Daniel's Defoe's « Robinson Crusoe » As a Colonial [PDF]
My monograph explores the colonial features of this novel.It is divided in two parts. In part one,my basis focus is on Defoe's Robinson Crusoe as an adventure narrative. My analysis will attempts to highlight adventure narrative and colonialism and the different economic,social and political changes that occurred in the late ...
Robinson Crusoe. Dianne Armstrong. I n Working with Structuralism David Lodge suggests that "Heming- way's stories are remarkable for achieving a symbolist resonance without the ... The pervasive theme of cannibalism in Robinson. Crusoe is ..... that
I cannot do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good that I can do. Jana
Idea Transcript
IBNO ZOHR UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LETTERS AGADIR
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Daniel’s Defoe’s « Robinson Crusoe » As a Colonial Narrative A research papers submitted to the department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirement of degree of Licence in English
Option : Litterature
Submitted by: Souilem ESSALLAMI
Supervised by : Dr Asma AGEZNAY
Academic year : 1999-2000
Contents GENERAL INTRODUCTION *PART ONE : Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe As an adventure narrative ￢ Section 1 : Adventure and Shipwreck ￢ Section 2 : Adventure as a paradigm of empire ￢ Section 3 : Robinson Crusoe as a colonial hero ￢ ￢
*PART TWO : Robinson Crusoe as a «
￢
economicus »
Homo-
￢ ￢ ￢ ￢ Section 1 : From « A desert Island » to « A colony » ￢ Section 2 : The division of labour on the island ￢ Section 3 : Some critical evaluation of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe ￢ ￢
￢ ￢ ￢ ￢
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe belongs to a literary genre in literature known as « Colonial Literature ». My monograph explores the colonial features of this novel.It is divided in two parts. In part one,my basis focus is on Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as an adventure narrative. My analysis will attempts to highlight adventure narrative and colonialism and the different economic,social and political changes that occurred in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century in England. It will also explore how these new changes helped in the emergence of a new literary genre called « Adventure Narrative ». These issues will be examined through my analysis of Robinson Crusoe as the first adventure narrative that represents obviously the ideals and ideology of colonialism . The main theme concerning the shipwreck is how it turns out to be a colonial adventure. My monograph will suggest that Crusoe is a real prototype of a colonial hero who is thrown on the island not to contemplate its beautiful nature but to acquire the island as a colony. In part two, my main interest falls on Robinson Crusoe as an emblem of the theme « Homo-Economicus ». My discussion of this latter theme will attempt to show how Crusoe’s economic and colonial greed urged him to transform the island from « Adesert Island » into « A colony ». After his settlement on the island Crusoe considers lt his own property and its natives his own people. I shall also discuss the notion of labour, mentioning Robinson/Friday’s relationship and how it reflects the Master/Slave’s relationship. Crusoe is not interested in humain appearance on the island.Rather,he is interested in economic individualism. He takes hold of Friday not for the
sake of talking to a humain being after more than twenty years of solitude on the « Desert Island ». Yet, he wants to enslave him in order to improve Crusoe’s stock of goods on the island. I shall also explore the economic individualism as differnt critics have approached it , namely : Ian Watt, Stephen Hymer and Karl Marx. As Ian Watt has put it, « Profit is Crusoe’s only vocation and the whole world is his territory ».