المستخلص: |
This research paper explores the connections between Katie Hale’s My Name Is Monster (2019) and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) at diverse literary facets. The purpose of this effort, hence, is to consider the extent to which the former has echoed the castaway’s conundrum initiated in the latter while reconfiguring the account to align it with both the post-apocalyptic temporal and spatial matrix as well as conform it to third millennium readership expectations. Taking my bearings from Mikhail Bakhtin’s theoretical insights, I argue that Hale has stylized a wide array of aspects from Defoe’s narrative. This contemporary stylization has been carved and enacted in the sphere of the castaway’s incessant fight against ‘wilderness,’ for survival, the island plight, with its complex challenges, and the Crusoe/Friday duality replicating not only these two characters’ essence but also their power based relationship. Defoe’s text has, accordingly, been deployed to recreate the island versus the lone survivor trope in a post-apocalyptic world.
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