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  • Friday 2016

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    avishek saha
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    Crusoe rescues Friday from cannibals on the deserted island and civilizes him, representing the European colonization of indigenous peoples. Crusoe teaches Friday his language and converts him to Christianity to assert control over him. While Friday is a devoted slave who sees Crusoe as saving his life, Crusoe treats him as a possession and never as a normal human, demonstrating Crusoe's colonial mentality and imperial desire to dominate the native population.

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    Crusoe rescues Friday from cannibals on the deserted island and civilizes him, representing the European colonization of indigenous peoples. Crusoe teaches Friday his language and converts him to Christianity to assert control over him. While Friday is a devoted slave who sees Crusoe as saving his life, Crusoe treats him as a possession and never as a normal human, demonstrating Crusoe's colonial mentality and imperial desire to dominate the native population.

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    28 views1 page

    Friday 2016

    Uploaded by

    avishek saha
    Crusoe rescues Friday from cannibals on the deserted island and civilizes him, representing the European colonization of indigenous peoples. Crusoe teaches Friday his language and converts him to Christianity to assert control over him. While Friday is a devoted slave who sees Crusoe as saving his life, Crusoe treats him as a possession and never as a normal human, demonstrating Crusoe's colonial mentality and imperial desire to dominate the native population.

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    Role of Friday in Robinson Crusoe.

    S.M. Adams once remarked, “One of the penalties of any great work of art is that it lends itself to
    various interpretations.” In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe along with the character of Crusoe, Friday
    has been the subject of various interpretations. He is the aboriginal man rescued by Crusoe from the
    cannibals on the deserted island and civilized to a great extent.
    Crusoe’s encounter with ‘My man Friday’ on the uninhabited island shows the European’s covert
    design to Europeanize the island and civilize a barbaric community. If Crusoe represents the first
    colonial mind in fiction, Friday represents all the natives from the colonized world. Crusoe’s meeting
    with Friday represents the interaction of white culture with the black experience. As a subaltern or semi-
    human character in the eyes of the European novelist, Friday can be compared with the character of
    Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
    Crusoe saved Friday miraculously from being eaten up by the cannibals. He then does not ask the
    Red-Indian his name, but calls him Friday to exercise his right over him. A dogged pursuer of profit,
    Crusoe thinks the able-bodied Friday will act both as a human companion and a slave.
    Friday became a devoted slave because he saw Crusoe as the giver of his life. Crusoe was
    delighted in Friday’s careful service and says, “Never man had a faithful, loving, sincere servant than
    Friday was to me.” But Crusoe never treated him as a normal human being, but calls him “the

    creature” and “The savage”.


    As the governor of the island, Crusoe immediately starts the imperial process of reeducating his
    slave. Crusoe wanted mastery and domination over Friday and so taught him to call him ‘Master’. In
    order to assert a complete control over this colonized man, he gives him some language teaching as
    Prospero does in The Tempest.
    Friday was heathen but he is in due course converted to Christianity by Crusoe. With great
    satisfaction Crusoe says, “The savage was now a good Christian, much better than I.” Here also Crusoe
    appears in the form of a hegemonic ruler.
    Thus, Friday plays a complex role in the novel. This ‘noble savage’ provides Crusoe with great
    physical assistance. Crusoe’s treatment of him shows his intense colonial mentality. Thus on the whole,
    Friday is an important part of the novel. With Crusoe he embodies the power-relation in the novel.

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