A Bakhtinian Analysis of Robinsonades: Literary and Cinematic Adaptations of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

Abstract

Since soon after the publication of Daniel Defoe s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, there have been many different cinematic and literary adaptations of this famous adventure story, which are collectively known as Robinsonades. Due to the plastic nature of the Robinson Crusoe story, which is a function of what Mikhail Bakhtin defines as the adventure chronotope, there are many intra-medial and inter-medial adaptations of Defoe s novel in different historical, cultural, social and ideological contexts in which the dominant and or emergent structures of feeling are represented. Thus, as an outcome of all these various adaptations, it is possible to observe a polyphonic voice in the entirety of the Robinsonades, in which many contradictory ideas and voices are highlighted.