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Eklenme Tarihi: 20-11-08
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Dosya Açıklaması : Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719, at the beginning of a century that witnessed great changes in the economic order. The rise of capitalism throughout the period exposed individuals to a system of evaluation that differed quite a bit from aristocratic tradition. Instead of an individual's place in society being determined at birth, and being wholly related to their family name and rank, people entered professions and new social arrangements based not on family or church, but on their work. A relevant example of this is the fact that we don't learn much at all about Robinson's family -- he abandons them in England within the first few pages of the book -- which indicates precisely the degree to which family and other collective relations were taking a back seat to the elaboration of the individual. The shift from an aristocratic order to a capitalist system was a complicated one, and it would be difficult -- not to mention futile -- to attempt to pinpoint the precise moment of transition. But nonetheless, the century witnessed great changes, such as the rise of print culture, the first copyright legislation, increased industrialization, and a shift from focus on community to an emphasis on autonomous individualism. Defoe is said to be one of the first writers to represent this kind of economic individualism, and Robinson Crusoe -- his first novel -- is one of the best places to see this at work. Homo Economicus ("economic man") was the symbol used to discuss the new individualism of the eighteenth century -- one which depended explicitly one an individual's participation in a newly competitive, credit-based marketplace. Robinson, Defoe's protagonist, spends the opening sections of the novel in heavy pursuit of money. He readily admits to the reader his reasons for travel: it is more profitable to trade with indigenous peoples of non-Western cultures, since they value goods differently than Europeans do. It is possible, then, to trade trinkets that Westerners place little stock in -- like buttons and baubles -- for gold and precious stones. Getting more for one's money than it is "worth" is one of the prime directives of a capitalist economy, and Robinson is hooked on it from the moment he makes his first trade. With the money he makes from trading, he's able to buy a plantation in Brazil and begin reaping great profit. Even romantic love is secondary to economic gain. Living alone on the island, of course, Robinson doesn't have opportunity for romance. But he doesn't worry about it much, either. While long passages are devoted to his reflections on how being away from Europe has changed his ideas of what's valuable -- he has no need for money, for example, but finds an old burlap sack a much more useful item -- there is not a single moment of reflection on or longing for love. Critics have suggested that Defoe saw romantic love as an obstacle to economic advancement, since it is commonly held that romance does not follow logical dictates, while market practices are assumed to hold to some sort of logic or calculation. Main Characters Robinson Crusoe Robinson, the protagonist of Defoe's novel, is a headstrong young man when we meet him in 1651 in his home town of Hull, England. His parents are German and his father's original last name was Kreutznaer, before he came to England from the German town of Bremen. In 1652, against the will of his parents, Robinson begins a life of sea-faring adventure. On only his second trip, however, he is captured by a pirate ship and spends the next two years as a slave to the pirate king. After he escapes with another young slave, Xury, he is taken in by a Portuguese trading ship. He makes friends with the Captain and is taken to Brazil where he sets up a plantation. His next trading venture is ill-fated, however, and he is shipwrecked off a deserted island. Robinson is the only survivor of the voyage and must learn how to make his way alone and stranded. He spends 28 years making the island his home. Among other things, he grows corn and barley, herds goats, gathers wild fruits, hunts, and builds an elaborate fort. Late in his stay, he begins to notice cannibals landing on his island to make human sacrifices. He befriends one of the victims, who had escaped before being eaten. He names the man Friday, and the two live together for several years, debating vigorously one of Robinson's favorite topics: the virtues of Protestantism. Friday's father is also taken to the island. Together, the men plan to build a large canoe and escape. But when a British ship finally lands on the island, its sailors in mutiny, Robinson sees his chance and forms and alliance with the captain. Together, they fight off the mutinous sailors and return to Europe. Robinson gives up his plantation, but with the profits that have gone uncollected for 28 years, settles a rich man in England. The story ends with Robinson's wanderlust flaring up again, and he determines to travel once more. Friday Friday is the name that Robinson gives to his companion for his last years on the island. He is a cannibal, and was in the process of being sacrificed by his countrymen when he escapes and is found by Robinson. Instead of killing him, Robinson makes a big show of sparing Friday's life. This gesture indebts Friday to Robinson and the two live together until they leave the island. Friday even allows himself to be weaned off human flesh by Robinson, as well as to be schooled in Protestantism. Robinson estimates Friday's age to be about 26 when they meet. Xury Xury is the young boy that had been enslaved with Robinson when he lives with the pirates. The two escape together one morning when they are ostensibly on a fishing journey. When they are rescued by the Portuguese ship, Robinson reluctantly "sells" Xury to the Portuguese Captain, who agrees to set Xury free in ten years if he accepts a Christian God. Xury agrees to the deal, even though Robinson voices concern over the buying and selling of human beings. The Portuguese Captain The Captain of the ship that rescues Robinson becomes Robinson's friend until the end of the novel, and he becomes the person that Robinson trusts most in the world. He helps Robinson set up camp in Brazil, and when Robinson returns after 28 years on the island, the Captain -- who had been receiving a portion of the profit from Robinson's plantation while Robinson was away -- calculates how much money he owes Robinson and pays him back. Points to Ponder Robinson leaves his family at an early age, brushing aside his father's suggestions that he lead a prudent, middle-class life, pursue a stable profession such as the Law, and settle in England. Such a course would be in line with developing capitalism, allowing Robinson to profit from the kinds of intense professionalization and specialization that capitalism encourages. Instead, he chooses a life of travel, claiming that he is simple unable to corral his wanderlust and non-traditional desires. Ironically, of course, Robinson ends up profiting much more from his supposedly idiosyncratic lifestyle than he would have if he had stayed in England. He buys a plantation, and eventually sells it, winding up with enormous amounts of money. If Robinson's sin was to have defied the seemingly boring and bourgeois suggestions of his father, what do we think about the fact that Robinson eventually establishes a business that reaps increasing amounts of profit from an original investment of money? Indeed, even after 28 years away from his plantation, Robinson's business was able to produce profit without his intervention, perpetuating the capitalist myth the money is able to simply breed more money in an infinite progress of interest. This falls in line perfectly with capitalism's tendencies. What kinds of ironies might Defoe be either pointing out or unwittingly repeating in this trajectory? Robinson treats Xury -- with whom he escapes the pirates -- somewhat differently than he treats Friday. Both are non-Western, but Robinson sells Xury to the Portuguese Captain, while he often seems to treat Friday as an "equal." This might be said to be an example of Defoe's intent to show how Robinson changes on the island, learning the value of human life and differentiating humans for commodities. The argument in favor of this would show that Robinson bought slaves for his plantation, and, although he was unwilling, sold Xury for a profit; on the other hand, he sits and debates religion with Friday, and repeatedly comments to the reader on Friday's "European" qualities. But while the way in which he treats Friday differs to some extent from his treatment of Xury, he immediately has Friday refer to him as "master," and even stresses the fact that Friday is under implicit contract to follow Robinson's will because Robinson has saved his life. He is also determined to make Friday realize the superiority of a Western God. Robinson's attitude towards Friday, then, may indeed be distinct from his feelings about Xury, but it may not be that their relationship is truly one of equals. What are the ways in which Robinson believes himself to be treating Friday as a peer? What are some of the ways in which he enforces his will over him? Crusoe's Preface is traditionally regarded as the place where Defoe equivocates between wanting to say that the text that follows is a history or a novel. An Editor is spoken of in the third person, and we learn that this Editor "believes the thing [Robinson Crusoe] to be a just History of Fact," and that "neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it." This seems to be the moment at which Defoe puts his foot down, preferring to frame his text as history. But if we read closely, we see that the Editor does not, in fact, know whether the text is fact or fiction -- he only "believes" the text to be fact. How is the reader to judge, then, what genre of writing -- nonfiction or fiction (and furthermore, what sort of fiction) -- Robinson Crusoe might be categorized as? And, moreover, is the reader asked to come out on one side or the other, after all? That is, Defoe's Preface gives us a fifty-fifty option: either the book is fact or it isn't, but in the end, what might be more important isn't whether or not the tales are true, but what kinds of readerly tasks such waffling makes possible. If we can't know for sure what kind of text Crusoe is -- and if, then, the question of determining what sort of text Crusoe is, isn't all that important -- what kinds of questions should we be asking the text? And what sorts of tools should we use to encounter the text, if empirical tests have been declared to be inconclusive from the start? We might say that the reader's imagination must supplement this always-deferred question of genre. How do you think the Preface frames the rest of the text? How do some of the questions raised in the Preface get played out in Crusoe more generally? Did You Know? Robinson Crusoe was an enormously popular book...