The female Crusoe, or, the story of the island in-between : feminine transformations of identity and value in the castaway narrative

Abstract

The the'3is examines the role of gender in the construction of Robinson Crusoe and later rewritings in the early eighteenth and late twentieth centuries, which feature female protagonists. Analysing the gendered construction of Robinson Crusoe is important because of its representation in literary criticism as iconic text of rational individualism and colonialism, and in economic discourse as exemplar of rational economic man. The tendency of feminist and psychoanalytic theory is to present such modern subjectivity as inherently masculine. My reading examines ways in which the 'feminine', given varying and similar attributes in the quite different texts I examine, forms the basis of the construction, and later deconstruction, of Robinson Crusoe. In both periods, the castaway narrative performs a social critique in which certain 'feminine' values are represented as castaway and then form the basis of a 'rescue'. The title of the thesis emphasises that Robinson Crusoe was based on 'feminine' values, understood as 'the female goddesses of disorder', luxury and credit. In this period, these values which were associated with instability and artifice, were revalued and associated with social mobility and transformation. Such revaluing of the 'feminine' occurred at the same time as the rise of the novel and early arguments in favour of women's access to education. I use Defoe's conduct book, The Complete English Tradesman to show that Robinson Crusoe uses sexual difference, racial and cultural hybridity, and artifice to establish the authority and authenticity of the socially mobile tradesman. The female castaway narratives in both periods, draw on as well as critique Robinson Crusoe to establish authority for similarly marginalised positions. In both periods, Robinson Crusoe and the female castaway narratives link writing, subjectivity and materiality in response to a crisis of representation. In these quite different periods, the 'feminine' is given similar attributes and established as a valuable ground of transformation and authority.