1. Introduction

Defoe (1660～1731), British writer. Born in a merchant family in 1660, he died in poverty on April 26, 1731. In his early years, he was famous for writing political commentaries and satirical poems. He opposed feudal autocracy and advocated the development of capitalist industry and commerce. In his later years, he began to publish maritime adventure novels, picaresque novels and historical novels. The representative work "Robinson Crusoe" reflects the spirit of the rising bourgeoisie that requires freedom of personality, the development of personal talents, and the courage to take risks. Other novels include "Captain Singleton", "Moore Flanders", "Colonel Jack", "Diary of the Epidemic Year", "Rockchana", "Memories of a Knight", etc., all of which are popular among readers.

"Robinson Crusoe" is the most famous, written in 1719. The novel was inspired by a true story from that time. More than two hundred years ago, there was a Scotsman, Selkirk, who was working as a sailor on a British ship. He had a conflict with the captain and was abandoned by the captain on a desert island. He lived on the island for more than 4 years and was finally rescued and returned to the UK. Selkirk had no heroic deeds worthy of praise on the desert island, but the Robinson Crusoe portrayed by Defoe was a completely new man, becoming the first idealized image of the emerging bourgeoisie. The protagonist Robinson was shipwrecked in a storm and drifted to an isolated island. He lived there alone for 28 years. After going through many hardships and hardships, he not only provided for his daily needs, but also managed a fertile land. Robinson Crusoe was the entrepreneur of his time. The author uses this to praise the spirit of personal struggle of the bourgeoisie in its rising period. The plot of the novel is vivid, the details are realistic, the description is meticulous, the language is fluent, and it is full of profound philosophical and social significance. The author then wrote the second and third parts. The second part tells the story of Robinson Crusoe revisiting his old place, claiming to be the owner of the island, civilizing the islanders, and then going on adventures around the world, including China and Siberia. The third part is mostly moral preaching.

2. The famous saying in "Robinson Crusoe":

"All things in the world are most precious only if they are useful." If you accumulate a lot of anything, you should give it to others; the most we can enjoy is the part we can use, and more is useless.

It is useless for a person to just sit blankly and dream about what he cannot get.

I have learned to look more at the bright side of my life and less at the dark side; think more about the enjoyment I have received and less about the things I lack. This attitude comforts me deeply.

We always feel that something is missing and are not satisfied because we lack gratitude for what we have already received.

Under different circumstances, how changeable are human emotions! What we love today is often what we will hate tomorrow; what we pursue today is often what we will avoid tomorrow; what we hope for today is often what we fear tomorrow, and even make us tremble with fear.

How absurd and ridiculous are the decisions people make in fear! Reason provides them with various ways to protect themselves, but once fear takes over, they don't know how to use these methods!

Waiting for a catastrophe to come is more painful than the disaster itself, especially when there is no way to escape this disaster and you have to wait for it to come, and you can't get rid of this kind of fear.

3. Highlights about making pots:

I have long wanted to use some method to make some pottery. I urgently need this kind of thing, but I just don’t know how to do it. The climate here is hot, so I'm sure if you can find clay, you can make some bowls or jars and put them in the sun to dry. The hot sun will make the clay hard, strong, and durable. Can be used to hold some dry things that need to be preserved. To process grain and make flour, it is necessary to have containers for storage. Therefore, I decided to make the container as big as possible so that it can be placed on the ground and things can be stored inside.

If readers knew how I made these pottery, they would feel pitiful and ridiculous for me. I don’t know how many clumsy methods I have used to mix the clay, and how many weird and ugly things I have made; how many of them are not suitable for use because the clay is too soft and cannot bear its own weight, either concave or protruding; How many were cracked because they were exposed too early and the sun was too hot; how many were broken as soon as they were moved after being dried. In a word, I spent a lot of effort to find clay. When I found it, I dug it out, mixed it, transported it home, and then made it into a clay urn. As a result, I worked for almost two months to make two large earthen jars. They were so ugly that they couldn't even be called jars.

Finally, the sun finally dried these two large earthen pots very dry and hard. I gently lifted them up and put them into two large wicker baskets specially made in advance to prevent them from breaking. In the gap between the jar and the basket, straw and wheat straw were stuffed. Now, these two large vats will not get damp, and I think they can be used to hold grain and flour ground from grain in the future.

I didn’t succeed in making the big vat, but I made the small utensils decently, such as those small round jars, plates, jugs, small earthenware pots, etc. In short, I did everything as I pleased. The things they made were all pretty good, and due to the strong sunlight, these pots were very hard.

But I have not yet reached my ultimate goal. These containers can only be used to hold things, not liquids to burn on the fire, which is my real purpose. Some time later, I accidentally lit a big fire to cook something. After cooking, I went to put out the fire. Suddenly I found a fragment of pottery in the fire. It was as hard as stone and as red as brick. I was pleasantly surprised by this discovery. I said to myself, if you can burn broken pottery, you can certainly burn the whole pottery.

So I began to study how to control the firepower and burn a few pots for myself.

I certainly didn’t know how to build a kiln, like the ones the potters used to make their pots; nor did I know how to apply a glaze with lead, although I still had some lead. . I piled three large clay pots and two or three clay pots one on top of another, put firewood on all sides, and lit a large charcoal fire under the clay pots and clay pots. Then I lit a fire around and on the top, and kept it burning until The jars inside were red until they were red, and great care was taken not to let the fire crack them. I saw that after the pottery was burnt red, it continued to retain the heat for five or six hours. Later, I saw that although one of them was not broken, it had begun to melt. This was because the sand mixed in the clay was melted by the fire. If it were burned again, it would become glass. So I slowly reduced the heat, and the redness of those jars gradually receded. I guarded the fire all night to prevent the fire from receding too quickly.

The next morning, I made three very good earthenware pots and two earthenware pots. Although they are not beautiful, they are very hard; one of them was melted by the sand. , and a nice glaze.

After the success of this experiment, it goes without saying that I have no shortage of pottery. But I must say, the shape of these things is very unsightly. As you can imagine, since I have no way of making these things, I can only make them like a child making mud pies, or like a woman who doesn’t know how to make flour.