Complete Reality In Robinson Crusoe

‘Daniel Defoe produces an illusion of complete reality in Robinson Crusoe’. Examine this statement in light of your reading of Defoe’s novel.
I Wholly agree with the statement that ‘Daniel Defoe produces an illustration of complete reality in Robinson Crusoe’. ‘Complete reality’ is an important component in the novel and it has a pivotal role in the form of Robinson Crusoe. My essay will illustrate how Daniel Defoe effortlessly produces an illustration of ‘complete reality’ that is still relatable in the 21st century. Daniel Defoe expresses his realism to the reader through the first-person narrative, using specific dates and meticulous diary entries that depict his everyday struggles of being marooned on an island. My first paragraph will

From the start of the novel Crusoe the narrator describes his life by using ‘I’ “I was born in the year 1632” (Defoe, 1994, p. 4) This method of first person narrative makes the relationship between the reader and the narrator of the novel very close and creates a bond. Crusoe, the narrator is a part of the plot and is involved with the actions so he is the main focus of the novel as a reader you take Crusoe’s point of view and you do not question what you are being told as the narrator tells the novel in a convincing and veracious manner. As a reader, you believe that this is an ‘illustration of complete reality’ as you do not need to question the authenticity of the narrator as they are the one who has gone through the trials and tribulations in which they talk about it as it is unmediated communication. As an omniscient narrator, our appearance of reality is seen through their eyes. We share Crusoe’s judgement and emotions about characters and the events that happen throughout the novel. Defoe’s use of narrative realism is central in producing an’ illustration of complete reality’ according to Charles lamb “The Author never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be called, or rather auto-biographies) but the narrator chains us down to an implicit belief in everything he says” (Defoe, 1994, p. 269) . The rendering of Robinson Crusoe is a documentary and real that you cannot help but

Crusoe is in complete isolation from human contact the only thing that surrounds him now are the beasts that inhabit the Island. Crusoe must make do with what he has and fend for himself “The island is uninhabited by people. Crusoe is in complete isolation, save for the beasts around him, and thus is in a state of nature.” (Defoe, 1994 ) Throughout Crusoe’s time on the deserted island, it is a test of character as he is forced to learn skills that are a necessity in order for him to survive as he cannot just go to local shop to get food and clothes. Crusoe taught himself to become a carpenter, learned how to hunt beasts that inhabited the island, became a tailor and made his own clothes, created his own food source by planting corn and harvesting it, he learnt how to milk a goat and last but not least Crusoe learnt how to shape, fire and glaze pottery. Crusoe had the ability to re-create a miniature England on the shores of a mysterious barren land. Crusoe was a self-made man “Karl Marx used Crusoe's one-person domestic production as an allegory for economy” (Heitman, 2013) The daily hardship that Crusoe faced for all those years is plausible and perhaps a reality shock as a reader regardless if these hardships are fictional or not. Defoe concentrates his descriptions on Crusoe’s