| Defoe's Robinson Crusoe has become a classic in English Literature. In the study of travel literature, this text is an obligatory reading. Reading the book in postcolonial context, Critics frequently consider it as a part of the imperial enterprise. Robinson Crusoe the protagonist of the story is a prototype of the European colonizer arriving in the New World with a civilizing mission. Declaring himself a king of the island, he tries to normalize and 'civilize' an indigenous companion by giving him an English name, teaching him skills of living, teaching him some English words, and basic concepts of Christianity. All these strategies are in fact common in many hegemonic colonial enterprises. Differently from other postcolonial criticisms, this essay argues that the colonial relation between Crusoe and Friday is a symbiotic relationship, rather than a simple reproduction of the colonial identity. Friday constructs his own identity with the colonial discourse he learns. This essay is framed by Bhabha's theory of ambivalence in which he argues that colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other. That is, it is constructed around ambivalence; it demands the colonized subject to 'mimic' the colonizer yet continually produces a slippage. With the slippage and the difference, colonial dominance is threatened because they locate a crack within the colonial discourse. |