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《鲁滨逊漂流记》中殖民文化对殖民地文化影响解读

abstract
daniel defoe is a great english novelist in the18th century. robinson crusoe, his masterpiece, is either a pioneering english adventure fiction or a typical colonial literature. it not only is a vivid narrative story about the surprising and adventuring life of robinson, but also has the theme of colonism which is represented on a series of binary oppositional colonial discourses: the colonial country and the colony, master and slave, the white and the colored, central culture and marginal culture, civilization and savageness, christianity and cannibals and all that. with post-colonial criticism as its visual angle, this thesis sets on the history of european colonialism, analyzes the description of characters, narrative words and the growing process of “friday” who loses his national culture identity to deconstruct those colonial discourses, explores the strategies for colonist’s cultural colonization to those people in the colonies and reveals the dilemma of losing their national culture identity. this analysis gives us a new perspective in appreciation this classical work and a typical case study of how the colonists exert the cultural rule on the people in the colonies.
key words
robinson crusoe; colonialism; colonial discourses; cultural colonization
 
 
摘 要
《鲁滨逊漂流记》是18世纪英国作家丹尼尔.笛福的代表作,是英国历险小说的源头,也是一部带有强烈殖民主义意识的文学作品。Www.11665.CoM它不仅生动地讲述了小说主人公鲁滨逊开拓荒岛的详细过程,也描绘了他驯服改造原始部族人“星期五”的手段和策略。本课题着重以“后殖民主义批评”(易小斌,2004:64-68)为视角,拟从历史文化背景、人物刻画以及话语分析入手,对《鲁滨逊漂流记》中所建立起的宗主国/殖民地,奴隶主/奴隶,白种人/有色人,中心文化/边缘文化,文明/野蛮,基督教/食人部族等二元对立的殖民话语体系进行解构,揭示蕴涵在作品中的殖民主义意识,并阐释鲁滨逊如何以枪炮为后盾,有计划地从语言和宗教信仰两方面对“星期五”进行赤裸裸的文化殖民,使其丧失了原有的民族文化身份,从而造成自我身份丧失的窘境。本课题为读者重读经典开辟了一个新的视角,也为读者审视殖民者的文化统治提供了一个典型个案。
关键词
《鲁滨逊漂流记》;殖民主义;殖民话语;文化殖民

introduction
 
colonialism is the consequence of western capital accumulation. it originates from the periods of discovery and exploration since 15th century. some critics think that it breaks the separation of the old world and the new world and also encourages the exchange of both cultures. (李伯庚, 2003) actually, from 15th to19th century, it is a long history of exploitation and invasion among european powers. they are motivated by the lure of wealth in asia, the spice trade in india, the gold and silver in america, and the slaves of africa after reading marco polo’ s travels.(spielvogel, 281)during this period, european countries get handsome profits and become great empires. especially for britain, till the reign of queen victoria, she becomes “the empire on which the sun never sets” and “the mistress of the seas”. (clemen, 2003) on the contrary, what they bring to the people in the colonies is ravaging their land, mocking their gods, banishing their languages, decimating their population through disease, and subjugating their children to a subservient and dependent status. (rogers, 461-519)
however, in colonial literature, all the devil practices of those colonists have been erased, instead, we often find the messages conveyed everywhere that the whites are spreading “civilization” to non-westerners for they justifies that they are under the call of the god to “deliver the inferior races” and “civilize the savages”. factually, it is one of popular colonial discourses for their cultural colonization or invasion. 
daniel defoe is a great english novelist in the18th century. robinson crusoe, his masterpiece, is either a pioneering english adventure fiction or a typical colonial literature. it not only is a vivid narrative story about the surprising and adventuring life of robinson, but also has the theme of colonism. with post-colonial criticism as its visual angle, this paper sets on the history of european colonialism, analyzes the description of characters, narrative words and the growing process of “friday” who loses his national culture identity to deconstruct those binary oppositional colonial discourses: the colonial country and the colony, master and slave, the white and the colored, central culture and marginal culture, civilization and savageness, christianity and cannibals and the like, explores the strategies for colonist's cultural colonization to those people in the colonies and reveals the dilemma of losing their national culture identity.
 
 
i. colonial discourses
in colonial literatures, the colonial discourses are prevailing. especially during the period of colonialism and imperialism, those novelists preferred to produce a succession of powerful discourses as a useful approach to spreading colonism. the westerners were good at creating “the white mythology” and constructing imaginative “others”. in orientalism, edward said pointed out,
“the long-term images, stereotypes and general ideology about the ‘the orient’ as the ‘other’, constructed by generations of western scholars, which produce myths about the laziness, deceit and irrationality of orientals, as well as the reproduction and rebuttal in current debates on the arab-islamic world and its exchanges, particularly, with the united states.”(selden et al., 223)
robinson crusoe is a typical colonial literature that has a theme of colonism which is represented on a series of binary oppositional colonial discourses: the colonial country and the colony, master and slave, the white and non-white, central culture and marginal culture, civilization and savageness, christianity and cannibals and other discourses. with the confidence of britain imperialism, robinson, the representative of those colonists continuously claimed himself as the civilized man, his culture as the central culture, thus he had the competence of enslaving “the other” and spreading “civilization” to “the inferior race”.
a. master and slave
we have learned from the european culture that the renaissance derived from and rose in italy and then spread to other european countries. with the core of “humanism”, it advocated “human right” and “liberty”. yet, it as well supported slavery system and the evil slave deal. since the renaissance was an age of economy revival, too. those capitalists gained lucrative profits from the slave deal. what’s more, karl marx had ever classified slave deal as one essential factor of capital accumulation. (阿勃拉莫娃,1983:2) thus, “human right” and “liberty” were only confined to the west that was considered as “the center of the world”. master and slave was a common discourse in colonial literature. those scholars often constructed “the white mythology” and treated westerners as “the master” of “the other” in their works.
for another, daniel defoe, the author of robinson crusoe, was originally a merchant who was concerned more about own interests. daniel defoe once said: “trade is the wealth of the world. trade made the difference between rich and poor, between one nation to another.”(jackson, 82) in this short but significant statement defoe expressed the main ideas of the mercantilistic system that britain was developing at the end of the 17th century. the english mercantile spirit began during the elizabethan age when england realized that trade generated wealth. in his eyes, as well as in robinson’s eyes, slave deal was nothing devil but one terms of trade that could bring handsome profits.
1. selling xury and buying black slaves to work for his plantation
in robinson crusoe, defoe narrated that robinson once became a slave himself of the moors but later, when he was a free man, he sold a little boy and bought a slave for his plantation. robinson also explained nonchalantly to his friends in brazil that black slaves could easily be bought on the african coast.
as xury once being enslaved with robinson, later, the little boy was enslaved to robinson again under the threat of being thrown into the sea when robinson escaped from slavery. some critics would argue that “asking him swear otherwise threw him into sea” had no vicious intention but for prudence. in addition, robinson had ever promised that he would make xury a great man if xury would be true to him. nonetheless, we had learned that the fate of xury was once more sold to the captain who helped them out of trap. defoe described that “robinson was reluctant to give the boy to the captain at first for he was loath to sell the boy's liberty, but after being offered a medium, the captain had him because he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten years if he turned to be a christian.”(defoe, 26) it told that it was the civilized religious faith—christianity that delivered xury and his liberty. here was another expression of the white’s mythology. meanwhile, xury was written to be willing to go to him, which reduced the devil practice of slavery system. as a matter of fact, at his times, he had no right to decide his fate and in colonial literature, “the other” was always described as voiceless. hence, it justified for the slavery system.
2. enslaving the savage—friday
with the rising of britain empire, british people were confident in their race and culture. (陈兵, 2006: 71) they believed that they were superior to “the other”. they held the faith that god was on their side and called them to deliver the savages and civilize them.
consequently, enslaving the savage—friday was one essential step in robinson’s plan to realize the task. furthermore, the former part of the novel proved that owning a slave was reasonable. friday lived in a primitive tribe with the nature of man-eating and also a victim of the bloody custom. robinson represented the “civilized western man”, who drove away the indies with advanced arms—gun and powder, and then he was just to deliver friday from the cannibals. when he met friday, he said friday was meant to be his servant. he claimed that he would make friday lead a “happy” life. in order to thank for his deliverance, friday became his servant. but from that moment, the liberty was deprived. friday had left his hometown and his relatives forever. he was forced to suffer the extremely agony of homesick and missing relatives. as we know, friday was a man who loved his relatives very much. in the novel, when he met his father, the affection he treated his father even touched robinson. it depicted that:
“…but when friday came to hear him speak, and look in his face, it would have moved any one to tears, to have seen how friday kissed him, embraced him, hugged him, cried, laughed, hallooed, jumped about, danced, sung, then cried again, wrung his hands, beat his own face and head, and then sung and jumped about again, like a distracted creature. it was a good while before i could make him speak to me, or tell me what was the matter; but when he came a little to himself he told me that it was his father.
it is not easy for me to express how it moved me to see what ecstasy and filial affection had worked in this poor savage, at the sight of his father and of his being delivered from death; nor indeed can i describe half the extravagances of his affection after this; for he went into the boat and out of the boat a great many times.  when he went in to him, he would sit down by him, open his breast, and hold his father’s head close to his bosom, half an hour together, to nourish it; then he took his arms and ankles, which were numbed and stiff with the binding, and chafed and rubbed them with his hands; …”(defoe, 191-192)
from the version of friday met his father again, we can find that friday rather missed his own motherland and relatives. the white didn’t release him from disaster but had him into another one: losing liberty and longing for relatives. although defoe tried to persuade that it was reasonable to enslave “the other”, we can still read the miserable life of “friday”. the latter well tell us that their lives never turned out to easier when they changed into the slaves of the westerners and christians; instead, they were reduced to much worse conditions since the colonists never plan to bring bless to them but for their own interests. they were sheer merchants only concerning more about profits. when it turned to the history, we would found that the evil practices of slave deal were proved pretty well.
3. the history of evil slave deal and slavery system 
during this period of history, slaves, particularly black slaves were born to being commodities that could be easily bought and sold at slave markets. the slave trade became a huge, lucrative business that did not take into account the immense suffering and humiliation of these poor human beings.
 the english, french and portuguese had traded in slaves since the middle of the16th century. sir john hawkins, one of queen elizabeth’s privateers, became the first englishman to trade in african slaves. english sea captain traded cloth, guns and cheap iron goods for west african slaves captured by local slave traders. these wretched people were brutally captured, crammed into ships and chained to the lower decks for their entire journey across the atlantic ocean. from the 1500s to the 1800s, about 12 million africans were shipped across the atlantic. some of the slaves did not survive the ordeal. about two million died during the journey. those who survived were sold to tobacco and sugar plantation owners, mainly in jamaica and barbados, where they worked incredibly long hours in a very hot climate. their living conditions were appalling. however, in robinson crusoe, these conditions were erased completely.
great britain had set up colonies on the east coast of mainland america during the first part of the 17th century. the new england colonies engaged in a “triangular slave trade”, which involved slaves. sugar cane was brought from the west indies to new england where it was refined and made into rum. the rum was then traded on the west coast of africa for black slaves. the slaves who endured the extenuating journey across the atlantic were sold to plantation owners in the west indies.
tobacco, cotton and sugar cane were the most important products of the british colonies of the southeastern american mainland. black slaves on huge plantations cultivated them. the misery and suffering of the plantation slaves inspired the american author, harriet beecher stowe, to write the novel uncle tom’s cabin, a touching story that intensified anti-slavery sentiment in the north. slavery in the south was one of the reasons that led to the american civil war of 1861. in 1865 the south lost the war and slavery was abolished in the united states.
in robinson crusoe, robinson was the spokesman of defoe as well as those merchants and capitalists who supported slave trade and slavery system. although there were no furious words as irritating as in uncle tom’s cabin, the evil practice of claiming “the other’s” human right and liberty was obvious.
b. the superior race and the inferior race
if the colonial discourse of master and slave was on account of economic factor, the white mythology of the superior race and the other peoples as the inferior races was the basic context that western scholars often constructed. especially when british from a small island country rose sharply and became an empire, such accepted discourse was dominated their culture. besides, english scholar elleke boehmer had ever pointed out that: “british are a nation that inherently identified the rest of the world as ‘the other’.” (陈兵, 2006: 72) geographically, britain was featured as a long and narrow island surrounded by the sea. yet in their mind, provided that those races were belong to non-whites whose images were likely to suffer twisted as “the other” to stress the civilization and just of british people.

in robinson crusoe, like many other colonial literature, the whites were described as the “the superior race” and cliché as the just and kind people; by contrast, “the other”—the blacks along the african coast and the american indies were identified as “the inferior race” and stereotyped as the barbarous creature with primitive lifestyle, uncivilized behavior, awkward and ugly way of dancing and the most inhumane convention of eating man’s flesh.
1. the just and kind whites
in the story of robinson’s adventuring life, he met four captains and an english widow,all of who represented the civilized and just westerners.
the first captain he met was the father of one of his friends, who served him to go to sea for the first time. the first trial was a failure: their ship met terrible storm and sank, though they were saved. despite he was at a great loss, he still turned to robinson with a very grave and concerned tone like his father to persuade him never to go to sea anymore. the second master he fell acquainted with was the master of a ship in london. this captain was an honest and plain dealing man. although this captain died soon, they built a strict friendship. with the captain's integrity, honesty and hospital, he learned a lot and set up for a trader. later, the captain’s widow continued to support him as kind as the captain, even if she was in unfavorable conditions. the third kind captain delivered robinson from the sea when he escaped out of slavery. he was not only kind to save but also generous delivered goods for him without taking anything from him, for he believed that,
“‘i have saved your life on no other terms than i would be glad to be saved myself, and it may one time or other be my lot to be taken up in the same condition; besides,' said he, ' when i carry you to the brazils, so great that a way from your own country, if i should take from you what you have, you will be starved there, and then i only take away that life i have given. no, no, seignior inglese,’ says he (mr. englishman), ‘i will carry you thither in charity, and those things will help you to buy you subsistence there and your passage home again.’”(defoe, 25)
defoe also depicted that this master was charitable not only in his proposal, but also just in his performance. in brazil, he recommended robinson to the house of a good honest man like himself. during his running the plantation, he brought him all sorts of tools, ironwork and utensils necessary for his plantation, and which were of great use to him. before robinson left brazil’s plantation for sailing, he appointed the trustable captain as his heir. then when robinson came back, the integrated old man reclaimed all the property to him and also gave him useful advice.
if above all were described as civilized people with good words for their deed good to them, the fourth captain was received the good deed from him still portrayed as the civilized westerners. this one was also a kind westerner with wise mind. defoe repeatedly used the same words to describe those men in order to show westerners' kindness, honesty, integrity, and generosity, which showcased their civilization.
the second symbol showed their civilization was that they had the sense of making a contract. when the saved spaniard was pointed to deliver other of his companions, they made a contract. another example during saving the captain and reclaiming the ship, robinson made two conditions as a verbal contract. at length, they carried out as what they made beforehand. here strengthened the westerner civilization.
the third evidence of civilization was the great amount of narrative words to display the positive image of robinson. ingles once described this character was “a real capitalist”. (ian, 1951) as the sole survivor of a shipwreck, he relied on his faith in god, intelligence and protestant upbringing which decreed that the self-made man had to depend on himself, his own hard work and ingenuity in order to survive. he was not only mastered the skill of making tools, owning the modern science knowledge, emphasizing on humanism, order and law, and advocating honesty and loyalty. it narrated that he had all the noble and lottery personality of people. defoe did a good job to create a situation where robinson, who represented the 'civilized western man', dominated nature and set up his 'colony' on the desert island. a large amount of details covered the evil colonial history as well as crusoe’s colonial attitude—his possessiveness, his desire to exploit others, his willingness to enslave another human being. when he met friday he felt that friday was meant to become his slave, or servant, and that he had to be converted to christianity.

2. the ugly black along the african coast
the opposite of the civilized white were the colored, especially the black had worse image than the indies. with full of discrimination, the black were called as negroes. in the novel, we could find that they had the character of simplicity, friendliness and wisdom. when robinson asked some food to eat, they were so kindly to fetch the food for the stranger. they were not as foolish as we originally imagined, and thought out a good idea to give the food to robinson within precaution of each other: “they took a safe way for us all, for they brought it to the shore and laid it down, and went and stood a great way off till we fetched it on board and then came close to us again.”(defoe, 22) they lived with nature, and mastered many skills to support their life. they did much better work at taking off the skin of the leopard only with the sharpened piece of wood. however, in the whites’ eyes, they were stereotypically contented fool, offensive, ugly, suppositious, lazy, weird and pessimistic. they were still unavoidable to depict as ugly people with quite black and stark naked, “the women were as stark naked as the men”. (defoe, 24) they looked strong, while in front of the beasts, they were extremely frightened and were vulnerable to the attack of wild animals. they had no arms except a long slender stick that they would throw them a great distance with good aim, though it couldn’t resist the attack of the wild beasts. when they saw robinson’s advanced arms—gun and powder that he used to kill the leopard as a reward for their food, they were so astonished that “some of them were even ready to die for fear, and fell down as dead with terror”. (defoe, 23) besides, the foolish local people worshiped the gun and gun-taker; and they thought he were the god from the heaven. here defoe portrayed their foolishness pretty well and indicated that only the noise and the fire of the colonist’s gun could conquer one nation to another. naturally, such foolish people needed to be civilized by the kind and just whites.
3. the cruel cannibals—the american indians
another opposition of the civilization was the cruel cannibals. friday lived in a savage tribe with the nature of eating man’s flesh. such behavior is unacceptable in a civilized society, since it was the most inhuman and evil behavior in the world. thus those westerners took the chance to construct “the other’s” images and found a good justification for their construction. in colonial literature, it always narrated that god abandoned those cannibals. robinson crusoe was the same, and as followed,
“who, as to me, were innocent and whose barbarous customs were their own disaster, being them a token indeed of god’s having left them, with the other nations of that part of that world, to such stupidity and inhuman courses…but that unless something offered that was more a call to me than yet i knew of, i would not meddle with them.”(defoe, 187)
they were impressed us that they were idolaters and barbarians, and had several bloody and barbarous rites in their customs, such as sacrificing human bodies to their idols. when they held a man-eating feast, they danced ugly around the fire.
however, the fact about “cannibals” needed to be proved. the story of “cannibal” firstly appeared in columbus’s journals and letters and it turned out to be created by him. according to the survey, he never met any cannibals. (arnold, 3) columbus was good at word invention, just the same as the invention of america indians. (motohashi, 81-89) while the first reference of the tribe of cannibals was in shakespeare’s last drama the storm and the most impressed character was a savage called “caliban”.(张德明, 2007:113) some scholars thought that the originality of cannibal was mostly associated with him. (彼得.休姆, 2004:158)
although in the novel, we could find the narration that the westerners particular the spaniards was notorious of killing those natives barbarously, though it was just used a few words to refer the fact: “by all which i understood he meant the spaniards, whose cruelties in americans had been spread over the whole countries and was remembered by all the nations from father to son.”(defoe, 173) however, in documentary there was evident that the barbarous treatment of the spaniards to the inhabitants was abhorrent.
ⅱ. cultural colonization: bringing civilization to the savage—friday
above colonial discourses in the fiction constructed the ugly and barbarous image of “the other” to us and especially the bloody custom of cannibals could not accept in any civilized society. therefore, spreading “civilization” to “the other” was natural and inevitable in robinson’s plan. instructing the savage—friday to a civilized man became his great task.
from the novel, we had learned that robinson appeared in front of the savage—friday as a deliver. he saved friday from the cruel and bloody killing with advanced european arms. the delivered poor man used his own way to express his exceeding gratitude: kneeling down every ten or twelve steps in token of acknowledgment for saving his life and at length he came close to robinson, and then he kneeled down again, kissed the ground, and laid his head upon the ground, and, taking the white by the foot, set the foot upon his head; while robinson twisted that it was in token of swearing to be his slave forever. consequently, friday not only lost his liberty, but also suffered culture construction and finally reduced to the dilemma of losing his national culture identity.
a. changing their primitive life style into an easier life
firstly, it was changing their primitive lifestyle: eating men’s flesh, the habit of being naked and using wooden tools and arms. such civilization was still in the first stage of the society: primitive society. on the contrary, the white had already experienced the renaissance with the core of humanism, and advanced science and technology and prosperous economy. and they never planed to have them lead a happy life. bringing civilization to the savage—friday was a strategy to carry out their culture colonization.
1. getting rid of the habit of man-eating
in order to change friday’s nature of cannibal, robinson tried to let his man taste other flesh, and made him aware that it was both inhuman and cruel to do that. this seemed apparently good to the local people’s civilization. but it was unjust that covered all the civilizations of the indies. furthermore, from the novel, we found that they ate man’s flesh just when they were in the war. in daily life, they never ate man. and from history, we learned that the indians in america made great contribution to the world’s civilization. american crops like corn took root in africa and contributed to better nutrition and higher population that perhaps promoted the slave trade itself. likewise, american potato was introduced to europe and became the dominant food staple in ireland. the tobaccos brought to europe, which stimulated their economy. however, in this novel, their cultures were removed. what was worse, they were distorted as the most savaged people, which was the common means those colonial literatures used.
2. making clothes for “friday”
for another thing, friday’s nation together with the black people inhabited along the african coast was stark naked, which was obviously against the modern civilization and needed to be changed. this was the second step robinson spread his colonial culture. in robinson’s mind, after he had friday wear the sewed clothes, he praised his man turned out to be a handsome and decent man as the white. it put as the following,
“he was a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight strong limbs, not too large; tall and well-shaped, and, as i reckon, about twenty-six years of age. he had a very good countenance, not a fierce and surly aspect. but seemed to have something very manly in his face, and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of a european in his countenance too, especially when he smiled. his hair was long and black, not curled like wool; his forehead very high, and large, and a great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. the color of his skin was not quite black, but very tawny; and yet not of an ugly, yellow, nauseous tawny, as the brazilians and virginians, and other natives of america are; but of a bright kind of a dun olive color that had in it something very agreeable; though not very easy to describe. his face was round and plump; his nose small, not flat like the negroes; a very good mouth, thin lips, and his line teeth well set, and white as ivory.”(defoe, 165)
briefly, under the white’s dressing up, the colonial people would become as good-looking as themselves. in contrast, the people with naked body meant ugly and uncivilized images. moreover, defoe once described that in the island “the weather was so violent hot that there was no need of clothes.”(defoe, 107) though robinson argued that he was with some clothes on would keep his skin from burnt and that the air itself made some motion may be cooler than without it. in fact, the indians were not stark naked as described in the colonial literature. in the civilization of the indians, they had the feather and skin of animals as their clothes, though the process of making clothes was exceedingly complicated. after the invasion of the europeans, their dress was completely substituted by the western cloth. it meant their culture was substituted too. the westerners really brought some civilization, but it based on derogating and deserting the native culture and absorbing abroad culture completely without any choices. this was another symbol of culture invasion.
3. instructing “friday” to use tools and arms
the third was to introduce advanced tools and weapons to local people. robinson taught friday to work and make tools. in return, with the help of his instruction, friday learned well. it indicated that under the rule of civilized nations, even the most barbarous savage would do well. robinson also instructed friday to use gun. before friday learned it was a common weapon, he as well as those people unaware of what it was quite worshiped it and even made a conversation with the gun. this evidence amused us, which showcased how fool he was. but none were born to know everything. we could find that friday had great gift to learn something new and do very well. he was also instructed to make tools and make bread and he did as splendidly as robinson. while defoe would rather make these achievements contribute to robinson in order to show the white’s civilization and kindness.
b. banishing friday’s language and instructing english to him
in modern times, with the trend of globalization, learning an international language was useful for people. while in the age of colonization, in order to completely rule the colony, the conquerors required the people in the colony learning the colonist’s language and forbad speaking their native language. in robinson crusoe, it was written that robinson taught friday to speak english for the convenience of communication with him. while the first few words he taught were friday—the savage’s name, master—friday being required to call him, yes and no. as we knew that, robinson once bred a parrot, what he taught the bird was to call him his real name: robinson. but for friday, robinson purposed to tell the savage his name was master. the few words here meant robinson was superior to friday and friday was meant to his lasting servant. thus, teaching friday english was just an excuse to make the servant serve him.
c. mocking friday’s god and instructing the real god to him
in order to divert friday into a christian, robinson spent much time and efforts on friday. firstly, robinson purposely instructed friday’s faith was not real faith but a superstition and told him what real faith, the god and devil was. defoe justified that robinson was pleased to open the savage’s eyes and of course successfully he was diverted into a christian. friday was also praised much more divine even than those westerners. friday was followed reading bible and praying regularly. even he seemed to argue for friday’s religion as a superstition was common,
“by this i observed, that there is priest craft even amongst the most blinded, ignorant pagans in the world, and the policy of making secret religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the people the clergy, is not only to be found in the roman but among the most brutish and barbarous savages.”(defoe, 174)
in fact, he just proved that the savage’s religion was superstition, while the god was the real might to be deserved to be trusted. during robinson instructed friday the god, there was an interaction between them. friday looked like not the passive one to absorb the preach superstition, and he asked a surprising question even troubled the preacher. but at length, it was friday solved the problem. it was dramatic that the savage’s earnest and persistence toward christianity opened his eyes. by contrast, when he couldn’t answer friday’s question, he excused that “though i was now an old man, yet i was but a young doctor, and ill enough qualified for casuist, or a solver of difficulties. and at first i could not tell what to say, so i pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he said.” (defoe, 176) from here we would doubt whether he was an eligible instructor and he really believed in god. karl marx had ever sharply pointed out that we would not take much seriousness to robinson’ s faith for he just got some entertainment from it and viewed those praying as creative activities. (刘意青,2005:177) moreover, another critic had argued “robinson indeed trusts in god, while he believes that mankind only was faithful to practical affairs, they would be delivered from god. such practical affair was ‘great business’.”(翟文明,2006:85)we could conclude that robinson was not a faithful christian, whose religion was only served for him. however, with the help of his instruction, friday turned out to be an earnest priest, even much more divine than any other westerners. friday was perfectly made as a “civilized westerner”.
principally, those naked bad-mouthing words about the savages impressed us, we would be easily lured to trust that the westerners indeed were much more civilized than “the other”, and they really brought civilization to “the savages”. when we turn over the leaf of the history, the fact is on the opposite. the people in colonies were not savaged as the author depicted in the novel. india and egypt had ever been known as the forerunner of civilization.(翟文明,2006:319-320)they had an old history. india’s religion spread to the west and drove the society forward. its spice made food tasteful. the ancient egyptians had advanced civilization. egyptians with their wisdoms and hard work created the world wonder pyramid. the usage of mummy to preserve the dead body was creative to the world. its advanced method inspired people to apply it to the storage of materials and food mostly in modern industry and daily life. african countries seemed much more backward than other continents for its extremely adverse environment. nevertheless, their contribution to the world was in substitutable. it is acknowledged that, nowadays, the rap, one of the most important elements in the music, originated from and popular among the black people is spreading every corner of the globe. furthermore, it is popular in different group of people ranging from different ages, different social status and interests. so, can we judge that the black people’s culture is inferior to the westerners?
ⅲ.the dilemma of losing his national culture identity
friday’s honesty and loyalty won the trust of robinson and he became his servant, assistant and guardian for the rest of life and accompanied his master to return to europe. even though he was praised highly by his master, he was still in the dilemma of losing his national culture identity.(周庭华,魏文,2006:109-110) as a servant, he did what his master said. in the third part of robinson crusoe, there was a plot of friday tricking the bear. the bear was allured onto the tree by friday and was in a dilemma, which was as clumsy as the clown of the circus, free of the cruelty of a beast, and amused the people. beast left its living environment and appeared to the dilemma and ridiculous which just a reflection of the people in the colony losing their national culture identity. above all, the colonists’ cultural colonization was never bringing in bless but a strategy of consolidating colonial rule.
 
 
conclusion

robinson crusoe is not a simple adventure fiction but a speaker of beautifying colonization and cultural colonization. nowadays, it is popular for culture exchange and communication. culture colonization develops to cultural influences on each other because of globalization. when a rash of foreign cultures flood into one country, her people will realize that they should maintain their dominant culture. at the same time, they’d like to keep the balance of absorbing the best, and weeding out the obsolete and worthless to strengthen their own culture. it means that they will take the initiative to choose whether they accept the other cultures. but from robinson crusoe, we find that “the other” has no choice but receives the colonist’s culture unconditionally. the naked culture invasion is justified as spreading civilization. their aim is apparent.

although without difficult words to understand and less literary, its influence is innumerable. critic green comments, “those works make great impact on society which may not be the great literary works.” (陈兵, 2006: 75) robinson crusoe is the best example. we find it is far more powerful than those literary novels. it has won much popularity after being published. “jean jacques rousseau suggested it benefited those growing youth, while karl marx used it to illustrate his economical theory.”  (陈兵, 2006:75) in addition, critic green points “in fact, those missionaries went overseas colony besides bible, and they took it with them everywhere. it proved its influence.” (陈兵, 2006: 75) and in those works, the great amount of replicated colonial ideas met the demand and expectation of readers, which farther strengthened the colonialism atmosphere in britain at that time. from this aspect, robinson crusoe as well as other english adventure fictions had injected the conscious colonism to english ordinary people when they were in popularity.
 
 
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