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The Spirit in Robinson Crusoe
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Robinson Crusoe is the masterpiece of Defoe, a famous British writer in the18th century, and the first novel in the history of English and even European literature. He described that robinson crusoe, a Scottish sailor, was determined to travel around the world, but was in distress on his way to Africa to sell slaves. Finally, with strong will and unremitting efforts, he lived alone on a desert island and developed it for another 28 years.

/kloc-The novel Robinson Crusoe by Defoe, a great English writer in the 8th century, has always been favored by readers in China. Not because of his literary language attainments, but because it profoundly broke the historical imprint of the old times and opened a new era. Defoe, the author, shows people a brand-new outlook on life and a state of existence. As a versatile writer, he has a sensitive insight into the trend of the times. He quickly grasps the pulse of the times and describes it to the world in a fictional way in time. He attached his soul to Crusoe, salvaged the words of capitalist blood and tears in the vast ocean, and carried out colonial crimes in his consciousness. Finally, he condensed these things into Robinson Crusoe to illustrate his capitalist utopian economic and social ideals. Now I will analyze this epic novel in detail from my personal point of view.

Robinson Crusoe explains to us the value of life: individuals pursue material wealth through hard work and regard it as the only content of life. In the story, Crusoe took the individual as the hull, was stimulated by the bait of "money desire", supported by Puritanism and economic individualism, and took wisdom as the sail, salvaging the black and white vague wealth in the ocean of survival alternating day and night, and tirelessly sailed to the end of life. This is exactly the picture of capitalists accumulating wealth, sin and living alone during the rising period of capitalism, and it is also what Marx said. Crusoe's Experience is a business magazine. He profoundly expressed the shrewd business attitude of the bourgeoisie with accurate and numerous figures. He never makes public, and he is never content with the status quo. He has amazing self-awareness and calm and rational self-control ability. It is this spirit of capitalism and its ability to breed capitalism that finally perfectly shapes the image of Crusoe as an bourgeois.

1. Capitalist spirit, economic individualism and economic rationalism

Despite the advice of his parents at home, Crusoe embarked on the road of adventure at sea and came to a foreign country, which experienced setbacks and success. Crazy and deep-rooted anxiety led him to sell slaves in the sea. In the end, he lived on an isolated island for 28 years. During these 28 years, he was completely dominated by himself and began a life centered on individuals. The author arranged for him to be a man and be unfilial. Rationalize Crusoe's setbacks again and again, so his diligence and piety are the first step of his "redemption". When his gratitude to God reaches the standard, God gives him a brilliant career, which is the second step. This is a complete epic of Christian life. In addition to the power of religion, there is also the courage to reshape one's personal life, the endurance to start a business bit by bit, the perseverance to work hard despite difficulties and obstacles, the wisdom to make tools for a refined life, and the teaching power of Christ. It combines five forces, shaping a perfect individual who is strong, brave, resolute, hardworking and intelligent. An omnipotent challenge desire ignites his good hope for survival and turns people into people in the process of his struggle.

Benjamin Franklin's famous saying, "Time is money, credit is money, and money can be regenerated, and those who treat money well are the owners of other people's wallets" (2), Crusoe has completely become a "worker employed by labor", regardless of the size and success of labor, only paying attention to the content of each labor, thus obtaining moral and spiritual satisfaction. Crusoe lost his mind, almost destroyed by fear and loneliness, and gradually became a "master" and "governor". During this period, what played a decisive role was the core doctrine of Puritanism in his heart-"The only way of life promised by God is not to ask people to surpass secular morality with asceticism, but to ask people to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations given by their position in the secular world." This is his bounden responsibility. He abandoned his family, married at will, and became a pure "labor madman", regardless of personal happiness. The most important spiritual outlook of Puritans is that they don't think that "the opportunity to earn more money is more attractive than the opportunity to work less". His amazing creativity and endurance are the initiative of the new middle class to people.

"I usually spend two days to see a piece of wood at the jaw sports meeting, and then spend one day driving it into the ground; It took me three or four months to work hard and finally built my fence; But when I went through all the hardships and completed the project, the canoe did not move, just like the boat I moved to ran aground on the beach, and all the hard work was lost. " His series of labor efforts on the isolated island, whether big or small or successful, all reflect the value of Puritan labor obligation theory. In the factory of the capitalist world, the work content is labor, the rules and regulations are Protestant teachings, and wages are the pleasure of "money desire" obtained in the process of collecting wealth in a tense and fast-paced life. At that time, the history was still a capitalist life state with no prevailing consumption enjoyment, and it was in the stage with production accumulation as the main purpose, just like the father who worked hard for his children in rural China, without the meticulous foresight of his children. There is only one religious belief motivation, "trying to accumulate is useful for children in the future." At this level, Crusoe's blind but meaningful labor is as valuable as those fathers.

Neo-Sect can be said to be a stage before the emergence of pure rationalism philosophy. Economic rationalization did not obey the rationalization of morality or even law, which was very obvious in Britain at that time. Crusoe exempted the traitors who should have been executed from the death penalty for the benefit he could bring to the island in the future, and taught them the life experience of managing the island like his father, leaving them gunpowder, guns, wine, food and so on. That he tolerated legal taboos for economic purposes. They were pardoned as a new king who ascended the throne, and were given the opportunity to survive again according to their own "economic development laws" and the opportunity to fulfill the Puritan vocation of labor. In this way, the moral law made a major concession to the economy, and economic individualism broke the traditionalism that imprisoned their development. This is also a prelude for the author to create a new economic order and a new social order with the help of Crusoe. Pursuing the maximum accumulation and appreciation of wealth and improving the efficiency of appreciation were the problems that the bourgeoisie racked their brains to think about at that time. They directly quoted the evaluation standard of good and evil to "economic profit", and a new value evaluation system was initially formed here. The violation of moral laws is placed under the mainstream premise of "obeying economic interests", and all wealth is supreme. As Marx Weber said, "the highest goodness of capitalism" is to try as much as possible. Ian Watt once said in The Rise of Fiction that "all the highest spiritual values are attached to the completion of daily work, so as his own master, he will regard his achievements as the next quasi-god uniform to the environment." ⑥ Crusoe gradually strengthened his strength and moved towards the quasi-god's self-evaluation position. When he got a parrot on an isolated island, he got a second name "Robinson Crusoe". He got the second name "Captain" when he saved "Friday" and the third name "Governor" when he saved the captain and the first mate. Some even called him "an angel sent by God". We can clearly hear his footsteps on the quasi-god throne, so he drew a colonial jurisdiction circle with individual as the center and personal ability as the radius. This is the author Defoe.

Step 2 Puritanism

Crusoe's attitude towards life and work, which ignores personal happiness and how to get paid in the most comfortable and labor-saving way, is not innate, but the result of long-term religious education. After living on an isolated island, Crusoe was very hungry. When he saw several wheat seedlings fluttering in front of him, he gradually felt the grace of God and gradually sprouted a pious wheat seedling's gratitude to God in his heart. In this way, two material and spiritual wheat seedlings laid a double foundation for his new life, and also heralded the emergence of the whole new middle class life mode. The moment Crusoe picked up the Bible to read, it also heralded the establishment of Protestantism in this era.

There are four bibles with profound connotations in the novel, which show the whole process of Crusoe's deepening the baptism of Christ. During his exile on a desert island, Crusoe found three well-preserved bibles from their shipwreck for the first time and brought them back to the island by the way. It seems that we can appreciate the significance of these three bibles here. The Bible here is the inheritance of Puritanism to the essence of Christianity and represents the blood of Puritanism. When he heard the gunshots, and then got twenty gallons of wine, a spatula, a poker, two copper pots, a copper pot and a grill, it was when Crusoe was reading the Bible that an elf recited a spell and got what he wanted, which was as magical as coincidence. This is the second time that the novel mentions the Bible at this stage, which is a gift from Crusoe. When the Bible is mentioned for the third time in the novel, when Crusoe is threatened by terror and disease and his life is dying, it seems that the author arranged a guest appearance of Satan, which is another punishment for Crusoe's "original sin" of being unfilial as a son, or the result of not being grateful to God because of his last gift. At this time, it was also the starting point for him to make up his mind to be more pious, echoing a sentence in the Bible, "Call me when you are in trouble, and I will come to save you." Defoe arranged an honest transaction between man and God, but Crusoe was not honest enough in this transaction, so God punished him for dishonesty after paying him the equivalent wealth in advance. "What really dominates a person is what makes him feel lonely no matter where he is." All landowners, Crusoe was afraid and lonely when reading the Bible, so Jesus Christ really dominated him at this time. There is also a market transaction between this kind of person and God in the novel. For example, the Portuguese captain saved Crusoe, gave him money and wealth, and helped him regain his life and development opportunities. The old captain was honest with God, so this time the captain got it in the deal with God. Defoe's attempt to bring the holy God into the economic market is bold, but capitalism does not determine Christianity. The relationship is that Christianity accompanies and promotes the development of capitalism with an irrational humanistic factor and a utilized cultural means. When the bourgeoisie realized this, they began to instill Puritanism in pagans and Catholics. When Crusoe faced "Friday" and "Spaniard", he took out his Bible and preached to God or himself. This is the fourth time that the Bible has appeared in novels at this stage. At this time, Crusoe was not only a Puritan, but also developed into an infectious missionary and officially entered.

Let's understand the internal relationship among people, religion and wealth in the novel: people pursue wealth, wealth tempts people's "desire for money", religious asceticism promotes the accumulation of wealth, religion is the spiritual motivation in the process of people's pursuit of wealth, which gives people spiritual enrichment, while wealth gives people material satisfaction, which is the deepest operating framework of the whole novel.

hypocritical

Marx Weber once had such a logical reasoning: "As long as honest appearance can achieve the same goal, appearance is enough, and it is obviously an ineffective waste to publicize this virtue unnecessarily." We can easily find the projection of this sentence on Crusoe. There are two places in the novel that can reflect this hypocrisy. One is his betrayal of Moore's young Xiurui. Xiao Xiurui is the child who escaped from the clutches of pirates with Crusoe. It can be said that he is Crusoe's benefactor. When Xiurui wanted to express his loyalty to Crusoe with his life, Crusoe decided to "love him from now on" and promised to cultivate him into a great man. However, when the Portuguese captain took out a considerable number of gold coins and wanted to buy Crusoe's potential moral order, he was forced to roll his eyes hesitantly and show a fairly honest appearance. Then, when the captain promised that "as long as the child converted to Christianity, he would set him free after ten years", he finally found a step down the conscience stage for the woman-like pity he didn't want to play. That little bit of honesty, apparent hesitation and reluctance, is enough to calm poor Xiurui's anger, so that this kind and virtue that is of practical use to individuals has brought Crusoe a lot of wealth. He used a superficial honesty to get cheap satisfaction and high real wealth from his conscience.