Robinson Crusoe

The first twenty-five pages of Robinson Crusoe chronicle Robinson Crusoe’s departure from home, first shipwreck, and two subsequent trips to Guinea. During the second trip, Crusoe’s ship is overrun by Moorish pirates. Crusoe spends two years as slave to the pirate captain in Sallee, Morocco, before executing an escape. The section closes with Crusoe and Xury, a young boy and fellow slave, being rescued by a Portuguese ship headed for Brazil.

Crusoe leaves home against the advice and blessings of his father and mother, who advise the boy to follow the middle road in life, one filled with neither riches nor poverty. The author quotes Solomon, the biblical prophet, about the wisdom of this lifestyle. One day after setting out, Crusoe experiences his first storm at sea, which shakes his confidence, making Crusoe want to return home:

I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had liv’d all his days, and never been expos’d to tempests at sea, or troubles on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting Prodigal, go home to my father (5).

When calm seas return the following day, Crusoe’s will to travel returns.