“IMMODERATE DESIRE”: ROBINSON CRUSOE AS AN ALLEGORY OF CIVILIZATION OF MAN

Abstract

This paper aims to show that Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as a representational work of human civilization. It discusses the preoccupation of the work in its historical backdrop and evaluates as to what extent the work allegorizes the human civilization. Ideological baggage of the period is touched on to lay out an understanding in this view. Moreover, the origins of a capitalist era and the modernist emphasis of individualism are underlined. The paper ends with the note that the work could be positively seen as an allegorical work of human civilization despite the fact that it is predominantly focused on a single individual, and runs short of the collective subjectivity of Mankind.