Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe was a great success partly because the protagonist was a real middle-class hero. Discuss Crusoe, the protagonist of the novel, as an embodiment of the rising middle-class virtues in the mid-eighteenth century England.
A. Social background: The Eighteenth Century England witnessed the growing importance of the bourgeois or middle class.
a.The Industrial Revolution;
b.The expansion of intemnational markets;
c.Values/ vittues/ moral Standards/...different from those of the feudal aristocratic class——courageous, full of energy, hard working, practical resourceful, self-reliant, etc.
d.Literatiure should give/provide a realistic presentation of the life of the common people; it should meet the demand/ interest of the middle class people.
B.Robinson Crusoe embodies the virtues of the middle class people.
a.Crusoe as an adventurous/courageous man full of energy and courage( example from the text);
b.Crusoe as a practical man(example from the text);
c.Crusoe as a resourceful/self-reliant man(example from the text);
d.Crusoe as a patient/persistent man(example from the text);
e.And others.
