GEHA1164.01: The Rise of the Novel / Midterm Paper
October 31, 2025

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is often celebrated as a foundational myth of colonialism, where the stranded hero tries to build a utopian society through individual effort and control over nature and people like Friday. However, the two sequels, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and Serious Reflections, fundamentally challenge this view. As argued by Robert Markley, these later works “represent Defoe’s self-conscious rejection of the interlocking discourses of ‘psychological realism’, economic self-sufficiency, and one-size-fits-all models of European colonialism.”¹ By abandoning the island and presenting the failure of its colony, the trilogy shifts to criticize the ideals of economic self-sufficiency and justice of domination, revealing a deepening anxiety about the realities of slavery and the impossibility of sustaining a colonial utopia.

This colonial project, however, was not solely an on-land endeavor but was fundamentally shaped by the sea. As Stephen Fragano argues, “the sea does not stop playing a role once Crusoe becomes a castaway; instead, it continues to shape his understanding and experience of colonization”². Crusoe initially defines his island’s availability for colonization by its perceived remoteness from European shipping lanes, regarding himself as “quite out of the Course of our intended Voyage, and a great Way, viz, some Hundreds of Leagues out of the ordinary Course of the Trade of Mankind.”³ This isolation frames the island as an ownerless land open to his claim. Furthermore, Fragano highlights that Crusoe’s legendary self-reliance is a myth, as his escape depends on appropriating Indigenous maritime knowledge. Crusoe himself admits that upon acquiring Friday, he now had a “Pilot,” relying on his companion’s understanding of “Currents, or by contrary winds”.⁴ Thus, the sea is not an obstacle but an essential shelter for Crusoe’s colonialism.

This perspective is complicated by the second book, The Farther Adventures, which systematically dismantles the colonial fantasy of the first novel. Upon returning to his island, Crusoe finds a society in disarray, fractured by internal strife and sustained only by an unsustainable peace. This failure peaks in his symbolic abandonment of the project, starkly declaring, “I have now done with my island.”⁵ Furthermore, the sequel introduces a world that resists Crusoe’s model of domination. The “convertible” cannibal is replaced by formidable powers like the Dutch and the Chinese, whom Crusoe cannot subdue. As Maximillian E. Novak observes, the sequel grapples with a “world of realpolitik,” where the simple colonial parable collapses under global complexities⁶. The utopian dream is not sustained; it is shattered.

Ultimately, the Robinson Crusoe trilogy charts a self-critical evolution of the colonial fantasy. Markley demonstrates that Defoe, in the Farther Adventures, “instead of elaborating a colonialist parable, this novel depicts and seeks to counter nightmare visions of an embattled English identity in a hostile world.”⁷ This narrative shift emphasizes that the initial success was an isolated “experiment,” unsustainable in a world of dominant civilizations. Simultaneously, Fragano’s analysis reveals that the original fantasy was unstable, built “completely on Indigenous knowledge of sea routes and seafaring for any possibility of escape from the island”.⁸ The trilogy thus moves from creating a colonial icon to exposing its underlying anxieties and dependencies, offering a more nuanced “unwritten history” of the imperial ideology it both promotes and questions.

In conclusion, the Robinson Crusoe trilogy offers a far more critical vision of colonialism than the first novel alone suggests. By moving beyond the iconic island, Defoe’s sequels deconstruct the fantasy of self-sufficient dominion, revealing a world where colonial control is fraught with failure. Through the lenses of Markley and Fragano, we see that the celebrated “rise” of the colonialist novel involves its own critique. The trilogy, therefore, remains essential for understanding the complex origins of the English novel and the colonial world where the Utopian Dream finally shatters.

1. Robert Markley, “‘I have now done with my island, and all manner of discourse about it’: Crusoe’s Farther Adventures and the Unwritten History of the Novel,” in A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, ed. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 26. ↩︎
2. Stephen Fragano, “Colonizing Land by Sea: Oceanic Trade and Travel in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 56, no. 3 (2023): 378. ↩︎
3. Fragano, 382, quoting Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. ↩︎
4. Fragano, 384, quoting Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. ↩︎
5. Daniel Defoe, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, ed. W. R. Owens (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008), 117. ↩︎
6. Maximillian E. Novak, Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 565. ↩︎
7. Markley, 26. ↩︎
8. Fragano, 379. ↩︎

Bibliography

Defoe, Daniel. The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Edited by W. R. Owens. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008.

Fragano, Stephen. “Colonizing Land by Sea: Oceanic Trade and Travel in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 56, no. 3 (2023): 377-393.

Markley, Robert. “‘I have now done with my island, and all manner of discourse about it’: Crusoe’s Farther Adventures and the Unwritten History of the Novel.” In A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, edited by Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia, 25-47. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Novak, Maximillian E. Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.