Baylor College Medical School

Please write a paragraph explaining how you think the story Robinson Crusoe expresses Enlightenment values.

Here is the story that pertains to the question above.

Nov. 4 This morning I began to order my times of work, of going out with my gun, time of sleep, and time of diversion; (for example), every morning I walked out with my gun for two or three hours, if it did not rain; then employed myself to work till about eleven o'clock; then ate what I had to live on; and from twelve to two I lay down to sleep, the weather being excessive hot; and then, in the evening, to work again. The working part of this day and the next was wholly employed in making my table, for I was yet but a very sorry workman: thought time and necessity made me a complete natural mechanic soon after, as I believe they would any one else......

Nov. 17...Three things I wanted exceedingly...a pickaxe, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow, or basket; so I desisted from my work, and began to consider how to supply that want, and me some tools. As for a pickaxe, I made use of the iron crows, which were proper enough, thought heavy; but the next thing was a shovel or spade; this was so absolutely necessary, that, indeed, I could do nothing effectually without it; but what kind of one to make I knew not.

Nov 18...The next day, in searching the woods, I found a tree of that wood, or like it, which, in the Brazils, they call the iron tree, from its exceeding hardness: of this, with great labour, and almost spoiling my axe, I cut a piece;

and brought it home, too with difficulty enough, for it was exceeding heavy. The excessive hardness of the wood, and my having no other way, made me a long while upon this machine: for I worked it effectually, by little and little, into the form of a shovel or spade; the handle exactly shaped like ours in England, only that the broad part having no iron shod upon it at bottom, it would not last me so long: however, it served well enough for the uses which I had occasion to put it to; but never was a shovel, I believe, made after that fashion, or so long in making.

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