Summary: Chapter XXVIII — We Seize the Ship
Having defeated the mutineers, Crusoe decides that it
is time to seize the ship, and he tells the captain of his plans.
The captain agrees. Crusoe and the captain intimidate the captive
mutineers with a fictitious report that the island’s governor intends
to execute them all but would pardon most of them if they help seize
the ship. To guarantee the men’s promises, Crusoe keeps five hostages.
The plan works: the rebel captain on the ship is killed, and the
ship is reclaimed. When Crusoe glimpses the ship, he nearly faints
from shock. In gratitude, the captain presents Crusoe with gifts
of wine, food, and clothing. The mutineers are offered the chance
to remain on the island in order to avoid certain execution for
mutiny in England. Gratefully, they accept. On December 19, 1686,
Crusoe boards the ship with his money and a few possessions and
sets sail for England after twenty-eight years on the island. Back
in England, Crusoe discovers that the widow who has been guarding
his money is alive but not prosperous. Crusoe’s family is dead,
except for two sisters and the children of a brother. Crusoe decides
to go to Lisbon to seek information about his plantations in Brazil.
Summary: Chapter XXIX — I Find My Wealth
All About Me
It is impossible to express here the
flutterings of my very heart . . . when I found all my wealth about
me.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Arriving in Lisbon, Crusoe looks up his old friend and
benefactor, the Portuguese captain who first took him to Brazil.
The Portuguese captain tells Crusoe that his Brazilian lands have
been placed in trust and have been very profitable. The captain
is indebted to Crusoe for a large sum that he partially repays on
the spot. Crusoe, moved by the captain’s honesty, returns a portion
of the money. Obtaining a notarized letter, Crusoe is able to transfer
his Brazilian investments back into his own name. He finds himself
in possession of a large fortune. Crusoe sends gifts of money to
his widow friend and to his two sisters. Tempted to move to Brazil,
Crusoe decides against the idea because he is reluctant to become
Catholic. He resolves to return to England, but he is averse to
traveling by sea, removing his baggage from three different ships
at the last moment. He later learns that two of those ships are
either taken by pirates or foundered. Crusoe decides to proceed
on land, assembling a traveling group of Europeans and their servants.
Summary: Chapter XXX — We Cross the Mountains
Crusoe and his group set out from Lisbon and reach the
Spanish town of Pampeluna (Pamplona) in late autumn, and Crusoe
finds the cold almost unbearable. The snow is excessive, forcing
the group to stay several weeks in Pamplona. On November 15 they finally
set out toward France, despite inclement weather. They encounter
three wolves and a bear in the woods. Friday kills a wolf and drives
away the others. Friday also amuses the group by teasing the bear
before killing it. Proceeding onward, the group encounters a frightened
horse without a rider, and then finds the remains of two men who
have been devoured by wolves. Three hundred wolves soon surround
Crusoe’s group. The group shoots the wolves and frightens them with
an explosion of gunpowder, finally driving them away. Arriving at
last in Toulouse, France, Crusoe learns that his group’s escape
from the wolves was virtually miraculous.
Summary: Chapter XXXI — I Revisit My Island
Crusoe lands safely at Dover, England, on January 14.
He deposits his personal effects with his widow friend, who cares
for him well. Crusoe contemplates returning to Lisbon and going
from there to Brazil, but he is once again dissuaded by religious
concerns. He decides to stay in England, giving orders to sell his
investments in Brazil. This sale earns Crusoe the large fortune
of 33,000 pieces of eight.
Since Crusoe is unattached to any family members and is used to
a wandering life, he again thinks about leaving England, though the
widow does all she can to dissuade him. Crusoe marries, but after
the death of his wife he decides to head for the East Indies as
a private trader in 1694. On this voyage
he revisits his island. Crusoe finds that the Spaniards who have
remained there have subjugated the mutineers, treating them kindly.
Crusoe provides them with gifts of cattle, supplies, and even women.
The colony has survived a cannibal invasion and is now prospering.
Analysis: Chapters XXVIII–XXXI
The last chapters force us to reevaluate the escape from
the island of which Crusoe has spent decades dreaming. It is ironic
that he has yearned, plotted, and labored to get off the island,
but when he finally does, the return home seems curiously unsatisfying.
We might imagine that Europe feels safe and comfortable to him after his
ordeal, but the opposite is true: in Spain, Crusoe faces inclement weather,
a bear, and 300 ravenous wolves. His island
with its bower seems positively luxurious by comparison. Nor does
Europe offer Crusoe the human society he has craved as a castaway.
The widow and the Portuguese captain are kind, but we feel they
do not offer him the love and intense affection Friday shows him.
When Crusoe gets married in England, he seems indifferent to his
wife, whose name he does not even bother to tell us. In short, with
“no family” and “not many relations,” and with little interest in
forging new relationships, Crusoe appears almost as isolated in
England as he does on his island. Defoe thus invites us to wonder
whether Crusoe would have been happier if he had remained in his
little kingdom forever and makes us question the value of the return
to civilization that Crusoe thinks he desires.
