Name: Lynn Huang

Title: "Imagined Sociality: Robinson Crusoe’s Survival Strategy"

Abstract: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe begs the question: what does one truly need to survive? Food, shelter, clothing, and, for Crusoe, sociality, or at least some imagined form of society. Of the many things Crusoe lacks on the island, clothing is the most coveted, and the most socially significant. The descriptions for the clothing Crusoe first makes for himself begin with “kind of” when he imagines being viewed by English society. As he spends more time in isolation on the island, functionality becomes the primary criterion for what counts as real, and he starts to describe his accoutrements as actual pieces of attire. The isolated reality of life on the island does not depend upon societal expectations for what constitutes breeches—or a shovel, a governor, a Christian, or a particular kind of narrative—yet Crusoe repeatedly reverts to evaluating his appearance and his circumstances from a third person perspective. By tracking the moments in which Crusoe refers to his creations as “like” what they are meant to be, I connect his anxiety over formal design to his desire and need for social interaction. Crusoe’s relationship with clothing and the formal aspects of the objects he makes reveals both the depth of his need for sociality and the means for sustaining his identity as a member of English society. Bearing questions of formal design in mind is a crucial part of Crusoe’s survival strategy; imagining the reactions of other Englishmen preserves the standards by which he measures “Englishness,” including that of his own identity.