Thursday, July 18, 2013

How is Robinson Crusoe and Friday's relationship symbolic of imperialist ideology?

Crusoe's
treatment of Friday is a case study in imperialist ideology. After Crusoe saves Friday's life,
he turns him into a possession. There is never any sense that Crusoe could regard the
darker-skinned native as an equal or someone he could learn from about surviving more easily on
the island. Crusoe assumes from the start that he has all valuable knowledge; he never questions
whether he is the superior of the two or whether he should be completely in charge. As Crusoe
says, he begins to teach Friday English, renames him something which will ever remind him that
Crusoe is his savior (and which erases Friday's previous heritage, implying it has no worth),
and then instructs him that he is his master. In other words, he enslaves him:


I began to speak to him, and teach him to speak to me; and first, I
made...

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