While I appreciate the historical and cultural significance of Robinson Crusoe as “the first English novel,” I must admit that the work itself left me cold. Echoing Jennie’s comments about the “instruction manual feel” of Defoe’s prose, I had little patience for the minutiae of the various activities Crusoe engages in. One might argue that such details make the novel “realistic,” but for me they were distracting and excessive; as I was trudging through it, I couldn’t help but think that Defoe took that old writing chestnut about “showing, not telling” too literally—oh yes, I thought, you CAN show too much. To be fair, I suppose readers of the time caved specificity in their literature (and, it must be said, had fewer distractions and longer attention spans than the readers of today). However, the inevitable problem with a novel that focuses almost exclusively on one character: it becomes too insular, too dislocated from reality, because much of the action takes place in the protagonist’s head, and as a result the work loses the vitality of having other perspectives and points-of-view present themselves. I don't count Friday and the other “savages” (as Crusoe himself might term them) because as Defoe presents them in the novel they aren’t fully developed characters, but rather caricatures.
Defoe seems to take it for granted that as a white Christian male Crusoe should naturally enjoy dominion over the earth. As Jennie so precisely put it, what makes Crusoe so irksome is that "he never own[s] up to his culpability as perpetuator of imperialism in all its hateful grandeur.” While Crusoe’s colonialist tendencies are offensive, we have to put the novel in the context of its time. However ardently we may wish, a person like Defoe just wouldn’t share our modern, multicultural perspective. If anything, I had a larger problem with Crusoe’s MacGyver-esque way of cobbling together a solution to any obstacle he faces—how are we supposed to take him seriously as an “everyman” when he is so insufferably resourceful? Does this also play into notions of white male supremacy; in other words, was Defoe trying to suggest that ALL white Christian males had the ability to be Crusoe-like if they just applied themselves?
1 comment:
I really like your comment, but would like to add my own dimension. Like all of my comments, I wish this to be adding to a dialogue rather than a correction or criticism of your very thoughtful points.
Starting with your final point: I would offer the alternative that Defoe has much more class, political, and religious animosity than racial animosity. I would guess that he is trying to show his character's self-reliance and resourcefulness against (what he saw as) the decadence and profligacy of the aristocratic classes and the passive superstitiousness of other religious groups, especially Catholics. It is so early in the age of exploration, that beyond the sense of "dominion" which you note, there really is no coherent racist or imperialist ideology available. Defoe's at least seems to go no further than his overriding principal of economic advancement which is evident in all relationships, not just those with colonial peoples.
As for Defoe's tendency to enumerate Crusoe's goods: it is such an important characteristic of the early novel that I would beg you to give the style another chance to win you over. It is very hard for us to feel how radical this style was: one way to appreciate it is to read the vitriolic satires of the period, especially those by Swift. "Classical" writers were appalled by these lists of worldly goods and thought they revealed that the authors were low-class strivers who (they firmly believed) had no business writing or publishing anything. Defoe is making a strong argument for the relevance and value of daily life and its little battles and disappointments. It seems like nothing now, but for its time it was revolutionary.
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