Makes It Hard Began To Write Essay - 1,927 words

... more violent protagonists (Sutherland, 86). An order for his arrest was issued on January 3, 1703. Captured soon after, he was sentenced on July 9, 1703, to stand three times in the pillory. Had a mob been in an angry mood, the pillory might have meant Defoe's death. He won the mob to his side by distributing a poem from A Hymn to the Pillory, in which he proclaimed his innocence and attacked the judges.


Robert Harley, one of the secretaries of state, rescued Defoe from jail. Defoe was grateful and remained a supporter of Harley for the next 15 years. In 1704, at the age of 44, Defoe began to write the Review. It started out being published once a week, then later three times a week. The contents of the Review held all sorts of personal and peculiar views on all kinds of subjects (Sutherland, 106).


When Harley returned to power with the Tories in 1710, Defoe turned the viewpoint of the Review to support the new government. However, his lack of sympathy with some of the governments policies frequently put him in a dilemma. Such conflicts made the Review useless as a vehicle for propaganda, and Defoe, in 1713, founded a new trade journal, Mercator. Queen Anne died in 1714. With the death of the Queen Defoe's tottering world suddenly fell to pieces (Sutherland, 204).


Defoe next threw his energies into writing pamphlets defending Harley from charges of treason. At the same time, Defoe attempted to protect himself from his former Whig friends. In the first months of 1715, he published a defense of his own life, An Appeal to Honor and Justice, saying that, he had owed his freedom to the intervention of Harley (Sutherland, 148). However, on July 12, 1715, the day on which Harley was sent to the tower, Defoe was tried on a false charge of libel and found guilty. Fortunately, he managed to convince the presiding judge that he was sympathetic to the aims of the Whig ministry and that he could be useful to them. The Whigs agreed, and Defoe was hired to act as a double agent.


After 1715, Defoe turned to a variety of fictional forms, including moral dialogues, such as the Family Instructor, and the fictitious memoirs, such as The History of the Wars of Charles XII. His masterpiece, Robinson Crusoe, was published in April 1719. Robinson Crusoe originated from Alexander Selkirk's adventures. Selkirk was a Scottish sailor who had a dispute with the captain of the ship. In 1703, Selkirk was put ashore on an island upon his own request in the Juan Fernandez Island, off the coast of Chile. He lived isolated until 1709 when the commander of an English privateer rescued him (Selkirk, Alexander).


Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is about a man who struggle time after time only to knocked down every time. Crusoe gets stranded on a desert island after the ship he was on sinks in a horrendous storm. The next day he realizes that the ship did not sink at all, and that everyone would have survived if they had just stayed on board. Crusoe collects the things he needs from the ship and creates a hospitable place to live. Defoe uses his use of detail to flood you with facts that you cannot tell if it really happened. Defoe's favorite method of authenticating his narrative is to overwhelm us with details so trivial, and so apparently irrelevant, that we feel the only possible reason for being given them at all must be that they are true (Sutherland, 15).


Crusoe is given in such vivid detail that it makes it hard to believe it never really happened. An example of this is the journal that Crusoe is making to keep track of the days. The day to day descriptions makes it hard to believe anything else. Defoe writes: Dec. 10 I began now to think my cave or vault finished, when on a sudden (it seems I had made it too large) a great quantity of earth fell down from the top and one side, so much, that, in short, it frightened me, and not without reason too; for if I had been under it, I had never wanted a Grave-digger. Upon this disaster I had a great deal of work to do over again; for I had the loose earth to carry out; and, which as of more importance, I had the ceiling to prop up, so that I might be sure no more would come down (73).


Defoe uses vivid detail to give you the chance to see the problems he encounters with every step he takes. Defoe gave Crusoe limited resources to make his character actually survive. He showed that it really is not easy to live on an island with little material to work with. All of Crusoes tools had to be made by hand.


The reader was drawn in to follow. Defoe could therefore expect his readers to be interested in the very detailed descriptions of the economic life which comprise such an important and memorable part of his narrative (Kalm, 72). During his remaining 12 years, Defoe concentrated on books rather than on pamphlets. In 1720 came Memoirs of a Cavalier and Captain Singleton, and a collection of essays, Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe.


At age 62, he published three of his greatest works: Moll Flanders, A Journal of a Plague Year, and Colonel Jack. Moll Flanders, like Robinson Crusoe, creates the vivid detail, which makes you believe the story is true. Moll is a woman motivated by greed. Her main objective in life is to marry a man with money. She marries a few with money and a few without, (one of whom she finds out to be her brother) but still she ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: makes it hard, robinson crusoe, moll flanders, began to write, daniel defoe

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