Allison Harrell
Leigh Youngs
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe:
An Annotated Bibliography of Critical Sources
Brown, Homer. “The Institution of the English Novel: Defoe’s Contribution.” Novel:
A Forum on Fiction 29 (1996): 229-318. This article focuses upon the legitimacy of referring
to Daniel Defoe as the founder of the English novel. Brown cites a variety of other articles to
further his assertion, which is that Defoe should not be considered one of the fathers of the
British novel due to his tendency towards lying, the ambiguity surrounding exactly what he
actually wrote, the time frame in which Defoe was critically recognized as such, and perhaps
most significantly, his lack of procuring successful plots. He subverts the opinions of other
critics, especially those of Sir Walter Scott, who maintains that Defoe’s characters, especially
Robinson Crusoe, are realistic. According to Scott, it is the lack of plot that contributes to this
imaginative reality, while Brown insists that it is Defoe’s most significant weakness. Another
critic countered by Brown is Ian Watt, who also believes that Defoe’s contribution to the genre
is his lack of too much plotting. In the article, Brown consistently refutes the notion that
Defoe is a profound influencer upon the genre of the novel, in contrast to Jane Austin or
Henry Fielding.
Craft-Fairchild, Catherine. “Castaway and Cast Away: Colonial, Imperial, and Religious
Discourses in Daniel Defoe and Robert Zemeckis.” The Journal of Religion and Film 9
(2005). Cast Away (2000) is a loose film adaptation of Robinson Crusoe; the protagonist
Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is stranded on a deserted island and forced to find ways to
survive in a world that is entirely foreign to his own. Catherine Craft-Fairchild, in her article
“Castaway and Cast Away: Colonial, Imperial, and Religious Discourses in Daniel Defoe and
Robert Zemeckis,” pairs Robinson Crusoe (the colonizer) against Chuck Noland (the
imperialist), and reads each text as a commentary on religious and political discourse. She
states, “interrogating the parallels and divergences between the two works allows audiences to
perceive the continuity and disconnect between the colonial past and imperialist present,
between a God-centered world and failed efforts at secular substitutes, between the eighteenth-
century author and the post-modern one.”
The crux of Craft-Fairchild’s argument is that Providence (and the creative hand of Defoe)
protects Crusoe from the island, whereas Zemeckis’ indictment of “American imperialism, the
unquestioning acceptance and exportation of capitalist corporate culture” condemns Noland to
emotional and spiritual defeat. Crusoe, for example, “conquers his island” through his
“carpentry, farming, and scientific knowledge” and is able to maintain a connection to his
civilization and culture due to the proximity of the ship. Noland, whose job skills are useless
in the wild, is defeated and essentially “declared dead” because he does not undergo a
conversion experience. Though Crusoe, the colonizer, is occupied with “his obsessive desire
to amass great wealth from the labor of others,” he is “saved” because he uses Christianity to
define himself. Noland, a product of the evils of imperialistic America, contrarily becomes “a
man of our times, lacking any inner life… [with] no sense of religion and … utterly incapable
of seeking meaning in his experiences or his life.”
Erickson, Robert A. “Starting Over with Robinson Crusoe.” Major Literary Characters: Robinson
Crusoe. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House P, 1995. 135-45. With our focus this semester on the individual, it only seems appropriate to include a critical interpretation of the journey of self-exploration that Robinson Crusoe undergoes while marooned on the island. Robert Erickson, in his article “Starting Over with Robinson Crusoe,” argues Crusoe’s “anatomy of the island, through ‘Discovery,’ is an anatomy of his gradually unfolding perceptions of the island, and the island comes to serve as a mirror of his unfolding sense of himself, of the possibilities of his encompassing the two sides of his own psychic island, of achieving goodness, regeneration, and wholeness” (143). Erickson states that Crusoe is forced to recreate himself in order to survive in the unknown, foreign environment of the island; as Crusoe undergoes this “organic, physical, imaginative, [and] spiritual” development, the island serves as a “religious metaphor” (141) that transforms Crusoe as he remakes it.
Crusoe, according to Erickson, was born “condemned” to a static life of mediocre finances, and is saved only by his [fated] encounter with the island. He rebirth begins when he is pushed from the “second parent” – his ship – and escapes from the “watery prison of the womb” – the ocean – onto the harsh new shores of his new world. “The island,” with it’s rough exterior and its bountiful interior, “is fundamentally an emblem of Nature, and that Crusoe will, while on the island, learn to ‘read’ both of God’s ‘Books,’ the Book of Nature and Holy Scripture” (136). Crusoe “has been borne into a new world – an unknown state, another state of being – without a mother actively to assist him, and he is faced with the challenge of a new kind of human existence” (140), and this rebirth ultimately facilitates his “almost self-manufacture” (135).
Haggerty, George E. “Thank God It’s Friday: The Construction of Masculinity in Robinson
Crusoe.” Approaches to Teaching Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Eds. Maximillian E. Novak and Carl Fisher. New York: MLA, 2005. 78-87. In the past few decades, Defoe scholarship has frequently investigated the possibility of homoerotic and homosexual tensions within the text of Robinson Crusoe; therefore, an argument where Friday becomes a tool of masculinity is certainly unique. In “Thank God It’s Friday: The Construction of Masculinity in Robinson Crusoe,” author George Haggerty does acknowledge the intimate and slightly erotic relationship that develops between Friday and Crusoe; however he attributes the charged nature of their interaction to the fact that “Crusoe’s self is defined by and through his desire for the other” (85). Crusoe therefore needs Friday, as an external symbol of masculinity, which in turn establishes that “Friday is not a passive onlooker on the white masculinity that Crusoe establishes; he is essential to that masculinity and gives it not only a particular form but also a precise meaning” (78).
Crusoe, Haggerty argues, began to assert his masculine independence at an early age; his interest in seafaring adventure and his defiance of his father are both stereotypical characteristics of adolescent masculinity. As Crusoe grows older, his participation in the slave trade becomes a “definition of masculinity in the colonial context” (80). When Crusoe himself becomes a slave, Haggerty notes that he glosses over his period of enslavement because “he is unwilling to describe himself in a position of subjection and prefers to create a narrative of ingenuity and deception” (79) that shows him as masculine. Ultimately, he shipwrecks and finds himself in a position to become emasculated by the island; yet Crusoe “is trained enough in the ways of masculinity to understand that he must be in control of his surroundings, even if the context offers an ironic commentary on his role” (81). Friday becomes a function of his masculine control, a control that culminates in his demonstration with the gun – the premier “sign of masculine privilege” (85).
McInelly, Brett. “Expanding Empires, Expanding Selves: Colonialism, The Novel, and
Robinson Crusoe.” Studies in the Novel 35 (2003): 1-19. In this piece, McInelly delves into the significance of colonialism in Robinson Crusoe. He also unites the concept of mastering an island, or a foreign land, with a mastery of the self. McInelly does not debate the value of Defoe, but rather focuses upon its content and its link between the conquering of an island by one man, and English colonization. He does refer to the novel as the “prototypical colonial novel,” and identifies Robinson’s character as one who is an ordinary man who enjoys extraordinary accomplishments. McInelly also asserts that Robinson’s Protestantism is also a factor in his individualism and highlights his acceptance of “others” in a place where he is the only British Protestant. McInelly believes this to be Defoe’s genius—to capture the colonial powers of an entire country by imaginatively using one man on one island. The article also maintains that Crusoe is an advocate for religious toleration, in that he accepts
other cultures and religions readily, even though converting Friday to Christianity. He is qualified to spread his own Word, but is still relatively forgiving of even the Catholic characters.
Zimmerman, Everett. “Robinson Crusoe and No Man’s Land.” Journal of English and
Germanic Philology 102 (2003): 506-29. Zimmerman utilizes the works of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke to explain Robinson’s (and perhaps Defoe’s) desire and need for civil order in a new society. Zimmerman places Crusoe somewhere between the philosophies of Hobbes and Locke, explaining that he is similar to Hobbes in his belief in a savage “state of nature,” and even the views on cannibalism. He maintains also, however, that Crusoe leans towards Locke in his feelings about private property,or Locke’s “leviathan.” Like Hobbes and Locke, Crusoe also believes in a socialcontract theory of sorts. Crusoe believes in trade as a unifying force, as does Locke, but shares some of the same terrors regarding society that Hobbes fears.