Exploring the New World

Colonizing the Americas

The Slave Trade

The Middle Passage

Olaudah Equiano (1745-97)

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (1688)

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

Daniel Defoe

 From Foe to Defoe a touch of class?

Dissenter = Protestant who does not conform to state religion of Church of England

Jailed for bankruptcy and dissenting religious views Pilloried

Pillory

 Shame culture vs guilt culture E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (1951) Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975)

Defoe
Merchant made and lost fortunes Writer published on almost everything informed, opinionated, polemical Novels: Moll Flanders; Robinson Crusoe published late in life ca 1719 1720s enormous impact

Modern myths
Robinson Crusoe Faust
Frankenstein

French version

German adaptation

In Japanese

 baroque title = long and detailed Picaresque novel

(Cervantes, Don Quixote)

Adventure story
(Homer, Odyssey)

Religious autobiography
(Augustine, Confessions)

 Literature of exploration, encounters with the exotic

Montaigne, Of Cannibals Shakespeare, The Tempest Aphra Behn, Oroonoko

 Robinsons youth the third son the middle station (6) the middle class hero Guilty adventurer (cf Faust) Colonial Capitalist from England to Africa to Brazil to desert island 1659-1686

Robinson Crusoe and Slavery

enslaved in Morocco At this suprising change of my circumstances, from a merchant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed (17) Escapes, sells companion Xury

Arrives in Brazil: I bought me a Negro slave, and a European servant also (31)

Remorse about Xury?

African boy, sold for 60 Pieces of Eight, which I was loath to take, not that I was not willing to let the Captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the poor boys liberty, who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own (28-29).

But not about slavery

Plans to acquire more slaves illegally, directly from Africa William Blake, Illustration from Steadmans Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam

Shipwrecked!

Salvage
money, O Drug! Said I aloud, what art thou good for? (47)

 History of money; increasing abstraction

coins, clippers, and counterfeiters multiple currencies

Quid British slang for one pound - - from quiddity = the real nature of the thing

 Robinson Crusoe as anti-capitalist utopia Combined with religious distrust of wealth Jesus said, I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the kingdom of Heaven. I repeat, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:2324).

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

John Calvin (1509 1564)

Election by grace Am I one of the elect? To find out: work at your calling (not just a job) work in the world a religious duty vs monastic retreat to contemplation vs aristocratic display of wealth, status vs worldly pomp hard work, plain clothes, plain churches

 Weber replaces material explanation of capitalism with a religious one:

Puritans and Calvinists dont work to earn money they work to reassure themselves that they are saved Material prosperity a by-product of spiritual striving Success in business as sign of election

Ambivalence remains
Money reassuring sign of possible redemption; tempting source of worldly pleasure Complicates link of Enlightenment with secularization religious motivation for certainty of salvation can lead to secular success

Crusoe and religious autobiography

Conversion experience Paul, Acts of the Apostles 9:4 Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Augustine, Confessions, book 8 tolle, lege take it and read dark night of the soul Tobacco cure recovery renewed piety

Puritan / Protestant introspection

Look within when was I saved? Then tell the story Increasing subjectivity in literature - Shakespeares soliloquies - Montaigne, Of Experience - Letter-writing - Secular autobiographies Crusoes diary

Back to work
Home improvement - shelter, crops, domesticated animals Island utopia it was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days (90)

The conquest of paradise

Rejects wealth (money as exchange value) for the use-value of tools, things: all the good things of this world, are no farther good to us, than they are for our use (103)

Use value vs exchange value

And civilizes, conquers his island as God commanded: Genesis 1:29 Be fruitful and multiply, fill and earth and subdue it

King Robinson
to think that this was all my own, that I was king and lord of all this country as completely as any lord of a manor in England (80)

I was lord of the whole manor; or if I pleasd, I might call my self king, or emperor over the whole country which I had possession of. There were no rivals. I had no competitor (103)

 On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond, Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond Im ruler, said Yertle, of all that I see. But I dont see enough. Thats the trouble with me.

Well, that was the end of the Turtle Kings rule! For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond, Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

 And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he, Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see. And the turtles, of course all the turtles are free As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

A footprint!

 I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a mans naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand (122)
Satan? My own?

Cannibals!
the savage wretches had sat down to their inhuman feastings upon the bodies of their fellow-creatures (130-31)

Crusoes reactions to cannibalism

disgust violence: I could think of nothing but how I might destroy some of these monsters in their cruel bloody entertainment (133) Cultural relativism: What authority or call I had, to pretend to be judge and executioner upon these men as criminals (135) Blame the Spanish: they destroyed millions of these people a bloody and unnatural piece of cruelty (136)

Years pass Crusoe lives in fear Conceals shelter Carries guns Builds boat Dreams of a companion, servant, slave

Closer encounters
Crusoe plans to get a savage into my possession nay, two or three savages, if I had them so as to make them entirely slaves to me (157-58)

Finally: escaped prisoner flees to Robinson Crusoe: he kissed the ground, and taking me by the foot, set my foot upon his head; this, it seems, was in token of swearing to be my slave for ever (161)

 I made him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life; I likewise taught him to say Master, and then let him know that was to be my name (163)

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Civilizing the Savage

Friday puts on clothing becomes Christian; stops eating people; learns English

Homi Bhabha on colonial mimicry almost white, but not quite (The Location of Culture)

The willing slave = Friday

critique of Spanish Genuine friendship? I began really to love the creature (168) his very affections were tied to me, like those of a child to a father (165) Violent vs benevolent conquest The White Mans Burden Rudyard Kipling, 1899

Getting off the island

17 Europeans stranded among Fridays people Canoes with captives on island none of my business (183) to butcher the poor Christian (184) Crusoe directs rescue operation Grants religious tolerance

 Mutineers arrive! (the plot thickens ) will stay on island Mutineers hanged, whipped and pickled (218) Off the island 1686; back in England 1687 To Portugal; sells thriving plantation in Brazil Adventures in the Pyrenees

 Returns to island, promises to send women Married (briefly) with children I marryd, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction (240) Litotes = understatement: not bad; not unhappy; I dont dislike you

 Defoes Robinson the absence of romance, sexuality But plenty in the sequels

Robinson all, all alone but no lasting side effects