Resumen En Inglés Del Libro: THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON

THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON

This book talks about the surprising story of a family compounded of the father, his wife Elizabeth and their four sons, Fritz, 15, Jack, 13, Ernest, 11 and Francis, 8 who nobody of them were described in this book, neither fisically, neither in his temperament, etc. The book only talk about all the adventures that a family lived looking for survive in an empty island.

This story is explained by the chief of the family, the father, which name is never said in the book. This man begins explaining that many years ago, his family and him left Switzerland and boarded a ship over the waters of the Pacific Ocean, however, they never imagined that they never could arrive to their destiny (by the way that this fact never is mentioned). Their real final destination was an empty island near New Guinea, where they were forced to establish a colony in order to survive in a unknown place.

During six days, the ship had to face with a violent storm, the wind howled and tore at the sails. On the seventh day, the masts ripped apart and fell into the sea and the ship began to fill with water. All the crew was in panic and began to pray to God. The family Robinson were worried and terrified but they never lose the confidence in God.

Suddenly, the ship crashed into a large rock, and more and more water come in the ship. The captain told them that all was lost and ordered all the crew to go to the boats.

Meanwhile, mister Robinson asked to his family to stay in calm because first of all, the water hadn’t reached them yet, and secondly, they were near a land. He went to check the state of the ship to see what was the best thing to do while his family waited in the hold.

Mister Robinson looked that it is a giant hole in one side where the water was rushing in, so the ship was completely shattered. The crew had just cut loose the ropes of the boats and were pushing off into the sea. He shouted them to come back, but all was unsuccessful, the people disappeared in the sea.

So the family Robinson, had one consolation, the ship was safe for at least up to the next morning because it was plugged between two rocks. Probably, the next day, they could reach the shore.

Fritz, the oldest boy, proposed his family to look for something to help them to make some life jackets. In the kitchen, they find some small wooden butter tubs that they tied together, two by two, using towels…and eureka! They had made six life jackets.

The next morning, when the sea was calm, they put on their new life jackets, but his brother Jack advised him that probably he could swim but he and his family couldn’t. He proposed to make a float of rafts and get to the land that way, so he went to look what he could find. Suddenly, Jack opened the doors of the captain’s quarters with two huge dogs, Turk and Flora.

The family saw four casks floating in the water, they cut them in half, made eight tubes, each big enough to hold one person. Then, they nailed two planks on each side of the tubs, creating a boat.

Before they went to sail, mom Elizabeth, discovered a cow, a mule, two goats, six sheep, a pig, hens, roosters, pigeons, geese and ducks. The family Robinson boarded their new and rustic boat, leaving each member of the family with his own individual tub. The provisions that they found in the ship filled another tub, the dogs Turk and Flora swam after them with all the gueese and ducks.

When they arrived to the island, they put a tent near a brook and made beds of dried grass and slept their first night in that place. The next day, they decided to explore the island and then be able to compare the two areas for deciding where to build their home. They discovered really tropical paradise, there are towering trees of all types, fields of sugar cane, and rolling hills of grass, leafy green plants, and fragrant flowers. Colored birds darted across the air and monkeys chatted in the trees. Then, they decided to come back to the ship and load up six tubs with more provisions (kitchen utensils, a silver service, metal plates, chests of wine and butter, hams, sausages, sacks of grain and potatoes, farm implements, hammocks, and blankets) and put a life jacket (consisted of two casks, one on either side of the animal and were tied together by leather thongs, with a large cork underneath for buoyancy) on each animal and was pushed into the sea.

With all the animals over the land, mister Robinson decided to see the land on the other side of the creek, he found the most beautiful woods, it was a grove of fourteen of the tallest and broadest trees in the world. Each tree is supported on either side by giant arches, formed from the roots. He thought that it was the perfect place to build their home.

Starting from here, the Robinson family story began. Forced to surviving in an empty island, this book told a lot of adventures that this family lived in this place for around ten years. They had to use their intelligence, imagination and their survival instinct in uncountable times for survive to all the nature dangers and the savage animals. Below, I will describe some of the adventures that the family Robinson lived:

As I said before, the family Robinson established a colony in this empty island, first they began to made their house over a giant tree where they hoisted a ladder up the tree made of rope and sugar canes. Time after, when a terrible storm and wind came, they had to change their house to a grotto (salt mine).

They built a bridge to cross the river, a cajack (a sort canoe in the form of a shell) with strips of whalebone, bamboo canes, and rushes; Fritz also cut off the walrus’s head, stuffed it, and attached it to the bow of his cajack, that was named The Walrus. They planted some young fruit plants that they found one day inside a cask in the ship, they made an irrigation system using bamboo canes to carry the water over from the falls). They found a field of cotton that they used to do their clothes.

Obviously, they had a lot of experiences with animals. They confront danger in many times with buffaloes, boas (one boa killed Grizzle, a donkey), giant bears (that they use the skins as coverlets for their beds), lions (that desafotunately killed Flora, the dog) etc. They domestic some animals as the buffaloes, the ostriches (that they use as a transportation resource), a monkey, an eagle (that Ernest trained in order to catch birds for them). Many animals they found, were used with a purpose, to eat, to use their skin or body (like once time that they use the caparison tortoise to make an excellent bowl for washing clothes).

They also found some value things like in the captain’s cabin (gold and silver watches, necklaces, and rings that the chest contained). Many years after, Fritz, the oldest son, discovered pearls of rare quality.

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