince and Saviour, give me repentance!" (93). He comes to realize that spiritual deliverance from sin is more important than physical deliverance from the island. A little later, when he is about to thank God for bringing him to the island and so saving him, he stops, shocked at himself and the hypocrisy of such a statement. Then he "sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes, by whatever afflicting providences, to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my wickedness, and repent" (110). This incident indicates that Crusoe's faith is fervent and honest.

In short we can say that Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” is a great religious allegory. This shows the inner conflict of Crusoe and portrays the Puritan drama of the soul. This follows the pattern of “Sin → Punishment → Realization → Redeem → Salvation”. …………………