Robinson Crusoe

In Chapter 3 of Robinson Crusoe, how does Crusoe first react to his survival and landing on the island?

In Chapter 3 of Robinson Crusoe, how does Crusoe first react to his survival and landing on the island?

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One of the most prominent features in this part is the contradictory sense of Robinson's behavior--civilization meets the wild. Essentially he oscillates between the roles of civilized, middle-class businessman and primitive nature lover. This brings up the theme of isolation: good or bad? Earlier enslavement experiences have not taught Crusoe, so now he is to be enslaved in another way. Defoe means for us to view the island as a completely distinct world, of which Crusoe is the colonizer. In many ways he is stunned initially, having been suddenly thrust into a very unfamiliar situation. Still, he is level-headed and calculating enough to realize that he must ransack the wrecked ship for provisions. This demonstrates his ingenuity. Although he has not seen other signs of life, he immediately sets out to hide himself and all his possessions from plain view. Crusoe has his wits about him and intends to recreate the European world on this island. But he can only do so by embracing the surrounding materials offered by nature: the grass turns into a thatched roof, the mud is sculpted into a cellar, the tree doubles as a house. This mock European world is literally hewn out of the land with bare hands. The civilized and the primitive thus merge symbolically. We have arrived at a new level of detail in the novel, a deeper type of realism. The account of working is an innovation for the time, and the journal is an extension of the realism

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