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Friendship in Defoe‘s Robinson Crusoe and Robert Luis Stevenson’s Treasure Island custom essays

Friendship relations are important and reflect different aspects of our life. First of all, friendship is a relationship which requires time, effort and many other characteristics, which form mutual relationship. Friendship assumes emotional involvement, care, respect and devotion. Both feelings undergo transformations with the flow of time and go through different stages. Friendship is rather a relationship, which emerges on the joint of several spheres i.e. emotional, mental, physical, etc.
Robinson Crusoe by Defoe is an entertaining and interesting book. It gives the readers an idea about the surviving in difficult conditions. In addition to entertaining nature, the book makes an investigation of loneliness and the way it affects people. We can see that Robinson looses his social skill and, to some extend, human characteristics without the communication with other people. The feeling of loneliness and isolation becomes even more difficult than difficult conditions of life. In our everyday life we are surrounded by friends and dear people. Unfortunately, we do not notice that. I think that a thing like this could have happened to Robinson, as well. He did not appreciate the friendship to a great extend till he finds himself trapped on the deserted island. Only after that he recognizes true value of friendship and human communication.
I believe that Defoe’s book can be a good reminder that human personality can be truly discovered through the interaction with other people. In the cases when this does not happen, people feel that some part of their personality is not used and developed in a proper way. Friendship is a feeling of highly-developed personality. Friendship is not based on any kind of use and manipulation. People are united by common interests and common goals. They also share nice communication with each other.
This property of friendship is very vividly illustrated in The Treasure Island by Robert Luis Stevenson. Jim, the protagonist of the novel, enters the crew of ship in order to start the voyage looking for the treasure. Looking for the treasure, they meet a lot of obstacles and have to deal with cruelty, lies, betray and even threat to their lives. We can see two different types of relations which exist in two different communities. In the first community, to which Jim and his friend belong, the feeling of team and friendship prevail. The members of this group try to help each other in their attempts to achieve a common goal. This feeling of support and cooperation helps them to achieve their common goal. Their rivals also strive for the same goal, but they use untruthful methods in their attempts to achieve this goal. This is the reason they finally fail. Despite they make a team and try to work together, we can see that each of them has his interest and does not care about the interests of others. In this case we can not talk about the feeling of friendship and high organization of this group.

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Each member of the group puts his own interests higher than the goals of the community and in this way all the group fails. The failing of the group naturally results in the failing of each its members but the members of this group understand it only later. The book is a vivid illustration that friendship gives not only nice communication and sharing common interests. The friendship can become a means which helps people to attain their goals and those, who neglect it, have fewer chances to win.
Friendship assumes self respect and taking care not only about you own interests, but also taking into considerations needs and desires of your friends. In the case when there is a need to choose between your own needs and needs of your community which consists of your friends a well-developed person will choose such a way of behavior, which will help to meet the interests of the entire group. An ability to consider the interests of other people is one of the basic characteristics of well-developed personality and an essential component of friendship. Both book, The Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe underline this fact and stress on the important role friendship play in our lives. Daniel Defoe chooses an unusual means in order to illustrate an importance of friendship. In order to appreciate an importance of things we possess, we must loose them. He creates a situation, when the protagonist of the story is deprived of friends and human interaction. This situation helps him to uncover the true meaning and importance of friendship. This lesson is also very useful for the readers. They can use the lesson give to Robinson Crusoe and understand an important role of human relations. Treasure Island by Stevenson presents two different concepts of friendship and two polar attitudes to it.

Works Cited
Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. Signet Classics, 1998.
Defoe, Daneil. Robinson Crusoe. Penguin Classics, April 29, 2003.