How do you account for the popularity of Robinson Crusoe?

There is
a lot to be said for being marooned on a tropical island. You don't have to shave every day. You
don't have to go to work. You don't have to pay bills, bills, and more bills. You don't have to
file your income tax return every year. You can sleep whenever you like. You have nothing to
worry about but finding a little food, and if you get marooned on a good island in a good
latitude you can find plenty to eat, including coconuts. I think this is what appeals to
readers--the fantasy of being totally free and owning your own little domain. The author, , made
things even easier forby having the hulk of the wrecked ship wash up not far from shore. This
enabled Crusoe to supply himself with all kinds of useful things, including tools. He also saved
some domesticated animals, and he helped himself to a large quantity of weapons and a huge
supply of gunpowder. 

The movie Cast Away starring Tom
Hanks was obviously a sandwiched-together knockoff of Robinson Crusoe and
Enoch Arden. But the island on which the Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is
marooned is nothing like the tropical paradise of Robinson Crusoe. Chuck
Noland has a miserable life for the whole time he is marooned on a tiny, cold, inhospitable
island. He even thinks of committing suicide. And he has no tools to work with except for a pair
of girls' ice skates that washed ashore in a FedEx package. Then when he finally gets rescued he
discovers that his girlfriend has married somebody else (like the hero's wife in Enoch
Arden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson). There is something to be said for losing a
girlfriend, or a wife, too. Chuck Noland has years of back pay coming, plus retirement pay, plus
compensation for being in the FedEx crash. He can have plenty of girls, but he doesn't seem to
appreciate his good fortune. The movie is a downer, or actually a double-downer. Everything bad
happens to him. It made a lot of money, but I don't think many people would want to see it a
second time.

Robinson Crusoe remains popular because the
reader can fantasize about getting away from the rat race and going native in a place where the
sun shines every day and Mother Nature provides all his needs, as if he were in the Garden of
Eden. Naturally Crusoe eventually runs into troubles, because good things never last. But the
adventure part of the story also makes it interesting.