Postcolonial Analysis of Robinson Crusoe and Book Ix of the Odyssey

1338 Words6 Pages
Postcolonial analysis of Robinson Crusoe and Book IX of The Odyssey Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was the first novel that brings the theme of castaway. Throughout multiple generations, culture kept developing on different scenarios of Castaway stories. The main reason why people like stories in which a character is isolated in different type of way is because they can imagine themselves castaway and they can imagine what they would have done in those particular circumstances. For instance, The Odyssey is another castaway story presented in a different way, but with strong similarities. Indeed, In Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey and in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the heroes encounter cultures that are initially frightening but ultimately dominated, in the figures of Polyphemus the Cyclops and Friday the “savage”. Both Odysseus and Crusoe represent societies that are engaged in colonization, thus they view other races and cultures with suspicion and assume that their own cultures are superior. First, in Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey, the ethnocentricity generated by Odysseus and his crew members is surely a threat to their colonial expedition and shows how they believe in the idea that their own culture is superior to the others. The relationship between Odysseus and Polyphemus greatly depicted the cultures’ attitudes of Greek towards exploration and trade with other people at that time. At first, Odysseus dictates this relationship in a brutal way, indeed, when Odysseus arrives in the cave of Polyphemus, he starts to eat the Cyclops bread without even asking for it. As we all know, the first impression is often important and therefore, it is the reason why Polyphemus responded to this brutal manner with similar ones. Indeed, when Odysseus tells Polyphemus that they are survivors of Poseidon Lord’s earthquake, “neither reply nor pity came from [Polyphemus], but in one
Open Document