The Praise of Folly

For the past several days I have been reading Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in my free time. I borrowed the book from my fiancé because I wanted to read the story for myself, especially after hearing it put down by errant post-colonialists--much like Shakespeare's Tempest--according to their reading of the text as an allegory for colonisation. Last year I had a showdown with a post-colonalist in my Shakespeare class who kept advocating this type of reading, she even went so far as to suggest Caliban had to be "black" or "non-white"--calling me a racist for pointing out her claim to be a "modern interpretation" as Caliban is not shaped by 'skin prejudices' as we interpret in the last few centuries. To make my point I stressed that Caliban was 'monstrous' according to the characters in the play, opening the door to see Caliban as shaped by the 'monster lore' passed down from the medieval era--still current in Shakespeare's time. The book to read is: David William's Deformed Discourse.

As I mentioned, I am well aware how most students, shaped by post-colonialism, are (mis)intrepreting classic books--especially Robinson Crusoe--and shoehorning them as racist texts. So, I wanted to read the book to decide for myself, not to take another person's word (most likely someone who hasn't read it either, but is merely passing on hearsay) for it.

Speaking after reading over half of the book, I definitely think the post-colonial intrepretation does not value the book's merits. The main issue I have with the post-colonial interepretation of this book is how it is not read in context (of the 'public imagination' or) of the tropes of the time, rather opting for an erroneous, modern, literal allegorical reading. Defoe's novel, for example, is shaped by a Christian allegory that runs throughout the novel--a Christian, or Puritan spiritual bildungsroman ala Job, &c--which interacts with other covert ideas. For instance, there is a fine passage Viv highlighted when she read the book for a post-colonial class (no doubt snickering when she found it) that blows a hole in the straightforward post-colonial reading. The character, Robinson Crusoe, in this part is paranoid that cannibals are coming to eat him after he finds bones, skulls, and a fire on a beach of 'his' maroon island. It isn't much later, he comes to realize the folly of this superstition, pointing out:

That this could justify the Conduct of the Spaniards in all their Barbarities practis'd in America, where they destroy'd Millions of these People, who however they were Idolaters and Barbarians, and had several bloody and barbarous Rites in their Customs, such as sacrificing human Bodies to their Idols, were yet, as to the Spaniards, is spoken of with the utmost Abhorrence and Detestation, by even the Spaniards themselves, at this Time; and by all other Christian Nations of Europe, as a meer Butchery, a bloody and unnatural Piece of Cruelty, unjustifiable either to God or Man; and such, as for which the very Name of a Spaniard is reckon'd to be frightful and terrible to all People of Humanity, or of Christian Compassion: As if the Kingdom of Spain were particularly Eminent for the Product of a Race of Men, who were without Principles of Tenderness, or the common Bowels of Pity to the Miserable, which is reckon'd to be a Mark of generous Temper in the Mind.

(124-5)

The great folly with this shortsighted reading of the text--as I have stressed with Hamlet--is we often err in thinking every protagonist is a hero, flawless, to believed, or empathised. Even the narrator/protagonist of Defoe's novel is a flawed, sinful human being--CAVEAT LECTOR!