61 pages • 2 hours read
Johann David WyssThe Swiss Family Robinson
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1812A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Shipwreck and Desertion”
In the late 1700s, a ship bound from Switzerland to Australia encounters six days and nights of stormy seas. The ship, carrying the Robinson family—Father, his wife Elizabeth, and their four sons—sustains heavy damage, and the crew abandons the Robinsons to fend for themselves. In sight of land, the ship becomes wedged between two rocks, keeping it stable while the family gathers provisions, fashions a crude boat, and attempts to reach shore.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Attempting Landfall”
Loading their makeshift canoe with food, ammunition, tools, and a flock of chickens, the Robinsons set out for shore. Two mastiffs left behind by the crew leap overboard and swim alongside the boat. Once ashore, the Robinsons rig a temporary shelter, start a cooking fire, and explore the beach. They quickly discover a food source: a rocky inlet filled with oysters and shellfish. The eldest son, fourteen-year-old Fritz, goes hunting and returns with an agouti, a small pig-like animal. Following dinner, the family gives thanks for their safe delivery to dry land. Judging by the lack of twilight and rapid sunset, the father reasons they must have landed near the equator.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Our First Venture”
The next morning, Robinson and Fritz leave camp to search for surviving crew members and to explore the island. Fritz argues that it’s a waste of time looking for the ship’s crew, since they abandoned the Robinsons without a lifeboat. Robinson, however, counters that they have a moral duty to seek out survivors, telling Fritz, “saving a life is a higher calling” (25). They move through the island forest, observing the flora and assessing how they might use the natural resources. Soon after, while perched atop a high cliff, they see no signs of human life.
As they continue to explore, Robinson and Fritz discover a field of sugarcane and a troop of monkeys dwelling in the coconut trees. After Turk, one of the mastiffs, kills a monkey, Fritz adopts its baby. They finally return to camp with the fruits of their labors: sugar cane, gourds, and coconuts. Elizabeth and the remaining sons prepare a hearty dinner of fish and poultry. During the night, the family is awakened by the dogs’ barking; they find a pack of jackals trying to invade the camp. Robinson and Fritz shoot two jackals, the mastiffs kill four more, and the rest flee into the night.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Back to the Wreck”
The following morning, the family returns to the ship to salvage any last items of value, including the remaining animals. Robinson first erects a flagpole for signaling between ship and shore. Since the ship was bound for a colony in Australia, it carried great stores of food and supplies. The challenge for the Robinsons is to carry as much of it ashore before the wreck sinks. They load their makeshift canoe with arms and ammunition, food, kitchen supplies, blankets, and more tools. It is too late to return to shore, so Robinson and Fritz spend the night in their small boat after exchanging signals with Elizabeth that all is well.
The next morning, they tie flotation belts to the animals so they may swim ashore. On the way back to the beach, one of the animals nearly falls prey to a shark, but Fritz shoots it before it attacks. Once on shore, they set the animals free and unload the supplies. Then, they set out in search of a more habitable location. They discover a grove of massive trees which provide plenty of shade from the hot sun. Elizabeth suggests building a treehouse. “Jackals wouldn’t bother us at night in a tree” (54), she argues, and her husband concurs.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
When the Robinson family leaves their home in Switzerland for a colony in Australia, Europe was nearing the end of a centuries-long period of exploration and colonization. Australia was sparsely populated at that time, and England, having decided to use the continent as a penal colony, had just begun to transport prisoners there. The Robinsons must have understood that life in an Australian colony would be a far cry from the comfort of Switzerland, which explains their level of preparation for living in an untamed environment. They simply traded an island in the South Pacific for a continent further south.
When the family is shipwrecked alone on an island, survival becomes their first priority, and they are more than up to the task. The Robinsons—particularly the father and his eldest son, Fritz—are walking encyclopedias of natural science. They rarely encounter an animal or plant species they can’t identify, and they are well-versed in nearly every conceivable survival skill: hunting, skinning, cooking, building, sailing, and animal husbandry. Robinson even knows how to turn a gourd into a water bottle and how long it takes coconut milk to ferment.
Johann Wyss was a pastor who wrote the novel as a moral and educational resource for his children. The narrative is written as a first-person travel journal, with family patriarch Robinson identifying animals and plants as they begin to explore their new environment. The Robinsons express little of the emotion one might expect from a family in such a situation—fear and confusion are supplanted by cold logic. This clearly spells out Wynn’s for writing the story—education is more important than psychological realism. The dialogue even takes on the tone of a rigid sermon, as Robinson lectures his children about morality and philosophy. He tells them, “When you have many tasks to choose from, always choose the one the gives the clearest advantage” (25). Yet despite the religious undertones of the character and his lectures, Robinson’s utilitarian views could have come straight from any Enlightenment philosopher. Armed with a vast reservoir of knowledge and do-it-yourself resourcefulness, an island populated with jackals and snakes is no match for the Robinsons.
