Fragile Communities in the Crusoe Trilogy

Abstract:Scholars in recent years have attempted to complicate understandings of Robinson Crusoe as an economic man. This essay joins in such efforts by studying how Crusoe actively seeks out and forms close, tight-knit communities with those he meets in order to survive. In particular, I examine the Crusoe trilogy against the backdrop of the trading guilds of eighteenth-century London, tracing how Crusoe employs similar strategies to those employed by the guilds to grow and maintain his membership. Contrary to Ian Watt’s influential claim that Crusoe stands as an emblem of individualism, I propose that Crusoe is more akin to the leader of a group or commune who builds and maintains filiative and affiliative relations through the use of coercion and violence. In the uncertain world that Daniel Defoe has crafted, the production and exchange of goods and the destruction of life and property all count as rational, economic decisions, for these decisions are all made in a bid to ensure the survival of the groups to which Crusoe belongs.