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... hed sexual maturity in his new sense of spirituality. He writes that while hanging suspended in a half-sleep in the cave my semen escaped me (Tournier 109). He acknowledges a radical process taking place within him and his search for new and original substitutes for the ruins that solitude has left with me (Tournier 111).
He also talks of this progressive re-creation of myself (Tournier 112). All this talk of re-creation, reconciled with the fact hes abandoned the instructive exploration of the cave, suggests that hes looking for a catalyst in his journey of transcendence. And, as William Cloonan writes, before the arrival of Vendredi, it is these moments of intimacy with the earth where Robinson comes closest to being happy (Cloonan 24). He begins questioning more and more the purpose and effect of his domination and control of the island and his obsession with work. His efforts leave him continually more empty and exhausted. It was at this time that a new man seemed to be coming to life within him, though they came by turns, each excluding the other (Tournier 119).
He is aware at this point of his own change and realizes he must continue his labors, while observing in himself the symptoms of his own metamorphosis (Tournier 119). He fills his journals with philosophical musings on life, death and the growing sexual urges he harbors for Speranza and seems ready for that thing that hes been searching and waiting for. Its at this point Friday is serendipitously put into his life. As Millicent Lenz points out, Friday, unawakened to the negative face of time (time experienced as movement towards death), has no apparent sense of history nor of aging; he is freed to be creative, innocent of time, yet not immune from it (Lenz 26). Hes the ideal finland potential agent to aid in transcendence to Crusoes myopic puritans-capitalist thinking.
As ready as Crusoe may have been for a spiritual transcendence, however, Fridays arrival initially brings out in him a rigid reification of Western tenets of thinking. Auspiciously, the native appears around the time Crusoe has marked Speranza with the aphorism, Do not waste time, it is the stuff of life; it is Friday who will eventually show him the ridiculousness and utter truth the statement. Though Friday brings out the first laughter in Crusoe since he landed on the island, he also brings out feelings of jealousy and superiority. Crusoes still-Puritan thinking mind is not ready to deal with the natives propensity for nakedness nor with his quick relationship with Tenn. In Crusoes first journal entry after Fridays arrival he chalks the situation up to Divine Wisdom and says, If he had even attained the age of reason and were capable of appreciating his own insignificance in the face of the civilization I represent! (Tournier 138).
He also intimates the fact hes particularly bothered by Fridays impertinent laughter and talks of molding the man, to my requirements (Tournier 138). Whats more, in the novels most overtly capitalist moment, Crusoe puts Friday on a meager wage system poignant demonstration of his reverence for commodity and its implied gestures of superiority and ownership. Whatever spiritual gains hed made since landing on Speranza seem at this point to have vanished Crusoe has apparently fully reverted to the Western mind set he was originally stranded with; domination and control, tenets born of Western Religion and played out to the extreme in colonialism, are again evident in his thoughts and actions. Anthony Purdy points out that, when Robinson finally does have a potential companion to share his island life, he is incapable of establishing a direct and reciprocal relationship with Vendredi and can only reinscribe the objective dependency relations that obtain in a money economy between individuals who relate to each other primarily through the mediation of the market (193). In fact, Friday rapidly almost automatically becomes Crusoes slave.
The institution is carried to the point of physical domination when Crusoe beats him for those, youthful outbursts, which threw his order into confusion and undermined his authority (Tournier 140). Despite the dismal spiritual reversal and the appearance that his potential transcendence has been loss he returns fully to the preoccupation of administration of the island there is still the vestige of that other island in Crusoes subconscious, and his dream of spiritual enlightenment. Friday is an obedient slave. He mindlessly does what Crusoe commands of him, though he doesnt seem to attach any particular spirit to the endeavors most of which make no sense to him.
He finds Crusoes monotheistic idea irresistibly comic in the light of his own brief experience of life (Tournier 140). Still, he obsequiously repeats, in penance, the religious axioms demanded of him by Crusoe. As time moves on, the master-servant relationship is further set in stone. While Crusoe is rigid in his administration of the system, he doesnt administer without introspection. I see myself reflected as a kind of monster in the gaze of my sole companion (Tournier 146), he writes.
Hes also continually baffled at times bothered by the strange relationship between Friday and Tenn. While Tenn is obedient to Crusoe much as Friday is shows Friday an unconditional acceptance and love that seems to Crusoe to put them on the same level somehow. In his Western mind this is impossible creature given the means of domination, as with man over animal, should exercise it. Friday and Tenn treat each other more like equals. It would seem his relationship to animals is itself more animal than human (Tournier 162), Crusoe writes in his journal.
His confusion is exacerbated by the realization that both Tenn and Friday know Friday would cut Tenn's throat if it came down to it. Fridays relationship with animals is wholly different from my own. They accept him as one of themselves, he writes, and in doing so, he makes manifest the animal in himself (Tournier 162). This relationship isnt limited to Tenn. Friday carries on with all the animals of the island as if hes one of them.
Crusoe is vexed by the fact he cant convince the native that, the livestock was selected, rounded up, and fed only for its use as nourishment, and not for the sake of company (Tournier 156). Fraternization with animals goes to the point that Crusoe sees it as a threat specifically when Friday begins encouraging the rats to multiply. Throughout, like a drug or crutch, Crusoe relies on the calm and serenity afforded him by his sexual relations with Speranza to mute his hostile feelings. Though Crusoe is confused and provoked by Fridays relations with the islands animals, they affect him on a deeper level.
His continuing marvel culminates in a near regurgitation when Friday chews up a maggot-infested intestine-stew to feed an abandoned vulture chick. For the first time he questioned his white mans s...
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Research essay sample on Time And Spiritual Transcendence In Crusoe
