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Essay / The aspect of reality in Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Fiction is defined as being "invented or false", however fictional texts can represent reality; authors created the illusion of real life through fiction by masking unreality using realistic events. Robinson Crusoe is an example, with Daniel Defoe claiming the text to be a work of non-fiction for a year after its publication – citing himself as editor. Works of fiction are often constructed from reality, which is why they reflect a feeling of realism. To be a realist is to represent “things in a way that is faithful to reality”; authors can create texts with elements that are true to reality, but simply not true. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The aspect of reality is particularly visible through the way Crusoe establishes himself while he is abandoned. He collects useful goods from the ship, then tries to create items he was unable to acquire, such as pots to store corn. This process is described in great detail, giving readers the impression that Crusoe actually experienced it. Defoe also writes how Crusoe initially failed in this endeavor. “The reader would pity me for the ugly things I have done; how many fell to pieces, I couldn't make more than two big ugly things out of clay in about two months of work. “Crusoe’s misfortunes show him to be human; whether it is a human who existed in reality or only in the text. If all his attempts had been successful the first time, readers might have immediately been able to tell that the story was falsified, so Defoe constructs him as a flawed protagonist, partly to make him more endearing but mainly to show how well ease Crusoe could be a “real man”. Defoe asks Crusoe to live a solitary life, surviving using basic human instinct; this creates a survival story rather than a more relatable – and therefore more realistic – adventure story. Fiction being obscured to appear as reality is shown in Robinson Crusoe. Eighteenth-century authors “concealed fiction by confining it within the limits of the credible” – as Defoe did. Although inhabiting a desert island seems improbable, Crusoe's isolation is downplayed so that it seems plausible, particularly illustrated at the beginning of Crusoe's habitation of the island. Crusoe says his first night was spent in an “apartment in the tree.” Sleeping in a tree makes you feel truly stranded, with a tree being your only source of shelter. This adds credibility to Crusoe's narrative by showing his loneliness and how he is forced to turn to his own ingenuity to live. Defoe obscures the implausibility by focusing the reader on Crusoe's human characteristics, such as his desire to survive. However, this practice reveals the fiction, establishing the idea that “revealing and concealing the fiction are one and the same process.” The newspaper section displays it because it was intended to add authenticity, but they backed away from it. Crusoe begins his journal to follow life on the island, but it becomes an aid to his narrative rather than a part of it. The diary is initially a daily account, but extremely detailed, as if Crusoe was only living it without telling it. He also then begins to straddle time as he returns from the past to the present, with "present" Crusoe intervening with additional details. Crusoe writes “I have worked”, rather than I work. The “worked” past tense shows that Crusoe does not write..