The Response to Individualism in Robinson Crusoe Applied Study to Second Year Students DENL, FEDU, Koya University

Abstract

In this explorative study, the response to individualism in Robinson Crusoe as a character in the novel written by Daniel Defoe is scrutinized.  Over 40 participants in English Language Department took role while they were studying the novel in their full academic year. In conformity with data collection, pre-test and post-test were administered on the students using individualism inventory. Their opinions in both tests were analyzed using quantitative measures. The focus of the study is to determine if students get any lessons of life from the novel namely, Crusoe's lonely life on the island, and how they are going to apply it in their own real lives on the one hand. On the other, whether or not their attitudes get affected by the individual and solitude life Crusoe experienced. That is, their psychological status and self-awareness about their individual life and community as collective.  The findings confirm that students of English department on Faculty of Education were psychologically changed and have more appreciation of collective which is the community and their self-awareness as individuals. This suggests that novels provide not only knowledge chiefly related to language proficiency, but also psychological, social, and intellectual in the long run.