"Crusoe instructing Friday" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64) (original) (raw)

The Passage Illustrated: The Education of the Noble Savage

From these things, I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God; I told him that the great Maker of all things lived up there, pointing up towards heaven; that He governed the world by the same power and providence by which He made it; that He was omnipotent, and could do everything for us, give everything to us, take everything from us; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great attention, and received with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us; and of the manner of making our prayers to God, and His being able to hear us, even in heaven. He told me one day, that if our God could hear us, up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could not hear till they went up to the great mountains where he dwelt to speak to them. I asked him if ever he went thither to speak to him. He said, “No; they never went that were young men; none went thither but the old men,” whom he called their Oowokakee; that is, as I made him explain to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they went to say O (so he called saying prayers), and then came back and told them what Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is priestcraft even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans in the world; and the policy of making a secret of religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the people to the clergy, not only to be found in the Roman, but, perhaps, among all religions in the world, even among the most brutish and barbarous savages. [Chapter XV, "Friday's Education," p. 146]

Commentary: "I entered into a long discourse"

The artist underscores the difference in social status between man and master by having Crusoe seated on his chair, and Friday, squatting beside the dog, his elbow on the table. The furnishings, then, establish ​the setting as Crusoe's cave. Although the caption mentions "instruction," the running head is more explicit: "Friday receives religious instruction" (p. 147). Crusoe's pointing into the Bible suggests that the lesson involves Christian teachings. Friday, like Crusoe, wears cloth breeches and a linen shirt, although presumably he does not share his master's allergy to the tropic sun. Rather, if he is to be Christianized, he must also also be absorbed into European culture and mores, including covering natural nakedness. Although Friday's skin is darker, his features seem European, and he sports a moustache here, although he has no such appendage in Crusoe and Friday out Shooting.

The prominence of the Bible in Robinson Crusoe undoubtedlyreflects Defoe's Protestantism. However, a number of nineteenth-century illustrators have underscored the importance of scripture reading to Crusoe's moral life, as in GeorgeCruikshank's "Jesus, . . . give me repentance", and both Cassell's editions show Crusoe delivering religious instruction to his new servant as a fundamental part of civilising the aboriginal. The presence of the printed book as the mechanism or technology of religious instruction, much more prevalent in British Protestant than European Catholic culture, is crucial to understanding Crusoe's motivation for returning to the island in The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. The Cassell's mid-nineteenth-century illustration of Crusoe's conducting religious instruction may be an oblique allusion to British Victorian Bible societies and colonial missionary work in this period. Dickens in Bleak House (1851-53), on the other hand, seems to have found overseas Christian missions by British Bible societies a worthy subject of satire in the ridiculous figure of the philanthropic Mrs. Jellyby, who has devoted so much of her time to the spiritual welfare of the natives of Borrioboola-Gha on the banks of the Niger that she has totally neglected her own children.

Relevant illustrations from other 19th c. editions, 1790-1891

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Above: Paget's realisation of Crusoe's conducting a catechism class for his servant, "I entered into a long discourse" (1891). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Left: The original Stothard copper-plate engraving in which Crusoe welcomes both former captives, the Spaniard and Friday's father (1790), Robinson Crusoe builds a tent for Friday's father and the Spaniard. Right: Colourful realisation of the same scene, with a decidedly subservient and Negroid Friday contrasting the Caucasian Crusoe: Friday's first interview with Robinson Crusoe. (1818). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Bibliography

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Last modified 20 March 2018