¶ … Moonstone," a cornerstone in English literature that marks the birth of detective novels
Wilkie Collins published his novel "The Moonstone" in 1868, after a series of novels that had already consecrated him as a genius in the art of sensational fiction. The genre became popular, at that time, in England and abroad, thorough the translations of Collins' novels. "The Moonstone" is written in a narrative form of a detective novel that leads thorough the complicated but well constructed plot built around the theft of a diamond of Indian origin from "a quiet English house" (The Moonstone, p. 46).
In the preface to his novel, Collins emphasizes the fact that the narrative form took over in the construction of The Moonstone, as compared to his previous works: "In some of my former novels, the object proposed had been to trace the influence of circumstances upon character. In the present story I have reversed the process. The attempt made, here, is to trace the influence of characters on circumstances" (The Moonstone, p.3).
The focus on the characters who are defining the atmosphere and bringing their own versions of the truth, passing their own judgments on the other characters involved in the story, is characteristic for theatre and Collins' detective novel embraces some of the techniques of this literary form. As someone once said about this novel: it belongs to a genre that should be called "storywright."
The introduction of the object whose story will generate the chain of events in the book is as grandiose as the object itself: the Idian yellow diamond. The first narrator, John Herncastle's cousin, writes to his relatives in England about the story of the diamond. He introduces the dramatic story of its history throughout the centuries, up to the battle...
Robinson Crusoe and Individualism The adage "no man is an island" always holds true because humankind has always been a social being. By belonging to a group or society, individuals are expected to abide by the collective norms and behaviors thereto. Although individuals are assumed to follow the standards of the group, there are those who chose otherwise and demonstrate individualism, believing in the core importance of the individual and having
Not all of the Europeans that went to America had been persecuted in their home countries, and there had been several reasons for why people chose to leave. While some merely wanted a life of adventure on an unknown continent, others searched to take the word of God further by Christianizing the Native Americans. Religion is also present in Robinson Crusoe, as Crusoe converts Friday to Christianity and teaches
The only real politics that the book deals with is the one promoted by Defoe, as he is obviously focused on supporting the image of England as one of the most important colonial forces. Works cited: Clowes, Edith W. "The Robinson Myth Reread in Postcolonial and Postcommunist Modes," Critique36.2 (1995): 145 Crosby, Ray, "Robinson Crusoe's Anti-Pilgrimage," Retrieved June 29, 2011, from the University of California Website: http://ucriverside.academia.edu/RayCrosby/Talks/37311/Robinson_Crusoes_Anti-Pilgrimage Defoe, Daniel, "Robinson Crusoe," Arc Manor
He doesn't really need the company of other people and this shows that he was essentially a materialistic person- someone who was happier with money alone and didn't care much about people. "It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days"(Defoe 113). Out of
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park actually share a number of themes relating to the centrality of land in the formation of eighteenth and nineteenth century conceptions of rural virtue, politics, and property. Crusoe's South American island could not be farther from the staid environs of Mansfield Park, but the same tension between rural virtue and worldly interests permeates both stories, particularly in regards to Crusoe's
setting for a book is as important, if not more important, than the depiction of characters. A detailed depiction of the architecture in a scene often adds to the credibility of the story. In the books Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, architecture is used not only as a scene setter but also as a testament to
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