In his essay discussing the nature of narrative, J. Hillis Miller poses the question “[w]hy do we need the ‘same’ story over and over?”. Miller also notes that we seem to “want repetition in the form of many stories that are recognizably variations on the same formula” (Miller). Indeed, this is true throughout the Western tradition of literature; the same stories are told throughout time, albeit with slight changes to details in setting and circumstances. In Aeschylus’ Greek Tragedy, Prometheus Bound, the reader is told that protagonist, Prometheus, has willfully gone against the will of the god, Zeus, and is punished. Moving forward several centuries, the reader will notice a similar tale in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; the protagonist, Robinson Crusoe, finds himself shipwrecked on a deserted island for over twenty-seven years after disobeying his …show more content…
Indeed, on his first voyage Robinson Crusoe recounts how “the [w]ind began to blow…in a most frightful manner”, causing him to feel “most inexpressibly sick in [b]ody, and terrify’d [sic] in [his] mind” (Defoe 7). Robinson Crusoe admits that he “began now seriously to reflect upon what [he] had done, and how justly [he] was overtaken by the [j]udgment of [h]eaven for [his] wicked leaving [of his] [f]ather’s [h]ouse” (Defoe 7). Latterly, Robinson Crusoe pays the ultimate consequence on his voyage to Africa in the slave trade. It is on this journey that he was “shipwreck’d [sic] during a dreadful storm” and “in the offing, came on [s]hore on this dismal unfortunate [i]sland” which he called “The Island of Despair” (Defoe 65). Like Prometheus, Robinson Crusoe is “singl’d [sic] out and separated…from all the [w]orld…divided from [m]ankind, a [s]olitaire, one banish’d from humane society” (Defoe 61). While Robinson Crusoe is not bound with chains, he is trapped on an island, bound by the lack of a means of