Writing from a perspective that concludes “that the novel, as a cultural artifact of bourgeois society, and imperialism are unthinkable one without the other", considers Edward Said Robinson Crusoe as "explicitly made possible by an ideology of foreign expansion – directly linked in style and form to accounts of the voyages of exploration of the 16th and 17th centuries who laid the foundations of the great colonial empires. Alternatively, J. Paul Hunter analyzed the effect of travel books on the origins of the novel and decided that "travel is generally, however, a structure of convenience—movement in space signifies learning—rather than 'a formally adapted feature of travel books. ...] the novel is the product of serious cultural reflection on comparative societies and the multiple nature of human nature". This view of the novel as being conscious of the way in which it represents different societies and using the journey as a function, is a way of reading Gulliver's Travels that provides insight into the objects of Swift's satire. The difference between these two views highlights that these novels can be read from different perspectives, which do not necessarily provide. a coherent and uniform picture Ultimately, many forces shape these novels, travel, trade, and colonialism being among the most important, as they provided much of the dynamics of society that were reflected or critiqued. . Say No to Plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned” Get an Original Essay The initial reason for Robinson Crusoe's journey is that he is forced to see the world. Although this means rebellion against his father and God's providential designs, which have combined to provide him with a comfortable, middle-class life, Crusoe intends to travel. However, Crusoe's desire to travel is motivated by the opportunities offered by the emerging colonialism of the 17th century. Crusoe shows little interest in simply "seeing" the world, he wants to prosper from what he finds and manipulate the legitimized, but not yet institutionalized, colonial practice of seizing gold and importing materials. . In this respect, the voyage is simply a means of accumulating wealth, despite the initial glamor that a life on the seas may represent for a young man (although this attraction is short-lived for Crusoe). Throughout Robinson Crusoe, travel is a means of escape from the island, of safety when his little boat goes astray, of exploring his island to discover the capital at his disposal, as a threat of punishment for the mutineers by bringing them back to England. and to be in the right places, i.e. Lisbon and London, to do business. The different uses of travel mean that this process of moving through space becomes an obstacle to achieving the desired result, and Crusoe feels obliged to assure the reader that "Just as I have not disturbed you with any of my Sea-Journals, so I’ll bother you.” now without any of my Land-Journal". There is an assumption about what the reader wishes to read, and therefore Crusoe's Travels are edited by an author whose intentions are to provide an instructive example rather than a description of the lands he saw - descriptions which he acknowledges were made by other travelers "with much more advantage than me". However, most of the novel takes place in regions of the world foreign to its readership, and these regions are.carefully observed in factual terms, it is therefore dangerous to dismiss the travel elements of the novel. Indeed, much of the novel's importance lies in the assumptions Crusoe makes about the world he observes. In this regard, Crusoe is one of the cultural productions that created and strengthened the European worldview as a whole. For example, when Crusoe marvels "that the eyes of infinite power can search into the remotest corners of the world and send help to the wretched whenever they please," it is worth noting that his God is Eurocentric, because a universal and omnipresent deity should not distinguish Crusoe's island - although apparently distant from European man - from any other place. Gulliver's Travels seeks to satirize fiction like Crusoe which presents itself as factual, but is in reality a carefully constructed work of fiction. Defoe's preface unambiguously claims the work as fact, which can be used didactically; the editor believes that this is a fair story of the facts; and he thinks, however, because all these things are dispatched, that the improvement of it, both for the entertainment and the instruction of the reader, will be the same. Swift observed this emergence of fiction presented as disturbing fact, not only because of the deception, but because he saw that such creations would promote one worldview above others, even if the content was wrong. Adventures such as Crusoe's would sell in greater numbers if the public believed them to be true and Swift saw this as endemic of a commercialized and corrupt society. His response was to have Gulliver relentlessly insist on the truth of his wildly fantastic story, declaring that "the truth immediately strikes any reader with conviction." While Gulliver's impassive character could have written these words, Swift's voice comes through more clearly as he assesses his fellow writers: I thought we were already overloaded with travel books [...] I doubted some lesser authors consulted on the truth than theirs. vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers. That my story could contain only ordinary events, without those ornamental diversions of plants, trees, birds and other strange animals, or of the barbaric customs and idolatry of savage peoples, with which most of the writers. Swift observes the objectification of the residents. countries visited by European travelers, and even in the passing description above, they are depicted in a derogatory manner. Although Gulliver goes to sea to engage in commercial activities, he does so as part of a shipping company and not as a private trader like Crusoe. When he is shipwrecked and lands on foreign soil, he evaluates the land not based on its usefulness, but as a curious spectator. In all the lands he visits, Gulliver attempts to dialogue with the indigenous population and, although he feels submissive or judged inferior, he undertakes to "observe the customs and dispositions of the people, as well as to learn their language ". He even tells us that he has written a lot about Lilliput for an English audience. This desire to learn turns into an anti-travel sentiment when Gulliver wishes that instead of going to the Houyhnhnms, "they were able or willing to send a sufficient number of their inhabitants to civilize Europe" . Gulliver's role in the novel changes depending on his environment and its people. He is a subject in Lilliput, a novelty in Brobdingnag, a tourist in the land of Book 3, and a social inferior in the land of the Houyhnhnms. He is also a father and a husband wholeft England "to acquire wealth, by means of which I could support myself and my family." Gulliver's relationship with the reader also changes, as he can be an informative narrator, an incompetent and comical character, a spokesperson for Swift, or a trader and imperialist. Her opinions are subject to change as Swift seeks to satirize different targets. For example, Gulliver is the guardian of freedom when he refuses to witness Blefescu's attack, but offers the king of Brobdingnag the secret of gunpowder so that he can be "absolute master of life, of the freedoms and fortunes of his people". Therefore, Gulliver cannot be read as a standard characterization, but used a comparison reference to his particular situation, allowing Swift not only to satirize contemporary society , but also to condemn man as an animal tending to corruption, pretension, oppression and avarice. The consequences of trade are not a prime focus of Gulliver's Travels, but the novel's concerns arise from a society increasingly shaped around the potential benefits of trade. Questions of economic and moral good arose with the rise of commerce, and writers engaged in debate over how best to achieve these two goals. Standard economic thinking throughout the 17th century was that the balance of trade should be designed so that the maximum amount of bullion would enter the country and the least would leave. This involved increasing domestic production, limiting consumption and importing raw materials rather than consumable products. The role of traders and imperialists was therefore to found colonies capable of producing capital in the form of currency or raw materials and to create new markets for English products. Defoe devoted some of his time as a writer and thinker to economics and surmised that, in the words of Peter Earle, "more and larger colonies were a good idea [...] to provide essential strategic goods, but also to consume the products of England". The simple economic model of the previous century was constantly expanding to appreciate the importance of investment in increasing production. This became evident when individual entrepreneurs, seeking to become rich, created wealth for others Robinson Crusoe is an example of what Liz Bellamy describes as "the figure who would become known as the capitalist [...] These individuals. began to be appreciated as essential to economic progress, rather than being represented as mere passive parasites.” Crusoe displays a pragmatic approach to his travels, seizing opportunities as they present themselves. He was not content to accumulate the few ounces of gold he brought back from his first trip, but aspired to become an established trader in Guinea. After being enslaved and escaping, he ends up in Brazil, where he raises capital by selling the skins of the animals he kills, the wax and the guns he has stolen and, in the first example of treating non-Europeans as capital, its servant. Xury. Once established in Brazil, Crusoe imports English ironwork and acquires a slave. His fortunes are rising and even after more than 20 years on his island, he still laments the opportunities that eluded him; "I could have been worth a hundred thousand Moydors; and what business did I have to leave an established fortune, a well-stocked plantation, improving and expanding, to transport Supra-Cargo to Guinea, to fetch negroes" . In accordance with Defoe's views on economic expansion,Crusoe turns his attention to the slave trade because, as Earle observes, “in Defoe's view of the world, slavery was essential. Economic progress in England depended on the development of the American colonies. Moral objections to slavery could be dismissed by considering that God had degraded the natives and that they were inherently submissive to the white man. According to Defoe, Friday seems to be the model of a slave. He instantly understands his inferiority and shows unconditional compliance with Crusoe's wishes when he "laid his head on the ground, and taking me by the foot, placed my foot on his head; this seems to be in token of swearing to be my slave forever. ". Although Crusoe is grateful for Friday's company, it is above all his usefulness that he appreciates. Almost immediately, Crusoe assures us that he "made it his mission to teach him everything that was proper to him make it useful, practical and serviceable.” Swift's opposition to colonialism meant that it was the European Gulliver who became the object of slavery, either with the Lilliputian design of blinding him and using him as labor. or in his treatment by the farmer enBrobdingnag “The closer my master came to me, the more insatiable he became. "I had completely lost my stomach and was almost reduced to a skeleton." Similarly, the Houyhnhnms are shocked by the use of horses in England where they are valued for their ability to work, after which they are eliminated and their bodies stripped for capital value Gulliver comments on the Houyhnhnms' response that "it is impossible to represent his noble resentment at our savage treatment." Slavery was only possible when it was justified by a sense of moral superiority over colonial subjects, which he did not have. His anticolonialism may have been centered on his Irish origins, but there is no doubt. that he abhorred the principles of economic necessity and moral superiority that underpinned the colonial mission One area of ​​economic thought regarding trade that Swift and Defoe would have shared is opposition to the consumption of luxury goods. Not only did these products come from England's trading rivals, such as France, but they also diverted gold from the colonies and the pockets of the country's poor. Such trade was therefore considered contrary to good economic sense and morally subversive. If Crusoe is Defoe's business archetype, we can note that throughout the novel he reinvests his capital, lives a prudent life, and moves bullion between the colony and the mother country, encouraging the development of both. Gulliver openly attacks the luxurious and expensive tastes of the rich: England (the beloved place of my birth) was supposed to produce three times as much food, more than its people are capable of consuming. [...] in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of males, and the vanity of females, we sent the greater part of our necessary things to other countries, from where in return we brought back the materials of diseases , from madness and vice, spend among us. Trade meant that people traveled the world like never before and an exchange of goods ensured an exchange of culture. This is what is expressed most clearly at the Academy of Lagado, where they plan to create a “universal language, understandable by all civilized nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind” . If goods and utensils were common internationally and were capable of expressing the meaning needed to conduct business, then the effect of trade onGlobalization was evident by 1726. If trade met the need for colonies, then assumptions of racial and moral superiority justified them. Crusoe shows the confidence of the European colonizer by asserting his supremacy over the “savages” he encounters throughout his history. A glimpse of Africans is enough to petrify Crusoe, who ranks them below animals; “we should be devoured by wild beasts, or by more merciless and humane savages.” The prospect of meaningful interaction with them is undesirable for Crusoe, whose thoughts immediately turn to slaughter and slavery when he first sees humans on his island; “If there were twenty, I would kill them all: this fantasy pleased my thoughts for a few weeks.” This desire to kill and enslave is only made possible through martial superiority. It is Crusoe's weapons and his obsession with fortifying his properties that allow him to confront and subdue the indigenous population. But such is Crusoe's conviction of his right, he concludes that it was God who armed him as a pious man confronted by degenerates, citing as his guide "Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and you will glorify me.” ". Swift's scathing attack on colonialism in the final chapter of Gulliver's Travels directly opposes this type of colonialism; "free license given to all acts of inhumanity and lust, the earth stinking of the blood of its inhabitants: and this execrable crew of butchers employed in such a pious expedition, is a modern colony sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbaric people. It is Gulliver who receives the ill-informed classification that has been made in European observations of indigenous peoples. It is concluded that he has fallen stars in Lilliput, that he is a clockwork in Brobdingnag and expresses "my discomfort at the idea that he so often gives me the nickname Yahoo". Expressed by an English voice, this process of classification seems unfair and unwise, but for colonial subjects it served to justify their repression. An important tool in this repression is the use of language. The first word Crusoe teaches Friday is "Master," so he can only express his servitude. This is directly reflected during Gulliver's stay with the Houyhnhnms; “My main effort was to learn the language that my master [...] was] eager to teach me". Gulliver informs the reader that the Houyhnhnms had no words for "Power, government, war, law, punishment and a thousand other things", and this contributes to his ability to boast of having removed "this infernal habit of lying, mixing, deceiving and equivocating, so deeply rooted in the very soul of all my species, especially that of Europeans". For Friday, the main use of his new language, after being able to understand the instructions, is to read the Bible as part of his conversion to Christianity. As Defoe's model colonial subject, Friday is grateful for his salvation and he becomes aware of the inferiority of his race; I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God [...] and thus, little by little, I opened his eyes. He listened with great attention and received with pleasure the idea of ​​Jesus Christ. sent to redeem us [...] you teach wild men to be good men, sober and tame; you tell them to know God, pray to God, and live a new life. ” In a novel that presents itself as fact, this characterization serves to reinforce the impression of “savage” that she draws from previous stories and assumptions about the natives. As a man of God, Swift may have wished to dissociate the spread of Christianity from the colonizing mission, and although he condemned the., 1999.