Ruria Kabotau | University of the South Pacific (original) (raw)

Papers by Ruria Kabotau

Postmodern narratives can be said to be concerned with the questioning of and the destabilization... more Postmodern narratives can be said to be concerned with the questioning of and the destabilization of absolutisms, progress, reason and ideologies, and often involves a reimagining of certain historical and fictional texts. Many postmodern castaway texts such as Concrete Island by J.G Ballard, incorporates features such as allegory, irony, paranoia, and so forth, which echo the events and characters of the original Robinsonade, Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. These texts are seen to foreground the notions of isolation and loneliness, displacement and paranoia, liminal states, and the characters' struggles to survive, and additionally engages with notions of power, hierarchy, patriarchy, Euro centrism and the colonization of non-whites and the Other. The essence of this essay is to argue that Concrete Island is a postmodern reimagining of the text Robinson Crusoe, and to discuss the literary and postmodern features that allows for this appropriation, with the postmodern theories of Frederic Jameson and Michel Foucault.

Postmodern narratives can be said to be concerned with the questioning of and the destabilization... more Postmodern narratives can be said to be concerned with the questioning of and the destabilization of absolutisms, progress, reason and ideologies, and often involves a reimagining of certain historical and fictional texts. Many postmodern castaway texts such as Concrete Island by J.G Ballard, incorporates features such as allegory, irony, paranoia, and so forth, which echo the events and characters of the original Robinsonade, Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. These texts are seen to foreground the notions of isolation and loneliness, displacement and paranoia, liminal states, and the characters' struggles to survive, and additionally engages with notions of power, hierarchy, patriarchy, Euro centrism and the colonization of non-whites and the Other. The essence of this essay is to argue that Concrete Island is a postmodern reimagining of the text Robinson Crusoe, and to discuss the literary and postmodern features that allows for this appropriation, with the postmodern theories of Frederic Jameson and Michel Foucault.