How far Robinson Crusoe can be regarded as a
parable of the economic man.
Robinson Crusoe has been described by Karl Marx as a potential
capitalist. But it is the critic Ian Watt who offers a most stimulating and
illuminating interpretation of the novel from the economic point of view. This
critic relates Crusoe’s predicament on the desolate island to the rise of
bourgeois individualism. According to this critic all the characters of Defoe
pursue money, according to the profit and loss and it runs in their blood .
Crusoe in the novel does have his parents with whom he lives , he leaves
them for an economic motive, showing himself to be the economics, wanting to
improve his economics condition. Something in his nature calls him to the sea
and to adventure ; and in any case he is not content with the middle station of
life in which God and nature have placed him .Late, Crusoe regards his
dissatisfaction with the middle station as his “original sin “. At the same
time the argument between his parents and himself at the beginning is a debate
not about religion or about filial duty, but about his economic circumstances.
Hr regarded the economic argument as the most important. And, of course ,
Crusoe actually gains by his original sin , and becomes richer than his father
was. Crusoe’s original sin is really the dynamic tendency of capitalism itself.
It is the fundamental tendency of economic individualism that prevents Crusoe
from paying much heed to the ties of family , Nor does Crusoe at any time show
any particular attachment as a sentimental kind to his country. 