Abstract
This paper aims to explore Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe from a Kristevan perspective. Kristeva’s theory of abjection is employed to discuss the powers of horror and disgust in this novel. Fear and repulsion are so fundamental to the story of Crusoe, to the construction and disintegration of his Western self, a subject in process and on trial in the words of Kristeva. Therefore, this study deals with the abject and abjection in Robinson Crusoe and consists of two sections in accordance with Defoe’s bifurcated text. The first section focuses on how Crusoe is haunted by the abject and how the abject becomes manifest in his tale. It explores Crusoe’s banishment from humankind, expulsion from the symbolic domain of the knowable and nameable into the asymbolic realm of the incomprehensible, his fear of losing his human shape, of sinking into sheer animality, his constant terror of being devoured by beasts and savages, his obsession with cannibalism, his fear of death and his confrontation with the other. The other section concentrates on how Crusoe, a deviser of territories and an organiser of chaos, demarcates his universe, consolidates his boundaries to strive against the abject, and seeks to become a subject in his struggle against the abject. It discusses how the subject gives birth to himself by means of abjection. Since abjection sheds light on what is excluded or digested, this discussion of the novel is also intended to provide insights into what is dismissed from the confines of this novel.