British Colonialism In Daniel Defoes Roxanna English Literature Essay

British Colonialism In Daniel Defoes Roxanna English Literature Essay Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism claims that Capitalism â€Å"educates and selects the economic subjects it needs through a process of survival of the fittest† (Weber 154). Weber believes that there is a direct link between institutions and individual characters. In other words, one can say that Capitalism would not survive without economic men and also economic men could not maintain their social place without Capitalism. In the following the researcher tries to show that at least certain men and women, were swayed by the logic of Capitalism’s productive possibilities. Defoe was intensely interested in capitalist modes of production, efficiency and improvements and in the exploitation and expansion of new markets along imperialist lines that would favor English trading interests. Defoe was also interested in the politics of his time and in the social issues. Defoe was a mature product of the cultural process initiated by Capitalism. In ot her words he is a master over circumstances, over nature. He has the confidence, despite his mediocre birth, to comment on the social, political, and economic affairs of his day. In turn, Roxana was a woman, who, despite her reverses and her own mediocre birth, could entertain princes and kings. In the beginning of this emerging capitalist interest, and with the thirst of reform, Defoe was able to synchronize in his own life Capitalism’s vision of a new social order, of commerce’s role and change. All his novels are rich in content and context. Roxana has been called by modern critics Defoe’s darkest novel. Many critics have claimed that the greatest difference between Defoe’ last novel and his earlier works is Roxana’s greater gravity. Many critics described it as a novel whose primary concern is with the psychological nature of Roxana and Amy’s sin. Roxana has most often been appraised as a story of moral decay, in which the heroine progre sses from â€Å"virtuous poverty to corrupt wealth.† Roxana has also been criticized as a woman with a cynical attachment toward those who love her and whose rational self-interest places her as the embodiment of Defoe’s vision of a corrupt society. Roxana is a heroine who rushes toward material comfort and self transformation at the price of her soul. Roxana’s internal world of memory and guilt concerning her various sexual partners, the death of her daughter Susan at the hands of Amy, and the like, becomes the price Roxana pays for the control she assumes in external world of financial and sexual interests. In this aspect, two factors about Roxana should be emphasized: the nature of Roxana as a new economic woman caught between profit and spirituality and the issues of empire and slavery which were not only important in the fictional life of Roxana, but also in Defoe’s life. Considering the above mentioned remarks, some examples are traceable in the nov el. For instance, when Roxana discusses the dangers of marrying a foolish husband her remarks repeat one of Defoe’s favorite maxims about the nature of commerce, while also underlining the context of commerce’s international nature: â€Å"I was a Warning for all the Ladies of Europe, against marrying of Fools; a Man of Sence falls in the world, and gets-up again, and a Woman has some Chance for herself; but with a FOOL! Once fall, and ever undone; once in a Ditch, and die in the Ditch; once poor, and sure to starve† (ibid 96).