Crusoe in England

The “local museum” (Line 171) serves as a symbol of England’s colonial institutions. The museum’s request for Crusoe’s items signals their change from tools to artifacts worthy of study and display (See: Themes). The museum also encapsulates the end goal of discovery and exploration during Crusoe’s time, which was to bring valuable objects under the control of the British Empire. The fact that Crusoe’s museum is “local” (Line 171) does little to mitigate these impulses, but the fact does work to suggest that Crusoe’s tools hold little value as artifacts.

Crusoe’s relationship with the museum suggests that he no longer finds himself under the sway of the colonial narrative that originally drove him aboard a ship. Instead, he wonders “how […] anyone [can] want such things” (Line 180), due to their condition. Crusoe might be unable to see the aesthetic value in the tools he used to survive, but he maintains they “still will work” (Line 178), reiterating that his practical concerns trump the concerns of empire.

Crusoe’s Knife acts as a mirror and provides one of the few suggestions of how deeply Crusoe felt during his time on his island. Crusoe still presents the knife “there on the shelf” (Line 161) as a memento of his time as a castaway, even though its “living soul has dribbled away” (Line 169).