Distancing discourses and the disruption of ideology in Daniel Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' and Aphra Behn's 'Oroonoko': A symptomatic reading

This dissertation investigates three inter-related levels in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Aphra Behn's Oroonoko; or the Royal Slave: narrative, discourse and ideology. It seeks to outline a critical strategy that focuses on the role of narrative form. in shaping textual ideology. Using Pierre Machery's theoretical framework for the structure of absence in literary production, I seek to develop a theory of reading that is more attuned to the contradictions that "silently" cohabit the texts under study. The multi-layered narrative design of both texts, I argue, is a source of their ambiguity--or multiguity. It in fact engenders a number of discrepancies and contradictions which impair both texts' coherence. Furthermore, the narrators' unstable attitudes create a duplicitous discourse that is deeply rooted in the middle-class ideology from which they emerge, and of which what Michael McKeon calls "a secularization crisis" is but one manifestation. Drawing on some of the recent findings in narratology and discourse analysis, I take up the challenge of examining the various discourse strategies that the narrators employ to mantle their ideological allegiances. And taking a cue from Homi Bhabha, I explore the ideological ramifications of the various discourse polarities in the texts under study. The general area which frames my analysis at this stage pertains to colonial ideology, an ensemble of linguistically-based practices that are unified by their common deplovement in the management of colonial relationships. I accordingly examine how the subject forming strategies of the colonial self interact with the Other as "almost the same but not quite." In general, the critical approach that I follow in this dissertation acknowledges the importance of textuality and discourse without losing sight of socio-cultural forces.