Could someone take a look at my essay please? (2nd part) Unfortunately my essay is too long for italki o.O. So here comes the second part (and there will be a third one...) Religious Symbols/Aspects There are various passages in the book Robinson Crusoe in which Christian symbols are used to connect Crusoe’s religious development with the ongoing story. This is also what Martin J. Greif states in his article in the journal The Conversion of Robinson Crusoe: “[The novel] is primarily an account of a spiritual experience, an allegorical story of conversion employing metaphoric symbols readily recognizable to an audience familiar with a similar set of symbols found repeatedly in the sermons, tracts, and other religious writings of both Anglican and dissenting divines” (Greif, 551). The first religious aspect emerges in the very beginning when Crusoe deliberately ignores his father’s advice to become a respected middle-class citizen. In this connection one has to note that Crusoe’s father is kind of equated with God, which means - for Crusoe - his father has the function of God. There are several adjacently placed references to God and his biological father: Crusoe leaves his home “without asking God’s Blessing, or my Father’s” (9) and recognizes “the breach of my duty to my God and my father” (9). Thus, by ignoring his father’s suggestion for his future and by association his given destiny, he actually disregards God and commits his first sin which he refers to as his “original sin”. So because “Crusoe’s “original sin,” like Adams’s is disobedience to his father [. . .],” his journey can in consequence be compared to Adam and Eve when banished from Garden of Eden (Damrosch, Jr. 374). Alike them, Crusoe had everything he could wish for: a sheltered home and a good life in prospect. But both Adam and Eve and Crusoe decided to give up all their comfort because of their restlessness and urge for seeking adventures. As a result they have to do penance for their sin. Crusoe’s punishment seems obvious. It starts with an odyssey on sea ending in slavery and reaching its climax in exile on a deserted island. That leads to other essential religious symbols in the book. Crusoe not only shipwrecks several times, but especially struggles with natural events, for “Storms represent the wrath of God against the sinful [. . .]” (Greif, 558) and therefore in the novel often hit ships that currently host the sinner Crusoe, whereas “[. . .] the sea itself was a symbol of regeneration and conversion” (Greif, 555-56), hence is substitutional for the start of a new life, meaning his rebirth or to speak with religion, Crusoe’s baptism. Thus, Crusoe nearly drowning in the sea figuratively means a watershed for it is the change from his old sinful life and simultaneously it provides the opportunity to start a new life. Especially the given excerpt shows how Crusoe not only refers to his body, but also to his soul as being saved by God, for as he thanks God he states that one could not believe “[. . .] what the Extasies and Transports of the Soul are, when it is so sav’d as I may say, out of the very Grave.” (Defoe, 35, l. 20-21). After this turning point in the story, Crusoe’s conversion, although he is not yet fully convinced of the importance of religion in his life starts becoming more and more obvious. All together, one can see that at every crucial point of Crusoe’s story, certain events are connected with Christian images. Not only “Robinson Crusoe's final sea voyage” but also “the ship he boards, the providential storm which oversets the prodigal's boat, the great fury of the shipwreck, the very sea itself, are Christian metaphors[. . .]” (Greif, 555). Those symbols can be found throughout the whole narrative and therefore always remind the reader of Crusoe’s growth in faith as the story progresses.