In Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, does his dismissal of his pact with God make Crusoe a hopeless rebel? Even though Crusoe presumably had been raised...

In 's
, I don't know that Crusoe's change of heart towards God indicates that he
is a "hopeless rebel." I assume this term means that he cannot help but be a rebel.
Human nature may tend to push one naturally toward Crusoe's behavior. In the heat of the moment,
when fear is so overwhelming, the basic instinct of a human being is to do whatever is necessary
to survive.

After the fear has passed, it is also not unusual that promises
made under duress would be forgotten as quickly as they were made. Crusoe admits that this is
what happens to him. However, he does not wholly lose sight of his brief encounter with
God:

I found, indeed, some intervals of reflection; and
the serious thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes; but I shook them off,
and roused myself from them as it were from a distemper, and applying myself to drinking and
company, soon mastered the return of those fitsfor so I called them€¦

Crusoe speaks of God numerous times throughout the story. He
reports that when he first is washed ashore while everyone else perishes, he does not thank God
(we assume he infers "as he should have,") but runs about wringing his hands like a
madman until he collapses.

With the "miraculous" growth of corn on
the island, Crusoe once again "sees" God, but this, too, is temporary.

...and then the wonder began to cease; and I must confess my
religious thankfulness to Gods providence began to abate, too, upon the discovering that all
this was nothing but what was common...

A permanent
change eventually does come over the castaway. At one point, when he becomes
seriously illclose to dyingCrusoe begins to think about his lack of a
relationship with God, his father's prediction that rejecting his parents' wishes would not bode
well for him, and it might well be that God's hand is present in his current separation from
civilization:

I had no more sense of God or His
judgmentsmuch less of the present affliction of my circumstances being from His handthan if I
had been in the most prosperous condition of life.  But now, when I began to be sick, and a
leisurely view of the miseries of death came to place itself before me; when my spirits began to
sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was exhausted with the violence of the
fever; conscience, that had slept so long, began to awake, and I began to reproach myself with
my past life, in which I had so evidently, by uncommon wickedness, provoked the justice of God
to lay me under uncommon strokes, and to deal with me in so vindictive a manner.

What began to work in Crusoe earlier in the story disappeared when
the threats were gone. He was, however, younger then, and as he himself concludes, this
independence from God is not unusual for a young man who believes all is well with his lifethat
he need depend on no one.

Human nature shows that when change is about to
come over us in whatever fashion, it may take several "life-altering kicks" before we
are aware that life is trying to get our attention. Crusoe was raised in a good home, and in
that he is growing as a personseeing how insignificant he is, alone in the universeI would not
assume that he is truly a hopeless rebel. I would think simply that he will stop fighting life
and look for a peace regarding his circumstances which will allow him to survive. Recognizing
that God has a hand in this disaster, he can see, too, the blessings Crusoe has
received.