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====The adventures of Robinson Crusoe====
[[File: Robinson Crusoe three.jpg|200px300px|thumb|left|Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile]]
Defoe wrote two novels about the life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe, who is the narrator of the story. He tells the reader that he was the headstrong younger son of an affluent family. Crusoe longs for adventure and he goes to sea, despite his parents’ objections. During a storm in the Caribbean, he is shipwrecked and is the only survivor. He narrates how he was washed up on an island in the Caribbean. Crusoe manages to salvage some items from the ship and his only companions are his dog and a goat he has tamed. He is able to become self-sufficient on the island. However, he discovers, after 25 years to his horror that cannibals use a beach on the island for the ritual murder and eating of their victims. One day one of the cannibals’ prisoners who is going to be killed and eaten manages to escape. Crusoe saves him and decides to use him as his servant and he calls him Friday, after the day he first met him.
Later the Englishman teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.<ref>Novak, p. 451</ref> Crusoe later ambushes a part of cannibals who are going to eat and kill the father of Friday. Some 28 years after he was shipwrecked, the sailor is rescued and returns to England. In a sequel, the former castaway is living on a small farm and is married. Defoe describes him as being depressed and missing his ‘island’. After his wife dies, the former sailor returns to his island with Friday, once more. During a voyage, Friday is shot and killed by an arrow fired by a cannibal. Later Crusoe travels to Madagascar, China, and Siberia. After ten years of travels, he returns to London.
====The literary antecedents of Robinson Crusoe====
