Compare and contrast Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe with Golding’s Lord of the Flies Essay

This judge will comp be the cardinal novels, Robinson Crusoe and schoolmaster of the go, to see how each author jobed the consign of view of auberge at the cartridge clip that they lived in. The nature of subt all in allowy will be viewed from their two different perspectives.Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe in 1719 William Golding published Lord of the Flies in 1954. Both novels are the starting line simile works of their respective authors and they deal with the electric receptacle of being deprived of the surroundings of the purification that they are used to. The establisher is astir(predicate) a man, postwrecked rep cancel turn outedly, and how he survives in the seem of slavery and furiousry. The latter concerns a chemical group of schoolchildren whose plane crashes onto an island after a nuclear war breaks out and explains how they cope and motley as snip wears on with no sign of a bringing.Although the subject consequence of these two records is equivalent on the surface, in that respect is a contrast in the delegacy the two authors represent polish. Daniel Defoe was a novelist, journalist, businessman and spy. He defended William of Orange and Marys rise to the thr ane. He attacked the Church of England in his defend The Shortest Way with Dissenters and he was fined and imprisoned, so lightenary(prenominal) after his release he became a spy for the g everywherenment. He did not unhorse writing until he was almost sixty.The Robinson Crusoe write up was inspired by the actual be intimate of Alexander Selkirk on the island of Juan Fernandez from 1704 to 1709. Defoe wrote for the core and cut d possess classes and his realism and sentimentalism pleased them. At the time Britain was at the beginning of its Empire building phase and was entering a well-fixed Age. afterward the union with Scotland in 1707, inside trade prospered in this, the largest customs-free area in Western Europe. The aristocracy and uppe r middle class that controlled Parliament as well as controlled the lead chronicle employment and banking companies, so that the growth of mod enterprises was more than rapid than whatsoeverwhere else in Europe.The gradual control of the seas, the establishment of trading posts in exotic lands, and the policy of victorious overseas territories as booty from made wars en abled Britain to gain commercial benefits and to build the foundings largest empire. Inside Britain, the Industrial change was under way. New countries were seen as lands of probability and resource mevery citizenry emigrated to raise their fortune in tobacco suppuration or gold mining and so on There was a general credit line of optimism concerning mankinds time to come and when Crusoe is shipwrecked the however survivor on an unknown island he fights for survival not only in the physical sense but similarly in the sense that he fights for his thought that polish would conquer all difficulties .The principal(prenominal) character of Defoes book is Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe precious to go to sea and explore rather than follow his fathers wishes and practice law as it says on the first page My fatherdesignd me for the Law but I would be satisfied with vigour but press release to Sea. Robinson Crusoe repeatedly went out to sea, passive though after each expedition he always vowed to go post and stand by on land. Eventually he was shipwrecked on an island and this is where the chief(prenominal)(prenominal) narrative of the story begins.In this book he retains a solid sense of civilisation. This is shown after he rescues a savage from other savages who were about to eat him. He called him Friday after the day that he had met him, immediately taught him English and what his morals were I wishwise taught him to say Master, and then let him know, that was to be my nameI would hark back him Cloaths. Crusoe also warned Friday off cannibalism and when he posterior res cues a Spaniard and Fridays father from savages, he thought he had an recitation of society How like a King I looked The whole country was my own position so that I had undoubted Right of prescriptMy volume were perfectly subjugated I was absolute Lord and Law-giver. Order is brought out of chaos by civilisation.The Lord of the Flies, on the other hand, was written when the Cold war was under way, nuclear tensions were high and people were nervous and fearful about the forthcoming of mankind. The story reflects Goldings thoughts about civilisation what in his view it was really like when the coating was stripped away. The story begins with the aeroplane crashing and the group of schoolchildren diversitying a coincidence of a society with a democratically positive leader. However as the narrative progresses, civilisation slowly falls apart the main group of boys trace out savages and lives are taken. The book ends with all sense of civilisation being lost and the main cha racter tally for his life. Eventually civilisation is restored in the form of a Royal Navy cruiser, after spotting the signal that the boys initially lit, access to rescue them.The main character in Lord of the Flies is named Ralph and this story starts with other boy and him discussing what happened to the plane that they were in. After decision more children and no adults he called a meeting where he said, Seems to me that we ought to have a chief to decide things. This shows he had close to views on the need for planning. Jack, another boy, also had some sense of civilisation After all, were not savages. Were English and the English are best at everything. This is ironic, as later on he is the one to break all the rules and become the chief of the savages. Eventually they came to a divergency over a signal they had lit to try and attract rescue ships. Ralph treasured to keep it going, but the other children cherished to hunt animals. The group acted like a savage tribe and eventually chooses to fall by the wayside educate bread and butter one of Ralphs acquaintanceships, Piggy, offers the choiceWhich is unwrap to be a take in of painted niggers like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? Which is mend to have rules and agree, or to hunt and knock down? Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and respite things up?The group then killed him and Ralph was caterpillar tread for his life. He represents a leader of a democratic society, which soon collapsed. One chanced nothing What could they do? Beat him? So what? extinguish him? A stick sharpened at both ends. At the end, when an ships officer from the rescue ship asks him who was in charge, he state himself the leader again knowing that no one would dare challenge him in the face of civilisation protected by provide. Ralph had no power in the story to protect his civilisation. Power lay with those who had the branchs.In Robinson Crusoe gentlemans gentlemanity freedom, based o n reason, is seen to be a higher way of living in the sixteenth and septenaryteenth centuries. Defoe notes the comportment of phantasmal differences and uses the situation to express his precept that freedom of belief should overrule religious bigotryWe had but third Subjects, and they were of three different Religions. My man Friday was a Protestant, his drive was a Pagan and a Cannibal, and the Spaniard was a Papist however, I allowd Liberty of Conscience throughout my Dominions.The opposite is true in Lord of the Flies as the group degenerates from civilised English schoolboys to primitive hunters only interested in the hunt and the kill. A pigs head on a perch represents religion in this story, similar to a totem pole that the native Americans and other similar tribal people used. This represents a slip by to a less reasonable form of existence.Lord of the Flies is similar to zoology Farm by George Orwell, in that the flavour of civilisation disappears and chaos reigns a s they stamp out the person in control and all the order that goes with it. By contrast, Robinson Crusoe is similar in outlook to The Swiss Family Robinson (Johann Wyss) in that both retain an hopeful outlook even after they have been shipwrecked on the island. In both of the above books they find and mould living areas, they capture wild animals to make a remotem and they both are religious. A further modern example of the Castaway plot is in TV shows like Big Brother or other situations where a group of people is stranded in an area and has to set to keep any semblance of control. The instancy seems to affect the group and behaviour is alter compared with what is normally seen in public society.The boilers suit feel of Robinson Crusoes plot is optimistic reflecting the times that Defoe lived in. Rene Descartes, a philosopher of the period, believed in the power of human spirit and reason over the force of nature. He said that authentic knowledge must come from human reas on alone. Defoe uses pirates and savages to symbolise a more primitive and uncontrolled force and uses Crusoes triumph over them to illustrate human spirit. Lord of the Flies, however, is pessimistic all semblance of civilised society is stripped away. The two world wars undermined to ability of human beings to interact and use reason. Advances in society and engineering science had destroyed faith in rationalism and a belief grew that if left to our own devices, humans would in essence backtrack to animals. In the former novel the main character was on his own and it was only later did he have any company. There was no ram on him to change into a savage and he could keep to the way he was without anything to read him.Lord of the Flies, however, portrays children like a pack of wolves, with the most influential ones being the leaders. When one of them started to backslide into savagery, he took the rest with him. William Golding fundamentally believes that all humans are offen sive inside, but it is just that civilisation puts pressure on you to keep in go down and if it were not for the controls present in civilised society, we would all be like the savage group. There was no Piggy to emit sense. There was no solemn fiction for debate nor dignity of the conch.The Navy officer who arrived to take them back to the waiting ship said, I should have thought that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up a better show than that. Robinson Crusoe, on the other hand, arrived home with Friday (his servant) and immediately wanted to set shroud again for South America. My true friend the widow earnestly diswaded me from it, and so far prevaild with me, that for almost seven years she prevented my running abroad. This shows that he still had an adventurous spirit and was willing to go out again confident that he would be able to cope with any troubles.Both stories show that civilisation of necessity controls before it is effective rules need to be enf orced and reason alone whitethorn not be enough to fit survival. Crusoe may not have survived without his hoagy and Ralph had nothing to protect himself with when the symbol of civilisation (the conch) was broken. In spite of this similarity, Defoes book presents a positive outlook for the future of humanity as civilisation revolve across the globe, whereas Goldings work suggested that the weapon would be used not to detain civilisation, but to destroy it. Both reflect the world view of their times.