A literature review
Robinson Crusoe is a movie based on a book that was directed by Rod Hardy and George T. Millers in 1997. It stars Pierce Brosnanin the role of Robinson Crusoe in one of Daniel Dafoe’s best pieces. The movie starts with a significant accident in Crusoe’s life that extends to the rest of the movie, which can be considered one of the main literary themes of the movie. Crusoe kills his friend Patrick over the love of his childhood Mary. Then he manages to escape after receiving threats from Patrick’s family, and after a decision he came up to with Mary to sooth up relations with his friend’s family. Away from the movie events, Daniel Dafoe tried to give an evidence of the rooted Original Sin in human nature actsthat tends to justify harmingone for the advantage of a group.
Dafoe tries to proof that his theory can’t go wrong even if a human was isolated from his surroundings that might be accused of being the catalyst that pushes humans of committing crimes. Thinking of Dafoe’s Christian religious beliefs, the whole movie can be an application of illustrationfor the Biblical Original Sin. Throughout the movie events, Crusoe settles down on an isolated Island, prepares shelter for himself and meets Friday, his new friend whom he saved.
Crusoe calls himself Master, and calls his new friend Friday. Friday tries to leave Crusoe when he finds out Master means slavery. Again, bothCrusoe and Friday are in the same shoes. They both escaped being killed, and tried to unify their efforts of creating a world of justice for themselves. However, Crusoe didn’t hesitate to call himself Master on his friend. Even though Friday is one of the native residents of the Island, and logical thinking states that Friday should be the Master, Crusoe tried to make advantage of his friend’s naivety.So Original Sin is there is every human act and relatively speaking, committing sins leads to punishment. This is what actually happened to Crusoe when Friday decided to leave him twice throughout the movie because of his unjustified behavior.
Crusoe and Friday unite their efforts again to escape the native tribe that is trying to sacrifice both of them. They both might not like to be friends if they were out in their real and normal lives; however, their common interest of being freed made them cooperate in order to save themselves. They succeed once in defending their Island against the natives, but unfortunately Crusoe gets shot by an arrow. Friday’s naivety implies that he should help his friend and take care of him until he becomes well and able to continue their way of escaping. Criticizing Friday’s act of helping Crusoe get better, a critical question about original sin rises up. Is original sin originated only in those who live out in a busy life?, or what was the reason that made Friday help Crusoe while he knows Crusoe had intentions of calling him a slave. Probably it’s the desperate need of help to survive that made Friday sacrifice his freedom and humanity.
Crusoe and Friday fail sailing away because of a tough typhoon that hit their boat, and they get caught by the native tribe that was chasing them. The native tribe had a preceded intention of sacrificing Friday. Possibly sacrificing Crusoe was of no ritual and traditional meaning to their tribe’s traditions as he is an intruder. They ask them to fight and one should kill the other to win his own freedom and life. Expectedly, Crusoe kills Friday! Regardless all the good deeds Friday has made to him, Crusoe had to kill Friday.
Original Sin is sometimes pushed on people. At this point of the movie lots of previously made assumptions about Original Sin might change. Sometimes yes it’s the fault of humans that is linked to Original Sin. However, there is a chance that Original Sin is merely the act of reacting to nature. Crusoe might have not wanted to kill Friday at any point, but he was pushed to do so. On the other side, Friday might have had to do the same to escape and save his life. Both of them were just trying to do the same act, but perhaps none of them had the intention of killing. Hereby, considering the circumstances that surrounded this crime, and differentiating between intentional Original Sin and imposed Original Sin makes difference. Even though both Sins lead to the same catastrophic result, there should be an explanation of reasons that pushed Crusoe to do so, but not an excuse.
Here comes the conclusion of a rooted internal conflict throughout Christian history about Original Sin. It is sometimesimplied by the surrounding circumstances, and some other times it is an intentionala human act. Robinson Crusoe is a well given example to highlight how the human nature reacts with the originally existed sin. It could; however, be an outcome of merely personal experiences of the author himself.
Resources:
Kohl Linsberg. “Literary analysis: Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe”. The Helium Guide. 21 March, 2007. http://www.helium.com/items/224017-literary-analysis-crusoe-in-robinson-crusoe-by-daniel-defoe
