“a View to the Sea”

Robinson Crusoe was published in London in the heyday of international trade and discovery. It grants its reader a glimpse of a world that changed English nationality and economy profoundly, which world was, paradoxically, very unreal and faraway. As Crusoe’s world of trade was both central and unimaginable to the modern Englishperson, the popularity of a novel that spelled out the particulars in great detail was destined to be popular. Robinson Crusoe’s popularity was not simply limited to would-be sailors or commerce men, but was gobbled up by free-spirited and curious boys, girls, mothers, and fathers alike.

One of the appeals to the novel must have been the sheer number of things connecting Defoe’s audience with the strange shipwrecked sailor. As Crusoe is rescuing goods from the wrecked ship in the story’s beginning, he provides itemized lists of what he’s bringing back. He lists construction items: “nails and spikes,” “hatchets,” “and…that most useful Thing call’d a Grindstone” (41). He lists homemaking items: “a Hammock, and some Bedding” (41), “Bread, Rice, three Dutch Cheeses, five Pieces of dry’d Goat’s Flesh…and European Corn” (38). He lists hunting items: “Fowling-pieces,” “two Pistols,” “two old rusty Swords” (38). He lists hygiene items: “two or three Razors,” “one Pair of Sizzers,” and “ten or a Dozen of good Knives and Forks” (43). He lists literary devices: “Pens, Ink, and Paper” (48); navigational tools: “three or four Compasses, some Mathematical Instruments, Dials, Perspectives, Charts, and Books of Navigation” (48); and, religious material: “three very good Bibles…and some Portuguese books” (48). And, finally, he lists money: “Thirty six Pounds value in Money, some European Coin, some Brasil, some Pieces of Eight, some Gold, some Silver” (43). In a word, Defoe draws his audience into his story through the material things that surround both them and Crusoe. The items which sit quietly on a shelf in a reader’s London home, which are also existant in Crusoe’s world, become portals to access and identify with the faraway foreign island and the everyday life of the unruly, ‘unrepentant’ sailor.

As such, the things in Robinson Crusoe take on a certain doubleness: always both foreign, outside their normal contexts, and keys to retaining that context. This is most clearly seen with Crusoe’s mention of the money he finds in his wrecked ship. “O Drug!” he laments upon discovering the ship’s store of gold. “What art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no not the taking off of the Ground; one of those Knives is worth all this Heap” (43). And yet, though money is utterly worthless to him, he, “on Second Thought…[takes] it away” with him to the island (43). Though money has no value to him on the island, he cannot leave it behind. It has value in his old world—the world Crusoe wants to return to; and, further, in the sphere of the novel, money has value to the novel’s reader, and thus serves as a connector to the utterly foreign world of the island. The hope is, of course, that one day, if it is kept, the money will be of value once again, as Crusoe reunites with his homeland—a connection that, though hard to fathom, bridges the gap between his alien world, and a comfortable London reading chair.

By way of ending, the same sort of double consciousness occurs in this section as Crusoe mulls over the things he needs for survival. He lists: “1^st. Health, and fresh Water…2dly. Shelter from the Heat of the Sun, 3dly. Security from ravenous Creatures, whether Men or Beasts, 4thly. A View to the Sea, that if God sent any Ship in Sight, I might not lose any Advantage for my Deliverance” (44). The first three things in the list—health, shelter, and security—are natural survival concerns. The fourth—“a view to the sea”—is the outlier. Though it may seem fruitless for a sailor, so obviously cut off from humanity (at this point), to be able to spot another ship, let alone attract her attention, Crusoe’s determination to always keep looking is vital—indeed, as important as basic physical needs. It is the hope that this “view to the sea” grants him that separates him from a human being simply surviving on a deserted island, to a civilized being stranded for a time. And, in terms of the novel, this looking out—this consciousness of humanity ‘out there’—allows the reader to connect with Crusoe and his world; to know that somewhere, as they gaze upon his world, he is gazing back, longing for theirs.