I TOPIC: Daniel Defoe and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe（Excerpt）
II OBJECTIVES: A) Introduction to Daniel Defoe and his works B) About Adventures of Robinson Crusoe C) Study of the text 1. The main idea of this part 2. Descriptions in detail D) Brief comment on the novel E) Assignment
Theme
1. celebrate the 18th-century Western civilization’s material triumphs and the strength of human rational will to conquer the natural environment. 2. the bourgeois qualities of individualism an embodiment of the spirit of individual enterprise and colonial expansion of the rising bourgeoisie. 3. a typical 18th-century middle-class tradesman, the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. 4. His success is shown as due to the sturdy qualities in his character, to his own unaided-efforts, to his courage and patience, to his practical skill, and his intelligent persistence. In another sense, Robinson is Everyman struggling to master nature. 5. the epic theme of the average man to preserve life and to organize economy in the face of the most unpromising environment.
Topic 2—Defoe’s works
1. Moll Flanders（1722） the personal history of the titular heroine. the daughter of a woman thief. taken into the home of a mayor. seduced and then deserted. as a prostitute, five marriages. theft. lives in prosperity.
A fictitious biography
Preface of Robinson Crusoe
※If ever the story of any private man's adventures in the world were worth making public, and were acceptable when published, the editor of this account thinks this will be so. ※ The wonders of this man's life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the life of one man being scarce capable of a greater variety.

The plot of the novel
1. shipwrecked
and finds himself on an uninhabited
island, 2. build a fortified place, grows barley and rice, domesticates the goats, makes a boat, fights the cannibals and has innumerable mishaps before he is carried home by an English ship.
Daniel Defoe
the founder of the English novel. ● one of the earliest realists, ● a representative of successful man.
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Topic 1—Introduction to Daniel Defoe and his works
※The story is told with modesty, with seriousness, and with a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always apply them (viz.) to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honor the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let them happen how they will. ※ The editor believes the thing to be a just history of fact; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it.
3. a strong verisimilitude: the autobiographical form and to describe things and happenings in great detail and use specific time and place. 4. His language is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular, but never coarse.
4) When his trade was ruined in William’s war with France, he took up writing. (“The True-born Englishmen ” “ The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, ” “ Hymn to the pillory ” , “ The Review”) 5) In May 1703, Defoe was arrested and put in prison, and after his release Defoe redoubled his activities as a journalist and pamphleteer.
Topic 2—About Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
“Robinson Crusoe”(1719), supposedly based on the real adventure of an Alexander Selkirk who once stayed alone on the uninhabited island Juan Fernandez for five years, is, in fact, a work of sheer imagination.
Brief comment on Defoe
liberal mind. advanced in opinion. the Puritan ethic. diligence, self-reliance and fortitude. ready enough to embrace all the people.
About the image of Robinson：
the representative of the bourgeois of the 18th century ， a typical of 18th century middleclass tradesman, the prototype of the true empire builder, the pioneer colonist. the courage and the will to face hardships, and determination to preserve himself and improve on his livelihood by struggling nature. a man with great creativity and working capacity.
Topic 5—Study of the text
1. The main idea of this part
In the first days when Robinson is cast onto the shore of an island， he tries to build himself a dwelling. He first chooses a good site for the building of a shelter on the side for a rising hill, whose front is as steep as a wall so that no wild animals can come down upon him from the top. He then sets up his tent on the little plain in front of the hill and fortifies it with strong stakes so that his new dwelling becomes almost a fortress. He enters and gets out of the fortress by a short ladder. In this fortress he brings all the provisions that he has got from the ship. As his tent is set against the steep side of a hill, he digs into the hillside and makes himself a cave in which he stores some of his more important possessions such as gunpowder. In the intervals of his work, he roams around the island and finds that there are some wild goats on it and he is able to shoot some for food. Here the author presents vividly and realistically how manages to survive on a hazardous strange island that is far from modern civilization.