Defoe’s Major Fiction: Accounting for the Self by Elizabeth R. Napier (review)

[...]the main shortcoming of this book is the evasion of context, so that Defoe’s representations of selfhood are shorn of significance in terms of the history of philosophy, religion, politics, class, national identity, colonialism, gender, or the family. [...]self-construction depends on memory an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in the Novel Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 571 - 573
Main Author Seager, Nicholas
Format Journal Article Book Review
LanguageEnglish
Published Denton Johns Hopkins University Press 01.12.2017
Subjects
Colonialism
Fiction
Narratives
National identity
Novels
Philosophy
Politics
Religion
Self concept
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Summary:[...]the main shortcoming of this book is the evasion of context, so that Defoe’s representations of selfhood are shorn of significance in terms of the history of philosophy, religion, politics, class, national identity, colonialism, gender, or the family. [...]self-construction depends on memory and the imagination: acts of narrative iteratively construct selves. [...]self-assertion in a hostile world is conceived of as criminal yet crucial (15), not just because the survival of vulnerable individuals when things move beyond their control demands they master circumstances in a self-protective manner (44), but also because for Defoe identity is predicated on agency.
ISSN:0039-3827
1934-1512
1934-1512
DOI:10.1353/sdn.2017.0053