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.
Symbols & Motifs
Robinson’s Journal
The entire narrative is Robinson’s account, in journal form, of their decade-long adventure. A first-person point of view in literature in necessarily limited. The reader sees the world solely through the eyes of the narrator, and the gaps are filled in only by Robinson’s account of what his sons or his wife tells him. If certain events are left out or distorted, readers never know; they must trust the narrator’s account to provide some reasonable version of the truth. Like much of world history in which the events we remember are the events told by the colonizers and the military victors, Robinson’s account is only part of the story. One may wonder what new information would be revealed if Ernest or Elizabeth had their say. Robinson may have seemed less like a calm, loving husband and father if someone else told the story. Historian Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States was radical precisely because it gave historical voice to people who have been traditionally voiceless. With that book’s approach in mind, it is crucial for readers to question usual colonial narratives like Robinson’s.
Wildlife
The island’s animal life, a more diverse selection than may be biologically feasible, symbolizes the richness of nature to which the Robinsons are undeniably drawn and the resources they rely on for survival. These two elements might seem to be mutually exclusive, but not for the Robinsons. Patriarch Robinson has no trouble observing the animal kingdom with a scientific eye, admiring its attributes and then dispassionately killing it for the comfort it provides. While some of this is necessary for survival, the Robinsons treat the animal life as disposable. Either it’s food or a threat, or its status is unclear; either way, any doubt usually provokes an armed response. Whether killing animals for food, oil, or skins, or simply taming them to use as transportation, the Robinsons’ view of nature is emblematic of a hierarchal structure that places humans clearly at the top and everything else somewhere below.
Guns
When the crew of the wrecked vessel abandons it to the fury of the storm, they evidently don’t see the need to take anything with them. As a result, they leave the Robinsons a multitude of survival tools, including guns with seemingly limitless ammunition. The guns come in handy from the very first day when Fritz kills a shark that threatens their animals swimming for shore. Aside from defense and hunting, however, the guns represent the human domination of nature. Humans are frail creatures compared to other wildlife. They cannot defend themselves with tooth and claw, and they cannot take flight or camouflage themselves. Instead, they rely on their ingenuity which enables them to construct highly efficient killing devices. The guns are all that separates the Robinsons from deadly snakes, predatory sharks, or ferocious tigers. Moreover, the guns provide the Robinsons with the means to hold sway over all the creatures of the island, a belief that corresponds to their hierarchal view of man’s relationship to nature. Just as the Old Testament God granted humans dominion over all the animals of the Garden of Eden, guns grant the Robinsons dominion over the beasts on the island.
The Shipwreck
The ship bearing the Robinsons to their Australian colony signifies their last, crumbling ties to civilization. It bears all the trappings of a civilized life: fine china, silverware, tools, beds, blankets, and even a small sailing vessel that serves as the Robinsons’ own personal yacht. When the ship washes up on the rocks, stranding them on the island, the only connection to their European roots is severed. The Robinsons willingly embrace that lost connection, even dealing a final blow to their old life by intentionally blowing up the last of the wreckage. It seems a capricious act, given that the sea would have easily taken it over time. By destroying the ship, the Robinsons metaphorically declare their independence from their old life and submit to the fate God has ordained for them. Even when a new ship, the HMS Unicorn, arrives, they refuse to return to the former life the Unicorn offers, except for Fritz who has a romantic incentive and Franz who never truly experienced any life away from the island. No vessel, not even a frigate of the Royal Navy, can tear the family away from the new life they created for themselves.
