London Showers Part 2: Beached Well (A Crusoe Essay)

photo by Cristian Palmer

After exploring Robinson Cruse in my English Lit class, here's a recent essay I penned..er, typed (the original title is included).

Emily Winslow Cox

Dr. Denise Crews

ENGL 340

14 February 2025

X Marks The Spot

Daniel Defoe’s 1719 classic Robinson Crusoe is a book which, while potentially being seen as controversial in its portrayal of the main character, is also a book in which Crusoe’s encounter with his servants mirrors and unites with Crusoe’s experience and perception of grace through its coming to him more than he comes to it, being faithful to him, being prepared for him beforehand, and his rejection of grace and finding grace again - and with it the grace of cooperating with grace - despite his previous rejection (Google, Regent University).

In beginning to explore the role of grace and its connection with Crusoe’s interaction with servant figures on his adventures, one first notes that Crusoe does not come from a background where servants are emphasized as part of the household or family economy. Crusoe talks about seeing himself as a gentleman and rejecting the opportunity to work on a ship, yet he does not talk about any employee or employer relationship from earlier in his life that would have impacted this choice. He seems simply to view himself as someone who is entitled - a bit like Defoe during the time leading up to debtors prison (Wheeler). Ironically, it is only after Crusoe becomes a Master that we see him serving, leading, and taking initiative and responsibility for himself in a way he did not before. But he also has to come to an end of himself, alone. This is perhaps a microcosm of the human race. Adam cast out of Eden, and men saved by a Servant who also becomes their Master, leading them to become Kings and Priests to God - who are also equipped to serve others. Defoe’s own orthodox , yet termed, “Dissenting” background could have led him toward a view of sin and salvation that mirrored the understanding of the Puritans , which in turn, reflected the understanding of St. Augustine which emphasized the necessity of intervening grace (Gale, Wheeler).

Crusoe sees himself as someone who rejected grace early in his life by dishonoring authority. In his understanding, he then ran from grace multiple times, but it caught up with him in a place where he was saved from death and met by a gift named Friday. Previous to Crusoe’s island experience, it may be argued that Crusoe’s interaction with his servant Xury mirrored both Crusoe’s wandering from grace and mercy, and the gracious pursuit of mercy behind the scenes of his life.

Although Crusoe knew Xury before, it seems to be on the fishing boat - during Crusoe’s own escape from slavery - that Crusoe begins to have a friendship with him. It is through Xury’s lack of fear that Crusoe accepts grace. Crusoe’s other fellow servant claims he will go with him to the ends of the earth, but according to Crusoe cannot be trusted (Defoe). Yet it is by means of Xury’s trust that Crusoe learns at least something that he had earlier suppressed in unrighteousness: love of others. Xury sounds like the kind of friend and servant that Crusoe can count on, but in the end a sixty pieces of eight seems like a good trade. Despite Crusoe’s regret on multiple occasions, the deed is done.

Like the grace that Crusoe saw as extended through his parents and from which he ran, Xury’s presence is given as a gift and one that is sold away. But grace continues to follow Crusoe. Doubtless this is the same grace that was reflected in Crusoe’s baptism, which Crusoe sees himself as running from.

It is in escaping from the sea that Crusoe encounters cleansing on an island, and in becoming a servant of Another that he finds freedom. One could see Crusoe as being baptized by immersion in a sense, but in seriousness one would want to keep baptism moored to the church, while at the same time recognizing that God is the giver of the sacrament. He is the One who brings Crusoe to the point of finding him and saves him from a shipwreck. I and the Father are one, said Jesus - He is the giver of good gifts, and he is the Servant born to be King - not only of the coastlands - but the whole earth - and yet his reign crowns the humble heart that cries out to him and finds him in times of deepest need (English Standard Version). Or the time when we recognize that the one we have tried to escape from IS our escape, and he is the one we have needed all along.

Even though Judas sells Jesus for forty pieces of silver (instead of Crusoe’s pieces of 8), the cross on Friday makes all the difference (Google). And on Sunday - the Sabbath Crusoe values and takes steps to remember even when he appears alone on the island - Jesus rises again so we do not have to be alone. Unlike the promise Crusoe doubts - “I will go to the ends of the earth with you,” Jesus really means it when he says, “I will be with you until the end of the age.” (Defoe, English Standard Version)

Writing later in 1700’s England, John Wesley proclaimed,

My chains fell off / my heart was free

I rose went forth

And followed thee (Wesley).

For Crusoe, X already marked the spot.

Works Cited.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe, 1719.*

Google Search. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=what+year+robison+crusoe#fpr=r, https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=judas+pieces+of+silveraccessed,

Accessed 3 February 2025.

The Holy Bible. English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2001. BlueLetterBible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/esv/mat/28/20/s_957020, https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=thirty+pieces+of+silver&t=ESV#s=s_primary_0_1, accessed 3 February 2025.

Regent University. Canvas. https://regent.instructure.com/courses/21063/discussion_topics/384177?module_item_id=1346406, accessed 3 February 2025.

Wesley, John. “And Can It Be That I Should Gain.” https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/296,, accessed 3 February 2025.