Pavlína Kovářová

As it was already mentioned that neither Ruth nor Pleva did actually translate Defoe's novel, we are not to engage in the translational analysis but we will rather observe how the original novel was transformed for the purposes of the children's literature. We are going to comment on the issues of a particular interest, trying to compare the way in which the two adaptations deal with them. First, we'll concentrate on the figure of the protagonist - on Robinson Crusoe/Krusoe. As we can see, Ruth changes already the name of the central figure and thus the title of the book. Quite surprisingly, he makes Robinson a German living in Hamburg, while in the original as well as in the Pleva's version the Crusoes were a family of the German origin living in England, in York, the name Crusoe being the anglicized version of the German Kreutznauer. Hard to say why Ruth changes the nationality of Robinson and subsequently the spelling of his name. There could be political reasons behind it (dominance of Germans in the Austro-Hungarian Empire), but it could also be that he simply didn't want to confuse young readers with a strange name and its pronunciation. Yet, from our point of view this sort of change seems somewhat radical and hardly justifiable.

As for the family background of Robinson, both Ruth and Pleva leave it more or less the same, i.e. coming from a family of a rich businessman, being the youngest of the three sons, the two oldest are dead because of their desire of adventure and disobedience. Here Ruth gives a really rare reason for the death of one of the sons - drinking water after getting hot, thereby following the strongly didactical purpose which is evident in his whole narrative. Both adaptations show Robinson's boyhood years as full of leisure, restlessness, dreams about distant countries and great adventures, and little respect for his parents or for God's will. But whereas Pleva blames mostly Robinson himself for all his future troubles, Ruth sees some fault even in Robinson's up-bringing, saying that his parents spoilt him, being too soft with him. Quite clearly, Ruth is an advocate of a strong discipline with children.

We are not to talk in detail about series of adventures that both Ruth's and Pleva's Robinsons encounter before the fatal wreckage of the overseas ship, we just mention that while Pleva provides a reader with realistic descriptions of the events, Ruth's narrative is far too much simplified and flat (especially the slavery episode), the events follow a bit illogically one by one without clear connection between them.

Before we get to particular issues concerning Robinson's life on the island, we say a few words about the two ways in which the island itself is depicted. J.V.Pleva carried out a long research in the field of geography, botanics and biology concerning the area of the island and this is well-shown in the authentic descriptions of the place. He knows perfectly what the island looks like (mountains, brooks, beaches, …), which animal species live there and what kind of plants grow in the area. He provides readers with detail desription of flora and fauna, giving all the names and looks. He is also able to create impressive auditive and visual images of the life in the jungle. He is well-informed about the changing weather periods, about the possible effects of the storm, of a volcano explosion or of setting a dry forest on fire. In this respect Pleva's knowledge seems to be unbeatable, his vision of the island looks really authentic. Ruth, on the other hand, lacks any of Pleva's precision; not only is his island inhabited by strange species of animals (the most bizarre being lamas that Ruth's Robinson breeds in place of Pleva's goats …), but already his idea about the area of the island looks somewhat out of place. Ruth claims the island to have a perimeter of 10 miles and the width of 2 miles, which would be rather a small place to have such a large variety of animal and plant species living there and it's also highly doubtable that a man would find means of subsistence large enough to survive there. Although neither the original nor Pleva give any specific numbers, it's quite clear that the place should be much larger (long journeys in the interior of the island, navigation around the coast, etc.)

Now we leave specific characteristics of the novels and concentrate on a bit more abstract features. First, we are going to deal with Ruth's religious attitude pervading the whole story, which is something totally absent in Pleva's work. The religious motive is crucial to the Robinson's story as narrated by Ruth and there might not be anything wrong with it since the original novel itself was full of religious deliberations, only that Ruth takes it into the extreme. His Robinson is a flat sketchy personality lacking any other motivation for his behavior but faith in the almighty power of God. Ruth's Robinson sees a beauty of the island as a sign of power and glory of the Creator (whereas in the original it was seen as a pagan place …). When coming to conclusion that singing birds are thereby joyfully praising the Lord, he joins them and sings a religious song. Whereas in the original Robinson had to get through a long process before finding a consolation in the faith in God, here the young boy turns to the religion almost immediately after the wreckage and remains an obedient and passive servant of God's will thereafter. He feels a little doubt now and then but it's nothing serious, he lets himself rely totally on the Divine Providence. He accepts all the evil that he encounters believing firmly in its inevitableness. His devotion goes so far that even when he could live quite comfortably, he decides to eat raw meat once a week, to sleep on the tree and to fast once a month so that he can still appreciate all the gifts God gave to him. No need to say that his daily routine consists of numerous praying rituals, but unlike in the original where Robinson spends a lot of time in true spiritual meditations, here the prayers are little more than formal excercises.

As was mentioned before, Pleva leaves the religious theme completely. Instead of love for God, however, he uses love for parents, especially for mother and high appreciation of all the values concerning home. Pleva's Robinson suffers from guilty conscience and painful regrets with regard to his family. Knowing he was a bad son, he would like to become better, he is sorry about the mistakes he made in the past, wants to improve and to be able to hear his parents forgiveness one day in the future. He keeps tender memories of his childhood, remembering all in every detail. Ruth's Robinson also loves his parents, but it's more of a mixture of respect and obedience ensuing from his religious sentiment rather than a strong emotion which is the Pleva's case. While in the original both parents are dead long before Robinson's comeback, in Ruth's adaptation the father is still alive when his son returns and in Pleva's version it is the mother (supposedly younger than the father as we are told in the preface by J.Glazarová) who lives till the day of a happy reunion.

One of the most important motives in Pleva's adaptation is that of work. His Robinson is a very active resourceful man who sees every activity as a challenge to human skills and abilities in a hostile environment. He is persistent and patient as well and doesn't give up easily, what's even more - work means a true pleasure to him. He relies on his reason and on his hands, he's got little experience and learns slowly, but if he is determined to do something, he tries so long until he succeeds. As with the factual knowledge of geography and biology, Pleva seems to be well-acquainted with particular working processes too and thus is able to give a convincing detailed description of what Robinson does, how he does it, the mistakes he makes, etc. Pleva informs the reader about natural resources that are available on the island, about the tools which could be used, how long each activity takes. Even though Pleva's Robinson finds out many things by trying again and again, learning from his own mistakes or remembers the way people he knew used to do certain things, most of the time it is the coincidence that helps him. The role of coincidence (which is what Ruth would probably call an act of Divine Providence) is such, that at times it almost spoils otherwise perfectly believable realistic description. But still, Pleva convincingly depicts the struggle of a man to survive in a natural environment and to cultivate this environment according to his needs (agriculture, breeding of the cattle, setting the jungle on fire,…), even though certain comments seem to follow the ideological opinion of its time (beauty and glory of human work etc.).

A bit surprisingly maybe, Ruth doesn't differ that much from Pleva as far as the issue of work is concerned. He also puts a great emphasis on the importance of work for forming the human character. His Robinson learns that he must work hard if he wants to survive on the island. However, his work is also seen as one of the means of praising God. Ruth's description again lacks the realism; sometimes we can only wonder how the boy manages to do certain things without having any single metal tool (Pleva's Robinson saves at least a pocket knife which enables him to do most of the work) or we can only smile when the boy, at times totally inexperienced, suddenly knows how to slake lime for mortar. Some of the activities the boy takes to thus seem naive or even ridiculous. The attitude of Ruth to work is that it is necessary as a means of survival but it is also important on its own - simply working for working, improving one's character. His Robinson seems to feel it this way and many times he just sets out to do something because he's bored (boredom is something Pleva's Robinson would never dream of !) and knows that may be the first source of temptation. He is active but only to a certain extent because he believes one can do something only if God lets him and thus feels a passive resignation about all that he does.

Both Ruth's and Pleva's Robinsons feel a strong desire for the company of other living creatures, which is something not so explicitly shown in the original. As there are no other human beings around, they try to dispel loneliness by making friends with animals (lamas/goats, parrot, dog …) Ruth again comes up with something totally bizarre desribing the way Robinson domesticated a spider feeding him with flies so that a little creature got tame and was coming to eat from Robinson's hand - all this is trying to illustrate that every little creature God created is able to give and accept love. Both adaptations then highlight the value of friendship between people, making a poor survivor meditate about happy past days when he was living in a society, unable to appreciate it.

What's typical for each of the adaptations is writer's attitude towards the coloured people which gets illustrated in the scenes of encounters with savages during the escape from Moroccan slavery and especially by the way in which the figure of Friday is being dealt with. In this respect, Ruth follows quite faithfully the Defoe's novel, while Pleva expresses a modern attitude to this issue, although neither he is void of certain prejudices and cliches as we'll see later. Ruth's portrayal of people of other races copies prejudices of the original novel; the coloured people are described as hardly more than children that need to learn everything from their white parents. As if they had no culture, religion or language of their own, they accept happily all that the white masters are willing to teach them and show absolute loyalty and devotion to them. Friday and his people are portrayed as brutal savage canibals who not only have completely wrong habits but are hardly able to survive in the jungle. When first coming to Robinson's cave, Friday is so astonished by what he sees that it looks "as if someone from the village saw the big city for the first time"[3]. We learn that Friday's people live in a great poverty, suffering from hunger etc., Friday does not actually seem to be able to live in a jungle, he is e.g. afraid of certain animals, which really seems out of place for a native who would have probably known certain things much better than a European. Robinson's position of master and teacher is well-perceptible in the religious lessons he's giving to Friday, teaching him civilized opinions and manners. Friday accepts all without questions, realizing how miserable his life was so far and later teaching the white man's doctrine to his own father (who's given the name of Thursday[!]). In some respects, Ruth's adaptation seems to be even more discriminating against the coloured people than Defoe's original, depriving them of any personality, skills and abilities unique of the natives.

Pleva's attitude is far more progressive and egalitarian, he shows that natives have a culture of their own which is in certain respects more developed than the European one. He stresses all the skills that enable natives to survive in the natural environment (hunting skills, great knowledge of particular fruits and animals, ability to cross the long distances on the sea, etc.) and he also acclaims their emotional qualities (Friday's love for his father as an example for Robinson …). Yet, Pleva can't do without giving priority to the white culture either; he respects the inborn qualities of the natives but at the same time stresses that they should have the chance to live in a civilized society like we do and to receive our education in order to become people like us. Pleva's Robinson doesn't treat Friday like a slave or a servant (which is Ruth's case), but he does not respect him for what he is either. Robinson wants to change Friday to make him "more white", to turn "innocent savage" into the civilized person, thus only afferming the Eurocentric attitude of the adaptation.

All in all, we can make following conclusions about the two adaptations: Ruth's version of the Robinson's story is a flat inexpressive narrative with a strong didactical subtext, its main purpose seems to be to instruct young people in obedience to their parents and God. Ruth follows this intention strictly, filling his novel with explicit precepts and many didactical proverbs[4] that have a rather ridiculous effect in course of the story. All the characters and lines of the plot are clearly black-and-white, lacking authenticity and convincing appeal; the motivation of people's behavior and deliberations is obscure and highly questionable. The whole story is simplistic and at times even absurd; the religious scheme of the narrative is omnipresent, giving a somewhat oppressive impression. The author of the adaptation lacks any sort of literary and narrating skills, thus the resulting work is of a poor quality in all respects.

Pleva's adaptation, on the other hand, is much more successful. It is far from being a true imitation of the original work of art, but as a piece of children's literature it has got its value. The structure of the narrative is well-built, the characters are depicted as real people with a convincing motives for their behavior. The real strenghth of the work lies in its realistic descriptions of geographical and botanical facts and of particular working processes; Pleva truly functions as a credible source of information in this respect. The whole story then is readable and interesting. From the translatological point of view there's not much to be said about it as it keeps only the central plot and transforms all the rest radically, but if we treat it as a work of its own we have to appreciate it which is something that does not apply to the Ruth's adaptation. Pleva's recounting of the Robinson's adventures thus has got its place in the realm the children's literature, while Ruth's attempt is to be dismissed once and for ever as an amateurish experiment.

[4] "Kdo jádro chce jísti, ořech musí rozlousknouti." p.38.

"Nerad ořechy louská, rád však jádra chroustá." Ibidem.

"Tak v životě radost po žalosti chodí, jako růže po trní se rodí." p.47.

"… nade vchodem do skály vyryl své heslo:"Práce a střídmost!"" p.83.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Narrated by Josef V.Pleva. Praha: Albatros, 1983.