Female Robinsons

Most of us are familiar with the story of Robinson Crusoe, a man stranded on a desert island, but have you ever wondered how the story would change if Crusoe was female? This is the concern of ‘Female Robinsonades’. Stories of female castaways began to appear shortly after the publication of Defoe’s novel, pointing to a fascination with exploring an alternative perspective on the conventional story. These Robinsonades typically have a female protagonist and were often written by women authors for young female readers. They tend to focus on what was deemed the ‘proper’ behaviour for a girl or woman at a given time and thus serve as a mirror for the development of female emancipation: the helpless heroines of earlier works are replacesd by more independent women who do not have to rely on the help of others (Smith 159). Whether they affirm or criticize traditional gender norms, such rewritings of Robinson Crusoe can serve to counter the silencing of women and other marginalized groups in the male-centred account of Defoe’s novel and later Robinsonades (see Plate).

Among the many examples that can be found at the Robinson-Library, three texts from the 20th century – Miss Robinson Crusoe (1902), The Girl Crusoes (1912) and The Truth about Roberta Crusoe! (1986) – stand out. One major plot element that these Female Robinsonades change is the interaction between their versions of Crusoe and Friday: the relationship is far more friendly and based on equality, rather than that of master and servant. In the children’s picture book Miss Robinson Crusoe (1902), for instance, the heroine and the female Friday, called Thursday, even get married on the same day. Nevertheless, Thursday remains subservient to Miss Crusoe: in the wedding illustration, she is placed in the background, and in another, we see her comb Miss Crusoe’s hair. In the arguably more progressive German comic from 1986, originally published in the feminist journal Emma, Roberta Crusoe and a female Wednesday are lovers: the relationship is explicitly romantic and sexual, and the characters marry each other. In the end, they return together to England, where they want to open a travel agency for adventurous women.

A particularly striking example of a more equal dynamic between protagonists and the Friday character can be seen in The Girl Crusoes (1912). The protagonists are three sisters who teach Fangati, the female equivalent of Friday, their names and make an effort to learn her name as well. They also learn some words in Fangati’s native tongue and teach her English. This language exchange is emblematic of a more equal and cooperative relation between the characters. Moreover, it indicates respect for the native culture and signals a lack of interest in colonizing the island. By contrast, Defoe’s Crusoe never bothers to ask his companion’s name but calls him ‘Friday’ after the day on which he rescued him and initially only teaches him the words “master” and “yes” and “no” as he sets about civilizing the ‘wild savage’. The open-minded valorization of indigenous cultures Female Robinsonades like The Girl Crusoes embody comes at a prize, however: in order to remain acceptable as female adventure protagonists, the girls are expected to replicate the model of domestic femininity on the island by developing a maternal, caring relationship to Fangati, who is thereby infantilized (Doughty 64).

Contrasts to Defoe’s original, male-centred model are not limited to the relationships between characters but affect almost every aspect of the story. For instance, where Defoe’s Crusoe hunted goats and planted corn at great effort, his female counterparts go fishing and gather fruit: their methods of survival are arguably less sustainable and advanced than Crusoe’s, who knows he must survive on the island for years; his female counterparts, by contrast, seem to be living day by day. For the protagonist of Roberta Crusoe (1986), the acquisition of food is not even a concern at all. While she is shown to create fanciful dishes with exotic fruit or raw meat, the comic never mentions how she acquired the ingredients. In general, life on the island comes to her with ease – where Robinson suffered and struggled, Roberta takes a pleasure in being cast-away that indicates a (feminist) sense of liberation, independence and agency. Another aspect that is changed significantly are the apparently ‘feminine’ priorities some of these Female Robinsons have, like washing their clothes and being able to comb their hair, neither of which was a concern to the original male Crusoe. Unsurprisingly, Roberta Crusoe casts all norms of civilized behaviour to the wind and walks around naked; the girl Crusoes from the early 20th century by contrast place great emphasis on their external appearance and enjoy all the duties that come with keeping themselves pretty and neat.

These and other examples indicate the various innovative ways and possibilities of reinventing the relationship between Crusoe and Friday in female rewritings. Female Robinsonades demonstrate that changing the sex of the protagonist alters the plot in significant ways and serves to reflect the societal views of gender at the time of writing. Some of these texts reinforce gender roles, others criticize and subvert them. What they all show is how a female perspective opens up entirely different narratives for different readers – and, arguably, for different times.