Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park actually share a number of themes relating to the centrality of land in the formation of eighteenth and nineteenth century conceptions of rural virtue, politics, and property. Crusoe's South American island could not be farther from the staid environs of Mansfield Park, but the same tension between rural virtue and worldly interests permeates both stories, particularly in regards to Crusoe's wanderlust and Edmund's relationship with Mary. Both Crusoe and Edmund are lured by the seeming adventure and excitement of the world outside their rural homes, but ultimately find that the promises offered by this world are unmoored from any genuine moral or ethical system; at different times Crusoe finds himself both slave and slaver, and only begins to develop a moral compass after his shipwreck forces him to relate to the land in a way he has previously never considered. Similarly,...
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