This tale is fictional but is told in such detail that you would believe it to be a real account. Written in 1719 this book it is very apparent that the language of this time is much different from modern language from the first few sentences. In the sentence, "...tho' not of that country" demonstrates such old fashioned language. Though has been replaced with though and country is capitalized.
The book has very archaic language , spelling words different than today and capitalizing most of the nouns in the book . Examples of this would be: spoil'd, compleat, Cloaths, etc. As stated previously, the descriptions of events is detailed in every aspect of writing. It takes Defoe half a page to tell how he maneuvered his raft on shore, in a book with only 218 pages. This can be frustrating as instead of staying " I was unable to escape and couldn't breathe" , he says, " I could not to deliver myself from the Waves and was unable to draw Breath". I remind myself that this is in the 1700's and people must have talked like that but it seems unnecessary to me. The amount of description, unfamiliar spellings and words, and capitalization make this 218 page book seem like an eternity.
Another thing that was both a positive and negative about the book was that Crusoe had everything he needed to survive from the boat from the beginning: food, fresh water, cloaths and a gun with powder and bullets. This relieves all the stress on Crusoe in surviving on the island and turns him into a greedy man. He has everything he needs but wants more and proceeds to build himself a castle, tame a herd of goats and take gold and silver on the ship which is useless to him but he takes it anyway. It is amusing to see Crusoe conquer all that he can and shows how much one person can affect the area he inhabits.
This second edition of the book includes notes by the editor on unfamiliar words and phrases and makes the book more decipherable and without it the reader would be unfamiliar to the references to the Bible and other names for common words today: Discover means explore, humane means human and primitive means original. The reader would be reading the book thinking in 21st century terms and not 18th century terms.
Defoe uses very long sentences in the book with some being the length of an entire paragraph. This emphasizes the books detail and has the unintended effect of either putting the reader to sleep or passing over the reader's head. Religion is a major element in this book as in the beginning Crusoe commits the Original Sin of disobeying his father and going out to sail and now his life will be filled with suffering and god will never forgive him. When Crusoe first arrives to the island, with nothing he think it to be his divine punishment Crusoe's feelings towards God are deep and sincere at some points and selfish at others. Crusoe eventually turns from his view of it as a prison to his new home and eventually thrives.
Robinson Crusoe is a long winded account of a man's survival on an island written in obnoxious amounts of detail and with an apparent use archaic words and old time writing style. This book was an entertaining read albeit long-winded and with an unfamiliar writing style. This book took a lot of time and understanding to read and decipher but made for a challenge.
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