AS SEEN IN:
'The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe'
CREATED BY:
Daniel Defoe
PORTRAYED BY:
Robert Hoffman
Lee Payant (Voice)
TV STATUS:
Recastaway Castaway (Original)
TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time
From Wikipedia:
"Robinson Crusoe" is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in
1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional
autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)—a
castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad,
encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being
rescued.
Although commonly referred to as simply "Robinson Crusoe", the
book’s complete, original title as it appears on the title page of the first
edition is "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of
York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited
Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque;
Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but
himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by
Pirates."
Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name
"Kreutznaer") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in August
1651, against his parents' wishes, who want him to pursue a career, possibly in
law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his lust
for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too,
ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates (the Salé Rovers) and
Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy
named Xury; a Captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues
him. The ship is en route to Brazil. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a
plantation.
Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to bring slaves from
Africa but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an
island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco
river on September 30, 1659. Only he and three animals, the captain's dog and
two cats, survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools,
and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a
fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden
cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and ones he
makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins,
learns to make pottery, and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He
reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which
nothing is missing but human society.
More years pass and Crusoe discovers
native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners.
At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes
he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He
dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a
prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the
day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to
Christianity.
An English ship appears; mutineers have commandeered the vessel
and intend to maroon their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain
strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the
ship and leave the worst mutineers on the island. Before embarking for England,
Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there
will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island 19 December 1686 and arrives
in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a
result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to
reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth.
In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England to avoid travelling
by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route, they endure one last adventure
together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.
One
difference between the series and the original book is that the series takes
place in the year 1697, forty years later than the book. The fact that the
series is dubbed doesn't detract from it being the official version of Earth
Prime-Time.
BCnU!
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