In 1719, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe, was published. It stood as a tale of survival, deriving the 1600’s British style of living into a primitive version, thus proving otherwise as the key to life. The English planter lives through a shipwreck in the Caribbean, only to find him alone on an island, full of cannibals and the forces of nature as life-threatening impediments. However, the novel resists the European political beliefs in the 17th century, in which during that time- as always was in the precedent and successive years- was of international rivalry in the great continent. It is an allegory through formalism.
At the time in the novel, the Thirty Years War (Holy Roman Empire and other Catholic nations versus Protestant nations) had ended ten years ago, meanwhile the French, under the rule of Louis XIV, fought against the Dutch, and allied with the British- whom were under an era of dictatorship (the Commonwealth ruled by Oliver Cromwell) - they fought against the Spaniards. The rivalries between Spain, England and France (as usual for over the previous 300 years), had citizens of those three nations turn a blind eye upon the fact that utopia would be stored within peace and alliance within by the accordance of the three powerful nations. Such rivalry spread even towards the nations’ colonies in North America, where the Spanish and the English were, in fact, quite near as by location. Not to mention that slavery was still intact within the minds of intelligent human beings as an acceptable way of life, for both Spanish and English. Four important key words architect the bridge for formalism and the allegory: brothers, Spaniards, English and Dunkirk. The text says the following: “I had two elder brothers, one which was Lieutenant Colonel to an English Regiment…and was killed at the Battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards.” The English, with the French, fought against the Spanish at Dunkirk, at which the two allies won.
In Defoe’s famous novel, an Englishman was trapped alone, on a remote, Caribbean island, with almost nothing to start a living. He must start over, like any man would, to make a living as a civilized man, with very little tools from his civilized nation (that fact that such tools were extant goes to proof that survival an any world is depended on civilization, although civilization can be destructive when it comes to war). After settling on the island and close to make an average living, he finds out that cannibals have came to the island with a meal to prepare: a black prisoner. He; however, escapes them and is protected by Crusoe, who makes him Christian and teaches him English. He names him Friday. When the cannibals return, there were new prisoners among them, one of them to be Spanish. Crusoe and Friday attack the cannibals with their guns and free the prisoners.
Here’s the allegory, an Englishman and an African save a Spaniard from death by the natives upon an undiscovered land, most certain to be colonized by either of the two. The English and the Spanish both practiced slavery using the natives from Africa at the time. The English and the Spanish have always been at each other’s throats since the 16th century. Yet in this novel, all three are united as one in a fight for their lives within colonization territory (A MAJOR ISSUE BETWEEN BOTH NATION’S RIVALRY) against the natives, both whom they depict as savages- in fact, the author of this novel chose to depict these natives as savages for the sake of reason in his allegory. The brothers are the English and the Spaniards, and Dunkirk stands as the consequence of such nations do not act as thus. Like Cane and Abel, both brothers would in a fatal ending, with one dead and the other guilty for the cause. It makes sense if an allusion like that was involved, for during the time of Crusoe, Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan dictator, transformed England into a theocratic totalitarian society, where as religion was, unfortunately for the brilliance of the human mind, a number one priority to all citizens.
Regardless of historical relations, economical rivalry, cultural/ethnic differences and political hardships, both nations must set those aside during a primitive lifetime (in Defoe’s case, primitive could be the result in war or the beginning of time; in other word’s a better start) and bond together as friends and allies, for nothing is more powerful than such a bond of alliance. Thus, a utopia envisioned by a writer who sets an allegorical example within one (utopia means ‘nowhere’ in Latin. The island is remote, thus being nowhere in map sites. A perfect world of peace and commerce only reached in the absence of political and economic differences, as well as in friendship by unity. Only brothers by Christian faith behave so, and being the case of two strong Christian nations (mind you, reader, Daniel Defoe was Christian, not I, who is trying to analyze an allegory from a deceased man’s Christian work), that kind of friendship should have no trouble whatsoever in being formed. Sadly, this is fiction.
