“a Ragged Boyhood” by Daniel Defoe

Paragraph Assignment: “A Ragged Boyhood” by Daniel Defoe In “A Ragged Boyhood”, Daniel Defoe creates verisimilitude, allowing the suspension of disbelief, by presenting a realistic first-person narrative, where fiction is entwined with history: Colonel Jack’s story, an illustration of the concurrent social issues, such as crime and poverty, is told in a way that it could be easily assumed autobiographical. Such assumption can be made from the very beginning – “Seeing my life has been such a chequerwork of nature, and that I am able now to look back upon it from a safer distance (…)” – and holds throughout the story, the firstperson writing being one of the mechanisms with which Defoe creates verisimilitude. Likewise, the use of dialogues, which are written as to reproduce the authenticity of real speech – “‘He have it again!’ says he; ‘what d’ye mean by that?’ ‘Nay, I don’t know’, says I.” – is another tool applied successfully by Defoe in creating a verisimilar story. Aside from the form, the content also plays a crucial role in allowing the suspension of disbelief in “A Ragged Boyhood”. Despite being a piece of fiction, not only does the story resemble reality, but it is an impeccable representation of reality concerning the social issues in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. The ending is a good highlight of the degree of verisimilitude in Defoe’s story: being in the possession of money for the first time in his life, Colonel Jack doesn’t have the means to keep or make use of it, whereas in a less realistic story he could have, for example, invited his friends to spend the night in a hotel.