ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

By inaugurating the action with this marionette- musical complaint against the author,
Brown prepares his audience for a play that disrupts the thematic structures of Defoe’s
novel, using the self-referential character of puppet theatre to potentially undermine the
text.
Brown then makes a directed point of challenging the nature of civilization,
suggesting that part of Crusoe’s role in bringing modernism to the island is to accustom
the people to the racial inequalities of the modern world. His servant, Jojo, announces
the arrival of the Ostrich Sisters, who wish to be present at an upcoming celebration.
Crusoe explains to the “dimunitive colored boy in a grass skirt” (122) why the Ostriches
cannot attend. “I’m a democratic soul, of course, JoJo, and I have tried to rule this island
in an impersonal manner, but as I said in my inaugural address last March ‘Democracy
without Discrimination is Disasterous’” (124). In a parody of a novel that is, in many
ways, a metaphor for Christian conversion and modernization, Brown used a targeted
comedy of relief to disrupt the source text’s cultural hegemony.
The first appearance of Friday in the puppet play is part of a comic scene
reminiscent of more misogynistic moments in minstrelsy, which quickly turns into a
mockery of wage-earning capitalism. Friday enters decrying a “woman [who will] be de
death o’ me yit.” Crusoe calls him a “lady killer;” Friday responds that there is “one lady
[he would] lak’ to practice on.” (128) The thematic recurrent on homicide disappears
when Friday flees, Zuzu enters, and Friday’s erstwhile suitor demands to know what
Crusoe has done with her “man Friday” (129).
After an argument, Zuzu breaks into a song where she affirms that, while Friday
might be Crusoe’s the rest of the week, he belongs to her on Saturdays. Zuzu’s
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