摘 要

随着全球化的不断推进，不同文化之间的交流和互动逐渐加强，如何处理文化交流的问题引起了广泛的关注。本文对小说《鲁滨逊漂流记》及其改编电影中的文化殖民主义进行了对比分析，并将分析结果与跨文化交际视域下的文化进出口问题相结合，探讨了解决该问题的一些办法。

《鲁滨逊漂流记》是1719年“英国小说之父”丹尼尔·笛福写的一部冒险小说，该小说标志着现实主义小说作为一种文学流派的开始。本文所研究的电影选取的是由乔治·米勒和罗德·哈代执导的版本。本文主要运用了比较和对照的研究方法，探讨了小说和电影中文化殖民主义的表现，分析了文化殖民主义的原因，解读了鲁滨逊和星期五在小说和电影中对待文化殖民主义的不同态度以及由此带来的不同结果，以期为文化进出口问题提供一定的参考和借鉴。

关键词：《鲁滨逊漂流记》，小说，电影，文化殖民主义

Abstract

With the development of globalization, the communication and interaction among different cultures have been gradually strengthened, and how to deal with the problem of cultural exchanges has attracted extensive attention. This paper makes a comparative analysis of cultural colonialism between the novel Robinson Crusoe and its adapted film. Moreover, it combines the analysis results with the issue of cultural import and export from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, and some methods to solve this problem are discussed.

Robinson Crusoe is an adventure novel written by Daniel Defoe honored as “the Father of the English fiction” in 1719. The publication of this novel marks the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. The film studied in this paper is directed by George Miller and Rod Hardy. This paper mainly uses the research method of comparison and contrast to explore the manifestations of cultural colonialism in the novel and the film, analyze the reasons of cultural colonialism, and interpret Robinson’s and Friday’s different attitudes towards cultural colonialism in the novel and the film as well as the correspondingly different results, expecting to provide some references for the issue of cultural import and export.

Key Words: Robinson Crusoe; novel; film; cultural colonialism

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Study Background 1

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study 2

1.3 Organization of the Study 3

2 Literature Review 5

2.1 Previous Study on Cross-cultural Communication 5

2.2 Previous Study on Robinson Crusoe 6

2.3 Previous Study on Colonialism 7

3 Cultural Colonialism in Robinson Crusoe Novel and Film 8

3.1 Manifestations of Cultural Colonialism 8

3.1.1 Language 8

3.1.2 Religion 9

3.1.3 Social Custom 9

3.2 Reasons of Cultural Colonialism 10

3.2.1 Overseas Trade and Colonization 10

3.2.2 Plantation System 11

3.2.3 Religious Exclusiveness 11

3.2.4 Firearm Deterrence 12

4 Attitudes towards Cultural Colonialism and Results 13

4.1 Attitudes and Results in the Novel 13

4.2 Attitudes and Results in the Film 14

5 Conclusion 16

5.1 Summary 16

5.2 Enlightenment 16

References 18

Acknowledgements 19

Comparative Analysis of Cultural Colonialism Between Robinson Crusoe Novel and Film Adaptation

---from the Perspective of Cross-cultural Communication

1 Introduction

Robinson Crusoe is an adventure novel written by Daniel Defoe of England in 1719. It has been adapted for a film directed by George Miller and Rod Hardy. This paper makes an analysis of the manifestations and the reasons of the cultural colonialism presented in the novel and the film, the characters’ different attitudes towards colonialism and the corresponding results from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. what's more, the paper combines the analysis results with a real problem of how to deal with cultural import and export.

The background, the purpose and the significance, and the organization of the study are presented in this chapter.

• 1. Study Background

At the 19^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the report has pointed out that culture is a country and nation’s soul. A country will thrive only if its culture thrives, and a nation will be strong only if its culture is strong. Therefore, it is a must to attach great importance to culture.

As is known to all, globalization is an unavoidable trend, which has a great influence on the development of culture. On the one hand, globalization enhances exchanges and interactions among cultures of all nations, making the cultures more cosmopolitan. On the other hand, globalization promotes the development of cultures towards differentiation and diversification (Feng, 2018: 51). The impact of globalization on cultures has already attracted all countries’ attention. How to deal with the import and export of culture is worthy of discussion.

Robinson Crusoe, a representative work of Daniel Defoe, is mainly about Robinson’s voyages. Its adapted film concentrates on one of Robinson’s voyages and his survival on a desert island where Robinson saves a captive, names him Friday and tries to tame him. The different attitudes of Robinson and Friday towards cultural colonialism result in obviously different endings of the novel and the film, making it possible to carry out the study on the comparative analysis of the manifestations and the reasons of the cultural colonialism presented in the novel and film, the attitudes and the results of Robinson Crusoe and Friday towards cultural colonialism from the cross-cultural communication perspective.

• 1. Purpose and Significance of the Study

The paper, comparative analysis of cultural colonialism between Robinson Crusoe novel and film adaptation, is conducted with four main purposes. Firstly, the paper aims to find out the manifestations and the reasons of the cultural colonialism presented in the novel and the film. Secondly, it concentrates on analyzing the different attitudes of Robinson Crusoe and Friday towards cultural colonialism between the novel and the film as well as the correspondingly different results. Thirdly, this paper provides the analytical perspective of cross-cultural communication to compare the difference of the cultural colonialism between the novel and its adapted film. Lastly, this paper links the analysis results with the real problem of how to deal with the cultural import and export, and discusses some methods to solve the problem.

Robinson Crusoe is an adventure novel written by Daniel Defoe honored as “the Father of the English fiction”. The novel is based on real life of a Scottish sailor with details of the writer’s own imagination. “The publication of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719 marks the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre” (Fontecilla amp; Norton, 2017: 1338). Robinson Crusoe is famous for adventures of shipwrecks and survival, pirates and prisoners, slaves and plantation owner, loss and loneliness, as well as its allegories of civilization and its cultural relativism (Mclnelly, 2003). Therefore, it is valuable to study the cultural colonialism embodied in this novel. What is different from the novel is that the film adaptation changes the attitudes of the characters towards colonialism which leads to different endings. However, few studies attach great importance to such differences between the novel and its adapted film, not to mention analyzing from the perspective of cross-cultural communication and linking the analysis results with the reality.

It is apparent that there are mainly three points of significance of this paper. Firstly, this paper enriches the study on Robinson Crusoe, the novel and the film adaptation. Secondly, it analyzes the literary and film works from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. Thirdly, it combines the analysis results with the reality, aiming to solve the real problem.

• 1. Organization of the Study

This paper includes five chapters. The first chapter is about introduction, showing the study background, the purpose and significance of the paper and the organization of the paper. Chapter two is about literature review, which is divided into three parts. They are previous study on cross-cultural communication, previous study on Robinson Crusoe and previous study on colonialism. Chapter Three concentrates on analysis of the manifestations and reasons of cultural colonialism in the novel and film. The manifestations lay emphasis on language, religion and social custom, and the reasons involve overseas trade and colonization, plantation system, religious exclusiveness and firearm deterrence. The fourth chapter focuses on the characters’ attitudes towards cultural colonialism, consisting of Robinson’s and Friday’s different attitudes towards cultural colonialism between the novel and film, and the corresponding endings. The last chapter is about conclusion, including the summary and the enlightenment.

As for study techniques, this paper mainly uses comparison and contrast, qualitative analysis, text analysis and literature reference methods. The whole process will be carried out in the way of reading intensively and watching the film carefully with recording some important points.