- Crusoe sets sail against his parents' wishes, and his ship is wrecked by a vicious storm.
- However, his lust for sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This ends again in disaster and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor.
- Crusoe escapes afte two years in a boat with a boy named Xury and is rescued by the Captain of a Portuguese ship.
- Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation in Brazil.
- Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but is shipwrecked on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river. He fetches arms, tools and supplies from the ship and builds a fenced-in habitation near a cave. He keeps a calendar, hunts, grows corn and rice, etc.
- He discovers native cannibals who visit the island to eat prisoners and whom he initially plans to kill for committing such crimes but later realizes he has no right to do so, as they do not knowingly commit a crime.
- When a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him and names him Friday after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.
- Crusoe and Friday manage to kill another party of natives and save two prisoners - Friday's father and a Spaniard, who informs Spaniard there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland.
- An English ship overtaken by mutineers appears and Crusoe helps the captain retake the ship. Crusoe returns to England and learns there was nothing in his father's will for him.
- Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil.
Moll Flanders
- Moll's mother is a convict in London who is given a reprieve by "pleading her belly." She is eventually transported to America and Moll Flanders is raised until adolescence by a good foster mother.
- Moll gets attached to a household as a servant where she is loved by both sons. Moll marries the younger brother but she becomes widowed and leaves her children to the care of her in-laws.
- Moll begins honing the skill of passing herself off as fortuned widow to attract men.
- Her first husband goes bankrupt and flees the continent.
- Her second husband turns out to be her half-brother, as his mother is her biological mother. She dissolves their marriage and travels back to England.
- In Bath, Moll develops a relationship with a man whose wife is confined due to insanity. He eventually repents and goes back to his wife.
- Moll resorts to a banker beau who is married to an adulterous wife. While waiting for the banker to divorce his wife, Moll pretends to have a great fortune in order to attract another wealthy man.
- Moll marries a Roman Catholic in Lancashire, believing him to be rich, but he is in fact a ruined gentleman.
- Although now pregnant again, Moll lets the banker believe she is available. The banker's wife commits suicide following the divorce. Moll marries the banker but he dies in financial ruin five years later.
- Moll begins a career of artful thievery and eventually ends up in prison, where she is reunited with her "Lancashire husband." They both get sent to the colonies and learns that her mother has left her a plantation. She makes her son (had by her brother) her heir. She and her Lancashire husband eventually return to England.
Quotes:
"...and let any one judge what must be the anguish of my mind, when I came to reflect that this was certainly no more or less than my own mother, and I had now had two children, and was big with another by my own brother, and lay with him still every night."[2]
"I was now the most unhappy of all women in the world. Oh! had the story never been told me, all had been well; it had been no crime to have lain with my husband, since as to his being my relation I had known nothing of it."[2]
No comments:
Post a Comment