Discourse with Oneself and The Solitude of Place

Everyone probably knows something about the novel “Robinson Crusoe” and its protagonist of the same name who was stranded on an island reliant on his own resourcefulness to survive such an existence.  Crusoe had a faithful companion, his man, Friday.  Ironically Friday does not appear as a character in the novel until Crusoe has been on the island twenty-five years of his twenty-eight years there.  Crusoe had many years of solitude before he had the companionship of Friday.

Edward Engelberg has interpreted the novel through the idea “Discourse with Oneself and The Solitude of Place.”  Crusoe’s solitary existence on the island elicits many moments during which, by necessity, Crusoe engages in discourse with himself.  And place is critical since Crusoe must create tools and use these tools to develop the resources on the island to survive, but he does so in the great solitude encompassing the island.

Crusoe, on the second anniversary of being on the island, in discourse with himself, gives thanks to God and “His providence” but nonetheless recognizes that “it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition than I should have been in the liberty of society, and in all the pleasures of the world.” This acknowledgement of the enjoyment of solitude is overshadowed by its detrimental effects to human consciousness. The “want of human society” concern is the subject of Crusoe’s inner discourse several times in the novel.  Apropos of this is Crusoe’s reflection: “Thus, we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.” John Donne, the seventeenth century poet, speaks to the need for human contact: "No man is an island entire of itself; / every man / is a piece of the continent, a part of / the main.” Donne and Crusoe come to the same conclusion that we need “human society.” Crusoe does so through the concept of “contraries” and Donne does so with poetic lines.

Crusoe speaks of life and its vagaries, “And by what secret different springs are the affections hurried about, as different circumstances present! To-day we love what to-morrow we hate; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear, nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of.” Hopefully when our circumstances change the change is not a fickle response, but a measured response emanating from the emergent awareness of an authentic search for meaning in life.

Few of us will experience a place with the degree of solitude that Crusoe had.  We may have to search out at place that allows us to be alone so we can enjoy the advantages of solitude. Indeed solitude may permit us to gather our thoughts and have a refreshing discourse.