Crusoe’s relation to material possessions is a prominent
topic in these chapters. Crusoe repeatedly suggests that his shipwreck
is a punishment for his greed for profits and that his pursuit of
ever more material wealth has caused his current misery. His biblical
prototype Job, another survivor of a disaster at sea, learns from
his ordeal to disdain material possessions. Crusoe’s survival on
the island seems like a rebirth into true Christian spirituality,
a chance to live less materially and more religiously. Yet when
Crusoe makes not one or two, but twelve trips to
the ship for salvaged supplies, we wonder how nonmaterialistic he
has really become. It is doubtful that in his solitude he needs
“a dozen of good knives and forks.” He proudly entitles one of his
chapters I Furnish Myself with Many Things. When
he discovers thirty-six pounds in coins on the ship, he first disdains
it with Christian high-mindedness, saying, “Oh drug, what art thou
good for,” but then he takes the money with him anyway. His attitude
toward possessions seems a major contradiction in his character,
and these sorts of contradictions exist throughout the novel.
