Ar iana Buchanan
Car rie Alano
AP Language IV
30 September 2014
ORA # 1 –Robinson Crusoe
In the novel How To Read Literature Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster , ther e ar e many differ ent str ategies for analyzing and identifying meanings within liter ary wor ks. Some of these tactics fr om Thomas C. Foster’ s book can be put to use when r eading the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe is nar rated by the main char acter and pr otagonist, Robinson Cr usoe. This nar rative r eveals the cur ious and explor ator y natur e that Cr usoe possesses. Cr usoe is tor n between choosing the life that his par ents want for him, and fulfilling what he’ s always dr eamed of. While his par ents push for him to cr eate a br ight futur e for himself and study law, Cr usoe longs to be a sailor . Robinson Crusoe is an obvious quest filled with multiple political and biblical symbols.
While Cr usoe’ s entir e adventur e is somewhat of a “ r eligious ”quest, the most apparent emblem of Cr usoe’ s new found values is the cr oss that he built on the island. Although this would be an obvious tie to Jesus Chr ist’ s per secution in a typical r eligious adventur e, it is per verted by Cr usoe’ s nar cissism. Rather than following the guidelines fr om How To Read Literature Like A Professor on biblical symbolism, Robinson Crusoe r eveals another char acter istic about the main char acter thr ough this deviance fr om the nor m. Cr usoe began to idolize himself and r ecognize the sacr ifices he has made instead of honor ing GOD with what he has.
Buchanan 2
Another analytical str ategy that Thomas C. Foster pr esents is how to find and inter pr et political symbols within a cer tain text. In Cr usoe’ s case, political and biblical symbols can be ver y closely tied. Cr usoe’ s nar cissistic and power -lusting behavior can contr ibute to both str ategies. The mentality that he adopts r egar ding himself is that he is the r uler of this land and all the people in it. This is to show that r ulers of any countr y or land somewhat adopt this mentality as well because it is a natur al human thought pr ocess- to be dominant. Cr usoe makes his views
