When read briefly, the given excerpt from page 144-146 of Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” depicts Crusoe’s thoughts and ideas on cannibalism. However, when it’s read more closely, ideas of colonialism can be seen throughout the text.
At the beginning of the excerpt, Crusoe goes on daily walks to the hill to look out for boats that are approaching, so that when the natives come near to shore, he could shoot them, or at least frighten them with his gun shots. However, he soon grows tired of his fruitless tours and changes his mind about his plan to ambush the natives. Nevertheless, ideas of colonialism can still be found even after Crusoe changes his mind.
To begin with, before Crusoe changes his plans, he justifies his plan to kill natives by concluding that they are a degeneration of humanity. To him, they “had been suffer’d by Providence in his wise Disposition of the World, to have no other guide than that of their own abominable ant vitiated Passions; and consequently were left, and perhaps had been so for some Ages, to act such horrid Things”(144). The horror and disgust that ...
In Thomas King’s “’You’ll Never Believe What Happened’ Is a Great Way to Start,” a battle of stories can be seen in how different cultures tell the story of creation. These stories and the manner in which they are told are at the core of different possible belief systems, one Christian and the other more “traditional”. Each story suggests a different framework for viewing the world in its entirety. In some ways they may be interpreted as the root of such framework; in other ways these stories can be seen as small embodiments of a larger meta-narrative. It is within the larger narrative of colonialism that I will attempt to dissect several examples of this battle of stories.
George Fitzhugh’s, Cannibals All (Excerpt) is a primary document that appropriately argues that it is in the United State’s best intentions to preserve negro slavery across the South and the rest of the country in effort to sustain better lives for American negroes. Frederick Douglass argues in his piece, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave that society is responsible for shaping the negro community into slavery, and that abolition is necessary to remove that from existence. The author, Fitzhugh is a considerably significant individual who has a strong political background and is recognized for pro-slavery theology, influencing him to be a prominent figure in the context of arguing for the justification of slavery.
In the article, “Columbus’s Legacy: Genocide in the America’s,” by David E. Stannard, the theme can be identified as contrary to popular belief that the millions of native peoples of the Americas that perished in the sixteenth century died not only from disease brought over by the Europeans, but also as a result of mass murder, as well as death due to working them to death.
The process of committing a violent act is psychological in and of itself, to be able to physically hurt someone you must believe they are less then you. What must you believe to commit murder, much less mass murder or genocide? In an impressive display of cognitive dissonance Columbus went from admiring the Native American using words and phrases such as “well built”, “of quick intelligence”. When justifying going to war he calls them “cruel”, “warlike and numerous”, and “stupid”. Columbus justified the enslavement and murder of the Native people by dehumanizing them, making them less than human. Even when Columbus is complimenting the Caribbean Natives he is already thinking
James Joyce on Robinson Crusoe: “…the man alone, on a desert island, constructing a simple and moral economy which becomes the basis of a commonwealth presided over by a benevolent sovereign” (Liu 731).
... in the Island, [he] saw [his] Successors the Spaniards, had the whole Story of their Lives, and of the Villains I left there"(257). Crusoe eventually comes back to his island, where he attempts to improve the situation by leaving supplies and splitting the island into parts. He considers the island part of his dominion.
Mannoni, O. Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization. Great Britain: Richard Clay and Company, 1956.
Daniel Defoe wrote his fictional novel Robinson Crusoe during the 18th century, a time of colonization, and the British agricultural revolution. In the novel Robinson Crusoe desires civilization and comforts during his years on the island, so much that he alters the ecology of the fictional “island” in order to fulfill his craving. Consequently, Robinson Crusoe changes the ecology of the island, with the introduction of invasive species, European crops, and enclosures. Crusoe uses the practices of the British agricultural revolution to colonize the island, and to better his life during his stay.
what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence.” It quickly becomes apparent that those who were integral to the modern colonization of South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa were not doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. Without delving too deeply into the actual statistics of the good done for these “barbaric” cultures, it may seem as if colonization was a positive occurrence. In all actuality, however, the ulterior motives and imperialistic attitudes of the key players in colonization brought much more harm than gain. The benefits of colonialism were almost entirely one-sided at the unfortunate loss of the other side’s culture, inhabitants, resources and overall way of life.
Moore, John Robert. The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe. The Review of English Studies January 1945, 21(81): 52-56. Print.
From the beginning of some life, people make many choices that affect their personal growth and livelihood, choices like what they should wear and/or what they should do. Even the littlest choices that they make could make a big difference in their lives. In the book, Robinson Crusoe retold by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, while on the island, made many choices, big and small, that affected his personal growth and contributed to why he survived for so long. On the island he made a lot of smart decisions of what to do in order to stay a live. On his second day he made a choice to go back to the ship to explore what was there. He spent a lot of time building his home when he could have done something more important. He also took a risk and helped out a person that he did not know. These were some of many choices that Robinson Crusoe made throughout his many years on the island.
"Daniel Defoe achieved literary immortality when, in April 1719, he published Robinson Crusoe" (Stockton 2321). It dared to challenge the political, social, and economic status quo of his time. By depicting the utopian environment in which was created in the absence of society, Defoe criticizes the political and economic aspect of England's society, but is also able to show the narrator's relationship with nature in a vivid account of the personal growth and development that took place while stranded in solitude. Crusoe becomes "the universal representative, the person, for whom every reader could substitute himself" (Coleridge 2318). "Thus, Defoe persuades us to see remote islands and the solitude of the human soul. By believing fixedly in the solidity of the plot and its earthiness, he has subdued every other element to his design and has roped a whole universe into harmony" (Woolf 2303).
Daniel Defoe tells tale of a marooned individual in order to criticize society. By using the Island location, similar to that of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Defoe is able to show his audience exactly what is necessary for the development of a utopian society. In The Tempest, the small society of Prospero's island addresses the aspects of morality, the supernatural and politics in the larger British society. In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, the island's natural surroundings highlights the subject of man's individual growth, both spiritually and physically. Nature instantly exercises its power and control over man in the tropical storm that leads to the wreckage of Crusoe's ship. "The fury of the sea" (Defoe, 45) thrusts Crusoe to the shores of the uninhabited "Island of Despair" (Defoe, 70). Isolated on the island, Crusoe is challenged to use his creativity in order to survive.
When Robinson Crusoe gets shipwrecked and stranded on a desolate island “I am cast upon a horrible desolate island void of all hope of recovery” p.91, in the Caribbean he first considers it a place of captivity holding him back from his dreams and wishes like a prison, but when he is finally able to leave it some twenty-eight years later to return home to England he yearns to return back to the island. Why? You may ask yourself, read on and I will answer that question. Crusoe grows to enjoy being the ruler of his own world, he also becomes antisocial, and starts to enjoy being alone. When he returns home to England he finds no one waiting for him, and he feels lost.
Daniel Defoe has frequently been considered the father of realism in regards to his novel, Robinson Crusoe. In the preface of the novel, the events are described as being “just history of fact” (Defoe and Richetti ). This sets the tone for the story to be presented as factual, while it is in of itself truly fiction. This is the first time that a narrative fictional novel has been written in a way that the story is represented as the truth. Realistic elements and precise details are presented unprecedented; the events that unfold in the novel resonate with readers of the middle-class in such a way that it seems as if the stories could be written about themselves. Defoe did not write his novel for the learned, he wrote it for the large public of tradesmen, apprentices and shopkeepers (Häusermann 439-456).