Robinson Crusoe: "Lord, look upon me"
Toward the end of June of his first year stranded on the island, Crusoe comes down with a violent sickness. For about a week the sickness grips him, his health improving one day only to decline again on the next. On the seventh day of being sick, Crusoe’s illness is as intense as ever – and he experiences a dream:
June 27. -The ague again so violent that I lay a-bed all day, and neither ate nor drank. I was ready to perish for thirst; but so weak, I had not strength to stand up, or to get myself any water to drink. Prayed to God again, but was light-headed; and when I was not, I was so ignorant that I knew not what to say; only I lay and cried, "Lord, look upon me! Lord, pity me! Lord, have mercy upon me!" I suppose I did nothing else for two or three hours; till, the fit wearing off, I fell asleep, and did not wake till far in the night. When I awoke, I found myself much refreshed, but weak, and exceeding thirsty. However, as I had no water in my habitation, I was forced to lie till morning, and went to sleep again. In this second sleep I had this terrible dream: I thought that I was sitting on the ground, on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and that I saw a man descend from a great black cloud, in a bright flame of fire, and light upon the ground. He was all over as bright as a flame, so that I could but just bear to look towards him; his countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe. When he stepped upon the ground with his feet, I thought the earth trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been filled with flashes of fire. He was no sooner landed upon the earth, but he moved forward towards me, with a long spear or weapon in his hand, to kill me; and when he came to a rising ground, at some distance, he spoke to me-or I heard a voice so terrible that it is impossible to express the terror of it. All that I can say I understood was this: "Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die;" at which words, I thought he lifted up the spear that was in his hand to kill me.
Crusoe awakens in a terrible fright. The dream causes him to reflect on the life he has led since setting out to sea and he concludes that he has lived an ungodly life – never once sincerely and for its own sake turning his thoughts toward God. Instead, he has taken positive occurrences as rightful rewards while when something untoward occurred he lamented his fate and pleaded to the lord for mercy. As such, his “faith” had become entirely selfish, the opposite of true, selfless faith. The dream provokes Crusoe to return to faith, to study the Bible, a copy of which he has with him on the island, and to nurture his spirit with a renewed faith in God. Fear, divinely inspired fear, is the key piece here, for it is only through threatening, even apocalyptic imagery, that Crusoe is made aware of the future that is in store for him. Not only will he be punished and killed by a vengeful God, he will also suffer the eternal consequences of a life in hell. Fear of God’s wrath and eternal damnation reorient Crusoe’s thinking away from the material realm to the religious or spiritual realm, the realm of God’s grace. What he first saw as punishment (his confinement on the island) he can now see as reward.
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