Theory:

 Bennett = "vibrant matter"

Literature:
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Tournier’s

Comparisons with Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Tournier’s

What are the essential similarities between Tournier’s and Defoe’s Robinson?

 perceptions of the human

 nature
 the self/subjectivity
 relations to the racialized other
What does the novel aim to achieve with these similarities?

 Relation to nature:
o p. 19 --> first creature he meets he kills it (19).
o the goat is also describes as an object; that goes for all of nature. Objectivifies; the
human world vs. The naturel world
 in the beginning of the novel the same mentality is there

 The language:
o There is an irony
o "Mastery of the external world"
o examples that are taken from Crusoe’s novel, they are used in the new novel in
such as way they are made explicated; very visible and obvious here
perceptions of the the self/subjectivity:
 "Last night my right arm, which was htmging do'Wfl from my couch, went to sleep, or
"died.'' I took it in my left hand and lifted it up, that lifeless, heavy object of fiesh and
bone that· might have been a part of some other . ..;Person, attached to me in error. I
dream of thus handling_my whole bo~y, ~rveli~g ~t the dead weight, lost in the paradox
of thts thing whtch ts myself. But is it really me? I remember my feeling as a child when,
 being taken into a church· in York, I saw a stained-glass window depic"ting the
martyrdom of St. Denis" (84)
o p. 84= his arm is numb; it is as no longer part of himself; it a very eerie
experience, it is ”heavy object of flesh…”
 discovery of body as part of yourself; also has a life of its own; the body
as more then yourself, biological form, a connection to the non-human
split sensation of the self.
 the body as more than self, And the body is something that is in
connexion with something outside yourself in various ways, in
unconscious ways too, just the fact that the rain makes him take off his
own clothes and look at his own body, like he hadn't looked at it that way
before; so a very embodied experience here.
 =relevant here.
 = theoryBennett = "vibrant matter"= vibrancy also relates to
agency.
 This non human life that he discovers in this body

Bennett, and vibrant matter

 = interesting here to turn to Bennett, and vibrant matter:
o also an example of post human theory;

o she analyses matter as having its own life and vibrancy and agency, vibrant also
refers to the agency of matter, and from there she tries to rethink human
Relations to the non-human
o Alaimo and Bennett have many things in common, and Alaimo concept of Stacy
Alaimo’s concept of ”inter-corporeality” Is a concept that also work with Vibrant
matter.