Islands (Symbol)
Crusoe has spent his life on two islands: the tropical, volcano-covered one where he was stranded, and then England, which, he confesses, doesn't seem like most people's idea of an island. Islands are geographically isolated, but here they symbolize the isolation created by Crusoe's juxtaposed experiences as well. On the first island, he is of course out of place and cut off from all he knows. Back in England, meanwhile, his unique experience as a castaway also sets him apart and renders him isolated. The literal cloistering of each island is only one aspect of the broader, emotional and experiential cloistering that they lead to for Crusoe.
Crusoe's Possessions (Symbol)
Near the end of "Crusoe in England," Crusoe explains the peculiar way in which his various artifacts, from his knife to his parasol, have become diminished. Removed from the context in which they were essential, even lifesaving, resources, they are sapped of their power—indeed of their life, for Crusoe personifies his knife in particular, noting that it seems at once avoidant and simply dead. Though they are in many cases still theoretically usable, identical in form to the way they were when Crusoe made daily use of them, they are now relegated to the status of curiosities and will soon be placed in a museum. These objects symbolize Crusoe's own aging, which seems to have come about abruptly rather than gradually: decontextualized in England, both he and his possessions are devoid of their former vitality.
Volcanoes (Symbol)
Bishop performs a somewhat unexpected maneuver in this poem by making volcanoes, associated with drama and danger, primarily sites of boredom. Crusoe speaks dismissively of the small, dormant, easily climbed volcanoes on his island. He even dubs one "Mont d'Espoir," a reference to the agonizing blend of hope and despair he experienced among these volcanoes (since "espoir" is French for "hope," but sounds similar to the English "despair"). Still, at times Crusoe mistakes the sound of turtles hissing for that of a volcanic eruption, and the lava-covered beaches of the island suggest that these volcanoes were once a real threat. The volcanoes, then, symbolize the strangely combined terror and boredom of Crusoe's sojourn.
