摘要:This paper gives some ideas to the study of Robinson Crusoe as well as to the study of modernity. The study reveals that the two aspects, the progressiveness and limitation of modernity, existed from its very beginning. However, the two aspects of modernity were covered by the remaining influence of God and traditional value in the 18th century. This influence makes Robinson’s optimism for modernity.
erted his thought to the God, but the God at this time has been secularized, and was no longer equivalent to the disembodied and unpractical God in the Middle Age. At the end of the Robinson Crusoe, the obtainment of wealth and power marked the success of the protagonist, Robinson was not only out of suffering, but also gained an enormous amount of money, and even became the “Governor” in this small colony. “Rich man into heaven is even more difficult than a camel can pass through the eye of needle,” (David Lyon, 2005: 39) this kind of argument has become an old calendar under the new value’s impact.
2.2 Publicizing the Rational Spirit, Returning to the Secular Living
The long history of medieval age enforced the power of the king and built an unshakable position for God, but the appearance of the rationality changed this phenomenon.
2.2.1 A New Force— Rationality
“Since the Enlightenment, the religion, as the social integrated force, under the fierce criticism of the ideology circle, has gradually lost its integration”. (David Lyon, 2005: 38) Rationality is the core of the system of modernity. In the period of the Enlightenment, rationality is among the most powerful and efficient devices in the fight against religious depression and the ignorance of the medieval age. It is the light of rationality that ultimately drove off the darkness of the medieval period. Rationality played an important role in man’s fight against God in the renaissance period and Enlightenment Movement during which the importance of rationality was reinforced.
In the first decade of the 18th century, when Robinson Crusoe was being written, the rationality has been put to a position as the center of world’s order. Rationality, based on which man set out to build their new value and social systems, becomes the new center and the standard of the world.
Robinson’s story takes place in the condition of an extremely distressful desert island; his struggle even more prominently reflects the philosophical color of the Enlightenment rationalism, and to become a magnificent legend of human labor and human creativity. In the novel, the main character not only experienced the physical suffering, but also encountered the mental pressure. However, through intelligence and perseverance, he conquered the bad natural conditions; and established a set of social order in the desert island. This should respond to the rationality in Enlightenment period, which regards the forces of the human being conquering the nature as the symbol of the society getting into an ideal phase.
2.2.2 Reaffirming to the Secular World
Embodied in the practice of life, such a rational spirit no longer depends on the illusory God, but reaffirms the secular life. This affirmation means to pursue the happiness of the secular world, focusing on the income, wealth and material prosperity. Through the story of Robinson, Defoe tries to convince the significance of life coming from the exploitation, conquest and accumulation of wealth. “After Robinson undergoes all conceivable hardships, he finally gets a great deal of industry and wealth, which is the goal of this class yearning for”. (Yang Yaomin, 1959: 12) Even though Robinson encountered the unimaginable difficulties, he never gave up. The novel depicts the mood after Robinson finished the transformation of the desert island, “Now I looked back upon my deso
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