Robinson Crusoe

   

    

   Daniel Defoe

                         Robinson Crusoe



Introduction about authors :

         Daniel Defoe (c. 1660 – 24 April 1731), born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. Defoe is noted for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson, and is among the founders of the English novel.

 

 

                                      

 

 Colonial discourse in Robinson Crusoe :

    Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, a classic in English literature, and regarded by many as the first English novel, has been interpreted in different ways. First it is a religious and moral allegory as stressed by Defoe himself in the Preface. Also, Rousseau was inspired by it to “Return to Nature”. 

   Robinson Crusoe colonialism quotes.

The first part of the story of Robinson Crusoe begins with Crusoe’s being stranded and marooned in an inhabited island, far from the rest of the world. This happens for their ship’s being wrecked in a storm, and only he being left. In such a condition, he begins his struggle for existence and consequently succeeds.

In a sense, Crusoe attempts to replicate his own society or colony on the island. This has been achieved through application of some qualities of Crusoe, and some instruments, and proper handling of different situations.

First, the qualities by dint of which Crusoe has been able to change the island inhabitable to habitable, are his courage, hard struggle with situation, determination, devotion, creativity.

Then, in order to make his colony inhabitable and cultivable, he applies European technology and agriculture. He brings, from the stranded ship, a large number of articles and corps which are useful to him in his desolate condition on the island. These things include several items of food, several weapons e.g. guns and pistols, considerable ammunition including gunpowder, such tools as saws, and axe, a hammer, several bottles of rum, a box of sugar, a hammock, some clothing, some bedding, some money, though useless at that situation, a bag full of chicken feed, a bag full of nails, some corps and a number of other things. Using these things, day after day for a long time Crusoe establishes a society of his own in which there come some other men by accident.

Crusoe establishes “a rudimentary political hierarchy” in the land. Crusoe, several times in the novel, refers to himself as the ‘king’ of the island. In his own word –

“a secret kind of Pleasure... to think that this was all my own, that I was king and lord of all this country indefeasibly, and had a right of Possession.”

Whilst the captain describes him as the “Governour” to the mutineers.

“The idealised master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural imperialism. Crusoe represents the ‘enlightened’ European whilst Friday is the ‘savage’ who can only be redeemed from his supposedly barbarous way of life through the assimilation of Crusoe’s culture.”

Crusoe saves, for his own purpose, a prisoner who was running away from the clutches of some cannibals. When he sees it, he thinks,

“It came now very warmly upon my thoughts, and indeed irresistibly, that now was my time to get me a servant, and perhaps a Companion, or Assistant.”

Crusoe names the prisoner Friday, introduces himself to him as ‘Master’, and teaches him language actually for his own benefit like the colonists. He says –

“I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my Business to teach him every thing, that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and understand me what I speak.”

The colonialists come to colonies with some mission with them. Similarly Crusoe’s mission is to preach. To make it easy and to communicate with Friday he taught him language. When Crusoe knows from him about their false God, Beramucke, he begins preaching –

          “I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God”

The English sea-captain, having prayed Crusoe to recover his ship from the hands of the mutineers, Crusoe raises two conditions which indicate his colonial attitude of making contact. His conditions are:

“That while you stay on this island with me, you will not pretend to any authority here;”

and

“That if the ship is, or may be recovered, you will carry me and my Man to English passage free.”

Though Crusoe leaves his island for England, he leaves an unseen control over the land. Instead of his being settled in England, he longs for going to adventure again. He makes a voyage to East Indies and to the island which he explicitly calls his “Colony”. He says –

“In this voyage I visited my new Colony in the Island, saw my successors the Spaniards, had the whole story of their lives, and of the Villains I left there.”

We see here, Crusoe is very kind of Friday but there is of course difference between ‘we’ and ‘they’, between my ‘Man’ and my ‘Master’. Actually the relation between the colonizer and the colonized is here soft become both of them are at stake and in initial stage where there is no revolt between them. But we can look into The Tempest where Shakespeare shows the aftermath of teaching language, while there is no aftermath or consequence of colonization in Robinson Crusoe. Caliban complains to his master,

          “You taught me language; and my profit on..

          Is, I know how to curse: the red plague rid you

          For learning me your language!”

“Nevertheless, within the novel, Defoe also takes the opportunity to criticise the historic Spanish conquest of South America.” Crusoe thinks that if he attacks the cannibals who have come to the shore of his island, it would not be just for him. Rather,

“this would justify the conduct of the Spaniards in all their Barbarities practised in America, and where they destroyed Million’s of these people, who... were yet... very innocent people.”

On the issues of gender, race and colonialism, J.M. Coetzee presents Foe which re-images Robinson Crusoe which lacked female character. Here Coetzee adds a woman, Susan Barton, cast away on the same island as Robinson Crusoe (here called Cruso) and Friday. “After their rescue by a passing merchantman, Crusoe dies aboard the ship and Susan and Friday are left to make their way in England.”

In this novel, Friday is an ugly Negro and mutilated: none knows who has mutilated him. Actually “the pertinence of Friday to black history is not in question: the inaccessibility of his world to the European world is a consequence of colonialist oppression and racism. The mutilation in his mouth is emblematic of Black-African cultural castration operated by the white invaders.”

In fine, we agree with James Joyce that “the true symbol of the British conquest is Robinson Crusoe”:

“He is the true prototype of the British colonists... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence # the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity.”

Defoe has shown the idealized colonialism of initial stage, but not the after fall stage, as in the Tempest, nor the barbarous result of colonialism, as expressed in Foe.

 Consider Robinson Crusoe as a colonial narrative.

Colonialism is defined as the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. England was for a long while, by far the most powerful and widely spread colonial empire in the world. For instance, there were the American colonies, as well as a British presence in China and India. In fact, it is only in the last ten years that Hong Kong reverted from the English back to China.

Colonization occurred primarily in the late 15th to the 20th century. The justifications for colonialism included Christian missionary work, the profits to be made, the expansion of the power of the metropolis and various religious and political beliefs.

Portugal was, at one time, a dominant colonial force in Europe, as was Spain. Their position as colonial powers faltered in the seventeenth century, while England and France surged ahead to become the prevailing world powers.

In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, colonialism is clearly apparent. To put the literary work into its proper context, it should be noted that the story was published in 1719, and England was enjoying the prosperity of the American colonies. England had adopted the stance that "God is on the side of the English" during Queen Elizabeth I's reign (after defeating the Spanish Armada—the strongest naval fleet in the world); this attitude had not diminished. Surely it only increased as the nation's holdings increased, which also included "islands in the West Indies."
 
Based upon the time in which it was written, Crusoe would have found the benefits of his country's "international policy" in keeping with his own capitalist endeavors. Colonialism is seen in the story after Crusoe leaves the island—for while he is there, he realizes that the things he valued in England, Brazil and on his travels revolved around money.

Conclusion :

 

Finally, we see a clear representation of colonization with regard to Crusoe's island. He has discovered and claimed it—in the same spirit as England's explorers and military leaders had claimed England's own colonies. When he is rescued, the ship's captain tells the mutineers that Crusoe is employed by "the governor."Crusoe "owns" the island and instructs those living there just as if he were the "governor" or political leader—just as any British colony would be governed.