Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cannibalism: The Tempest And Robinson Crusoe, Yara Amr El Masry

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the significance of cannibalism and its appearance as a literary motif with the rise of empire and its presence and transformation in more recent literary works. In colonial literature the idea of cannibalism often arises to describe the behaviors and rituals of native tribes and peoples. But most importantly it is employed by writers to describe the colonial settler's biggest fear of that native 'other' and his main difference from the conception of a civilized self, as suggest by such canonical works as Shakespeare's The Tempest and Danniel Dofoe's Robinson Crusoe.