Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
Memory, Other and Identity in Robinson Crusoe and Day
Abstract
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Elie Wiesel’s Day use the similar narrative strategy to discuss the relationship
between memory and identity. Robinson Crusoeraces the hero’s transition from social isolation and disconnection to
self-actualisation and social reintegration through the novel’s core narrative structure. While Daydemonstrates the
mental isolation, haunting past memories and the painful journey of seeking the real identity of a Holocaust survivor. In
a first person narrative structure, both of the protagonists converge their individual memory into a collective memory,
Robinson Crusoe as a pioneer image of British capitalism and colonialism, “I” as the ashamed and suffering creature
destroyed by one of the most widely known atrocities happened during World War II, the Nazi Holocaust from 1933 to
1945, which is partially caused by the development of capitalist and imperialism in the 1920s Germany, mirroring the
relationship between center and margin of Self and Other, constructing their identities: one as the prototypical selected
British middle class Christian male, the other as a castaway suffering figure without a future. What behind them is the
collective memory and national identity. In a sense, there is a cause-effect relationship between the narratives.
