History and philosophy of education

Robinson Crusoe & Don Quixote

The character of Robinson Crusoe have shown as to how faith helps a person to survive purely on determination and will. This story has conveyed that how Robinson has survived in difficult situations even though he had no previous knowledge of tools, navigation, or even a belief in God. It was only his will power and ambition that helped him to acquire these skills by himself when he was trapped on a deserted island.

The story begins with the wreck of the ship in which Robinson was traveling. At first he considered himself as to be very fortunate that he survived from the accident. However, when he further evaluated the situation, he realized that he was facing a real challenge as he was all alone without any accompanying person or any hope to escape from that deserted island. Though, in the beginning he was very disappointed to find himself in such a miserable situation but later he developed a positive attitude towards the situation and developed a true belief in God, that later considerably facilitated him in handling the situation. In this novel the author, Daniel Defoe, has tried to show that if a person has a firm belief in himself and in God as well, he can very easily go through the difficulties of life, no matter how critical the circumstances are.

The author has shown that Robinson realizes that he has help himself out of the situation and instead of giving up, he strives to find a solution to the problem. As his main concern in this regard was his survival, he learns to survive in the deserted land even though he had no idea of how to use tools. It was his ambition and firm determination to remain alive that convinced him to learn how to make things on his own. It was his courage and confidence that he never felt scared or frightened from the terrifying surroundings. With nothing in his hands, he built a shelter for himself and learn to obtain food to fulfill his needs and wants.

On the other hand, Don Quixote was written Cervantes in order to ridicule the popular novels of chivalry. These novels, to whom Cervantes targeted, used to overvalue the ideals of courtesy, faithfulness, bravery and devotion. The heroines in this work were in most of the cases, young and unmarried women. The plots and themes of these literature works were usually unrealistic and overgenerous. They were composed of the tales of hero's battles with other knights, beasts, giants, magicians and some other imaginary characters. The heroes of these novels was always a winner of the battles and used to claim the love of the maiden for whom he was considered to be fighting. Though, Don Quixote is also a similar kind of novel, a life story of a wandering scoundrel who spent most of his life time being engaged in a progression of adventures.