Krusoe Robinson’s Adventure: Technology of the Self and Double Consciousness in Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Joachim Heinrich Campe’s novel Robinson der Jüngere (Robinson the Younger, 1779/80), which draws on Forster’s travelogue to depict the nature and culture of tropical islands. Campe’s novel, still in print today, is representative of popular German Robinsonades—adventure stories that loosely adhere to the plot of Daniel Defoe’s The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (1719). While nine Robinsonades were produced in English, ten in Dutch, six in French by 1800, 128 were published in German. German Robinsonades are thus rich sources for the study of German transcultural discourse. In particular, the multilingual and multicultural sources of Robinsonades, which are not confined to Defoe’s work and include a prominent Arabic source, demonstrate the transculturality of the genre and broaden the conventional interpretation that sees Robinsonades as a national allegory of the German bourgeoisie. My reading highlights two aspects. First, if the mastery of technology marks the making of the modern self, as the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg argues, then the German Krusoe Robinson creates a transmodern self because his mastery of technology depends on the tropical nature of the Caribbean island. Second, if Robinson’s island symbolizes personal identity, as Rousseau and Leibniz argue, then the duality of Robinson and the Islander Freitag evinces a double consciousness. The duality of Robinson and Freitag is not merely a relationship between colonizer and colonized; rather, it symbolizes a double consciousness that incessantly negotiates the maritime challenges of the non-European world. Paired with Robinson’s “master narrative” are his fears, uncertainties, and his dependency on Freitag’s knowledge and existence. The mutuality between Robinson and Freitag helps redirect our critical attention from the oppositions between the European colonizers and the non-European colonized towards the inextricable connections between the two parties.