Robinson Crusoe: A Social Experiment

After the legendary shipwreck that forever changes his life, Robinson Crusoe, a self-confident young Englishman, finds himself isolated from everything he's ever known, with no choice but to become a country of one on the tiny island he must now call home. After years of this forced solitude, and relative peace, Crusoe's island is gradually populated with a variety of new characters, and he is faced with the formidable task of becoming part of a society which is larger than just himself. Crusoe's interactions with the island's natives and with the handful of Europeans who land on the island begin to produce social factors which help and hinder overall social cohesion. Though in the end the island does not evolve into an organized, unified nation, there are many factors which develop in the fragmented society that seem to promote eventual homogeneity, along with many others that seem to inhibit it.

Crusoe's island is populated gradually, and the first companions he becomes aware of are native Cannibals. These Cannibals are not necessarily residents of the island, but they are frequent visitors, and belong to a presumably vast, stable, and long-lived society. Like any society, the Cannibals observe a set of customs and laws to keep order. As such, when calculating which principles add to the island society's overall cohesion, one must give the established doctrines of the Cannibals' society a good deal of consideration.

A key element of the Cannibals' society which would, given other appropriate mitigating circumstances, promote social cohesion on the island as a whole, is the clearly defined moral structure to which a Cannibal must adhere for his society to function. A Cannibal cannot justifiably eat anyone he chooses; only established and recognized enemies are fair game. This rule opens the door for many socially broadening circumstances. When a Spanish vessel is shipwrecked on the coast of Crusoe's island, the Cannibals rescue its imperiled passengers and allow the newcomers to live peacefully among them (Defoe, 178). Though their practices are foreign to Crusoe (and to Defoe's target audience) the fact that the Cannibals' society functions successfully, and that they do observe rigid codes of ethics, is worth noticing. Having observed these noble qualities, Robinson Crusoe himself reasons that he shouldn't bear ill will toward the Cannibals, rationalizing that within the moral codes of their own society there is nothing fundamentally wrong with their seemingly barbaric practices. Crusoe even goes so far as to lament the thought of "shedding humane blood for [his] own deliverance" (Defoe, 146). Though we can safely assume that Crusoe himself never plans to outright condone or adopt Cannibalism, the fact that he is willing to admit that within this society it might be justified leads us to deduce that the established laws of the Cannibals would greatly influence what would and would not be lawful in Crusoe's island nation if the Cannibals were to become part of a functioning society with him and not have their culture overwhelmed by his European colonial tendencies. In this way we may count these instances of moral refinement as factors which unify Crusoe and the Cannibals (and certainly the Spaniards and Englishmen as well) and which would promote the formation of a cohesive society, in theory.

In addition to the counterintuitive, yet positive, moral structure of the Cannibals, there is a powerful theme of tolerance which also appears to ease the island's social tension, and would promote a harmonious atmosphere if the island's inhabitants ever had to form into a homogeneous nation. All of the island's inhabitants, including the Cannibals, display a degree of religious and social tolerance, which enables friendly discourse and should, theoretically, encourage a positive move toward a cohesive society. Through their aforementioned kindness to the Spaniards it is evident that the Cannibals are willing to coexist with individuals who possess ideologies very unlike their own. The Cannibals are refined in the sense that their savagery is regulated, and used only on enemies, and they make enemies based on longstanding "national' disagreements, not based on religious, racial, or class differences (Defoe, 126). Like the island's Cannibals, Crusoe also shows tolerance, giving assistance to Spaniards, Cannibals, and Englishmen alike as he slowly builds up his kingdom. Though all of his 'subjects' are of different religious persuasions, he allows them all to live in harmony with equal rights, a policy which definitely helps the island nation to become more unified and productive: "My man Friday was a Protestant, his father was a pagan and a cannibal, and the Spaniard was a Papist: however, I allow'd liberty of conscience throughout my dominions" (Defoe, 177). This standard of tolerance would be an admirable quality in any society in Crusoe's time, and would be one of the most influential characteristics of the island, were a cohesive social atmosphere ever allowed to form.

Predictably, a cohesive society never does form on the island, despite the aforementioned mitigating circumstances. There are many factors that hinder Crusoe's island society from blossoming immediately into a cohesive, constructive community. One of the most stifling factors in this equation is the language barrier. Without any means of communicating with the Cannibals, Crusoe is estranged from them, left to fear the great unknown they represent. Once Crusoe is joined on his island by Friday, and later the Spaniard and Friday's father, two very distinct factions develop. Crusoe's small group is continually at odds with the Cannibals, whom at this point are characterized as a sort of ambiguous, looming menace. The lack of immediate information Crusoe has access to is reflected in his over-cautious attitude toward the cannibals: "[I was] under continual apprehensions for a good while, and kept always upon my guard, me and all my army" (Defoe, 178). Not only is Crusoe unable to directly communicate with the Island's natives, but it is also pertinent to note that Crusoe and his European friends were socialized with beliefs and customs very different from those observed by the Cannibals. While Crusoe does reflect on the Cannibals' customs and conclude that, in context, their practices are not morally wrong, it remains doubtful that he would ever be willing to live harmoniously with Cannibalistic people. Crusoe educates Friday with European beliefs, and Friday, parroting Crusoe, declares that he will, "[Tell the cannibals] to eat corn bread, cattle-flesh, milk, no eat man again" (Defoe, 165). The differences in basic social customs as reflected in Crusoe's actions and his teachings make it extremely improbable that Crusoe's group and the natives could ever create a cohesive sort of society without one side completely reforming or dominating the other, which, at the end, is exactly what the colonial Spaniards will do. Though they share general standards of morality and order, their differing fundamental ideologies represent an unsurpassable barrier which hinders the inhabitants of the island from forming a functioning society together.

When viewed as a sociological experiment, Robinson Crusoe delivers many insights into the necessary conditions which make functioning human societies possible. As Crusoe discovers, the divisions created by differences in social doctrine and culture can be insuperable obstacles when one is trying to comprehend the intricacies of a foreign society. While the island's cultural factions never do successfully homogenize into one content nation, there are aspects of their situation which would hypothetically permit the formation of a society between them, like their mutual beliefs in tolerance and order. Crusoe's island society presents an interesting example of the ingredients necessary for a harmonious community, and is a fascinating illustration of cultural and social incongruity.

Works Cited
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: Dover Publications, INC, 1998.