Custom «Robinson Crouse» Essay Paper Sample

INTRODUCTION

Written by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe is a early seventeenth century book. The book details the life and times of Crusoe.

The book also highlights the need for repentance of sins as a religious belief. Christian's belief that in repentance of sins comes the forgiveness and death.

However, Crusoe alienates the definition of sin to fit his purpose to the extent of disobeying his father.

He thanks the almighty and the agitated illusion of an angel helps Crusoe to recognize that he is to repent.

"Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance; now thou shalt die" (pg109)

As the plot thickens, it emerges that Crusoe is in agreement resulting to the minimization of his nature of complaining. Crusoe goes to a desert island symbolical of the Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden.

Crusoe lives on the island for almost 27 years. At the island he learns on new survival techniques and lives on solitude. Unluckily, in one of his adventures on the island, he sees another human foot stamp, automatically not his, smells a rat and after several strides comes into contact with human sacrifice, prompting him to seek more.

As the plot thickens, Crusoe identifies a human being who narrowly escaped the sacrifice. He rescues him and names him Friday in concurrence with the day of the rescue. (Campos's n.d)

In a conversation, Friday recounts his experiences at the island and after their return to London; Crusoe comes to terms with the new life and developments since his left 27 years ago.

Defoe's novel helps the reader relate with the orthodox roles of the 17^th century, by displaying how issues of gender, race, exploration and independence are seen in his eyeball.

On the other hand, developing her argument from rationalist Lockean philosophy, Judith Drake in her Essay in Defense of the Female Sex denies the continuation of native ideas and the dissimilarity of sexual orientation in individuals.

She views the oppression of women's rationale to be brought by practice and eventuality and was not acceptable by motive.

Drake in the essay, in form of a letter to a lady, notes that the difference in composition of both the male and female caused the disparate allocation of civil liberties in humanity.

 "The very Make and Temper of our Remedies shew that we were never designed for Fatigue; and the Vivacity of our Wits, and the Readiness of our Invention ... demonstrate that we were chiefly intended for Thought and the Exercise of the mind.

Whereas on the contrary it is apparent from the strength and size of their Limbs, ... that Men were purposely framed and contrived for Action, and Labors" (Drake, 1741)

In the book, the author puts emphasis on intellectual inferiority by the other members of the public. However after consultations with physicians, she concludes that there is no major difference between men and women.

In his work, essay on man, Alexander Pope asserts that men's desire to fit in God's place and lack of knowledge of the expectations leads them to have a life of depression.

"Men would be angels; angels would be gods, aspiring to be gods if angels fell, aspiring to be angel's men rebel"

"Ignorance of future events, rely on his happiness and present depend at the pride of aiming at more knowledge and pretending to more perfection is the cause of man's error" (p.45)

Defoe's book presupposes that man remains a dominant mortal and at all times intellectual but that ideology doesn't imply that women are the weaker sex, in view of mental ability.  

Male dominance on issues of brain power, Drake suggests, have made the women folk view themselves as the weaker individuals in terms of intelligence levels.

"Conditions of their society were not so easy, as to engage their women to stay amongst them, but as liberty presented itself, they withdrew and retired to the amazons" (Drake and Astell, 1721, p22)

Drake adds that socioeconomic factors greatly influence the brainpower levels of individuals.

She argued that persons of different socioeconomic surroundings ought to vary in their mental capability to comprehend details. For example a man and a woman from the same background are more similar in ability that two men.

Alexander Pope's poem, an essay on man is written in letters that are subdivided into four groupings namely man's place in the universe, psychology, societies and the sources of happiness (Pope, 1688) the essays have however, been redone several times.

The first epistle addresses the natural religion showing the existence of God and other Orthodox doctrines. On the other hand the second one delves the dogma that each human being is administered by a meticulous "ruling passion," which rationale cannot prevail over but may direct.

The essay divulged disbelief on the usage of the new experimental science. It also integrated conventional knowledge of usual and Christian philosophers and moralists. The essay takes on its most sternly Christian coloration when it attacks human pride and emphasizes the limits of human knowledge and capacities. (Miller n.d)

In his poem, Pope further highlights the interrelation of the almighty to the smallest anatomy of life.

Pope's work involves the relationship of humanity to the earth, community and also to happiness.

Magill (n.d) argues that earth's turmoil comprise of a larger precision that man's partial understanding can't discover. Community contributes to imitation of nature and rational; self love for flourishing public categorize.

The poem's orderly description of thoughts, its awareness on widespread rather than particulars and its valiant limerick poetry reflects the ideas of equilibrium, subordination and accord better than even the finest style.

The poem flows in a logical order making it easy for the reader to comprehend what the poet is trying to pass home. Such logical flow in poems make the audience easily understand and interpret the otherwise poetry jargon and theme or message.

Gender disparities are clearly revealed in the three texts i.e. Robinson Crusoe, An essay on man, and an essay on the defense of the female sex.

 In all the texts men superiority is over emphasized in disregard to the women intelligence level. Men in the text are portrayed as second in command from God and their actions unquestionable since they meet high intellectual abilities. Moreover, in Robinson Crusoe's story, Robinson views Friday as an intelligent individual furthering the ideology that men posses more brain capacity as opposed to the women.

As Drake articulates, the possibility of men being favored by socioeconomic factors occasions their increased mental ability.

Moreover, Pope argues that the existence of the man relies on the pleasures, luxury and actions.

The texts tend to put more emphasis on men as "supernatural' beings that are endowed with thinking capacity unlike other animals. They also help readers gasp the knowledge about the various practices in the 18^th century.

In conclusion, the texts have clearly shown the roles that the men played during the eighteenth century and their implications to religion and society.

Such ideologies however are demeaning to suppress the other members of the society and more notably assume that they can be over God.

The authors of the various texts have to great lengths shown the intricacies that amount to happiness.

Drake and Astell (1721) argue that men should focus on remaining objective in their reasoning without necessarily impacting their supremacy ideals in the context of women. The authors assert that at times women are correct on certain issues but are underplayed by their male counterparts on grounds that they don't possess amicable brain power to bring out commendable and reasonable arguments. This, they say demoralizes them by applying the spiral of silence model that dictates that any individual remains silence to avoid being victimized or laughed at even at times that he/she is correct. It is propagated by inferiority complex.

"Although power would fall into the hands of women, they would favor their own sex (men) and might in time restore to their primitive liberty and equality with the men" (Drake and Astell, 1721, p.20)

The authors named above suggested that for women to prosper they were to ignite change of such ideologies in an effort to reclaim their authority and say with men.

In a nutshell, the intricacies of the eighteenth century should be changed to fit in the current, modern scenarios and allow the voice of the women to be heard in major conversations in efforts to enhance the realization of a civilized society alienated from such archaic traditions.

Therefore, scholars have argued that equitable participation of both genders in the development agendas would catapult democracy and respect.

Religion as one unidentified scholar once said is the opium of the masses and in the realization of good morals should be used to pass relevant information for effortless comprehension by the individuals. Therefore, as Pope asserts should not be misquoted to represent majority viewpoint, although each individual is controlled by certain doctrines in his faith.