Marooned Mind: Solitude, Struggle, and the Genesis of the Modern Individual in Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) transcends its surface narrative of adventure and providence, revealing a profound existential meditation on selfhood, alienation, and meaning-making.This paper examines Crusoe's castaway condition as an existential crisis-an enforced confrontation with solitude, absurdity, and the void of external validation.Deprived of societal structures and divine immediacy, Crusoe is compelled to forge identity and purpose through conscious action, reflection, and survival.Drawing on the existential philosophies of Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus, this study interprets Robinson Crusoe as an early articulation of the modern existential subject: one who must assert freedom, endure isolation, and craft meaning in a world stripped of inherent order.The novel thus prefigures key existential themes, positioning Crusoe as both a survivor and a symbol of defiant consciousness in the face of nothingness.