Foe - J. M. Coetzee

 Hello Monks...

I am Riddhi Bhatt from  Department of English. You know...what is today's blog ?This blog is about Thinking Activity on Thinking Activity on "Foe - J.M.Coetzee . As a part of the syllabus, students of English department are learning the paper called The Postcolonial Studies (paper-203). So, let’s start friends. But before we start I want to give short information about what kind of things we see here…

Foe is a 1986 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who landed on the same island inhabited by "Cruso" and Friday as their adventures were already underway. Like Robinson Crusoe, it is a frame story, unfolded as Barton's narrative while in England attempting to convince the writer Daniel Foe to help transform her tale into popular fiction. Focused primarily on themes of language and power, the novel was the subject of criticism in South Africa, where it was regarded as politically irrelevant on its release. Coetzee revisited the composition of Robinson Crusoe in 2003 in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Q.1) How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?

“I would gladly now recount to you the history of the singular Cruso, as I heard it from his own lips. But the stories he told me were so various, and so hard to reconcile one with another… age and isolation had taken their toll on his memory, and he no longer knew for sure what was truth” (Coetzee, 11-12)

This quote from Coetzee’s Foe is the readers first introduction to any aspect of Cruso’s character in the book. The beginning of Foe is told from the first-person point of view of Susan Barton, and because of this, the reader is aware of Susan’s inner thoughts as she arrives on the island. 

Crusoe kept a painfully detailed account of every action he does on the island in a journal he updates daily. In this journal, Crusoe records every step for all of the tools he crafts, and he writes about his own progress with his newly acquitted relationship with religion.Cruso’s lack of journaling is a stark contrast to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe is much less passive and senile in regards to his own development on the island.Cruso in Foe has not put any effort towards building tools, as he only has a bed when Susan arrives at the island, and from the quote, it seems like he may not have the mental capacity to build these tools. Although Cruso does builds many terraces, he exclaims that they are for the future generations and not himself.

One explanation for the difference in mindset and mental stability in the two Robinson Crusoe’s may be that in Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe felt that his island life had more value than Cruso did. Before becoming stranded on the island, religion wasn’t a focus in Robinson Crusoe’s life, and he frequently sinned; such as when he disobeyed his father. After becoming stranded on the island, Crusoe began to read the bible and incorporate God into his daily thoughts and actions. Crusoe expressed deep regret for his sinful past, and often attributed hardships to a lesson from God. This newfound life style gave significant meaning to Crusoe’s daily actions as they represented growth in his faith, and a positive change in character. For Cruso, the island did not lead him to make any significant changes in his character or ideals. Therefore, his daily actions had less significance to him, and when his reality and sense of self began to slip away from him he was not concerned.

Q.2) Friday’s characteristics and persona in Foe and in Robinson Crusoe.

Foe follows the aspects of a more modern view. Even though Coetzee portrays a more feminine viewpoint through incorporating Susan Barton, her decisions and mindset raise a debate in how they relate to the life of a woman in the twentieth or even twenty-first centuries. As Barton falls asleep one night, Crusoe begins to pursue her. She described that night by saying:

 “I pushed his hand away and made to rise, but he held me. No doubt I might have freed myself, for I was stronger than he” (Coetzee 30). Although she realizes she is stronger than him, she decides not to leave but to “let him do as he wished” (Coetzee 30).

Probably the first nonwhite character to be given a realistic, individualized, and humane portrayal in the English novel, Friday has a huge literary and cultural importance. If Crusoe represents the first colonial mind in fiction, then Friday represents not just a Caribbean tribesman, but all the natives of America, Asia, and Africa who would later be oppressed in the age of European imperialism. At the moment when Crusoe teaches Friday to call him “Master” Friday becomes an enduring political symbol of racial injustice in a modern world critical of imperialist expansion. Recent rewritings of the Crusoe story, like J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and Michel Tournier’s Friday, emphasize the sad consequences of Crusoe’s failure to understand Friday and suggest how the tale might be told very differently from the native’s perspective.

Q.3) Is Susan reflecting the white mentality of Crusoe (Robinson Crusoe)?

Susan Barton also views her sexuality as therapy for Cruso at the end of his life when he suffers from a raging fever. She spends many nights with him while they are on board the ship that rescued them, holding him and using her body to cure him. She describes:

I lie against Cruso; with the tip of my tongue I follow the hairy whorl of his ear. I rub my cheeks against his harsh whiskers, I spread myself over him, I stoke his body with my thighs. “I am swimming in you, my Cruso.” (44)

She uses every part of her body that defines her as a woman—tongue, cheeks, and thighs—in an attempt to alleviate Cruso of his sickness. She is not sexually or emotionally interested in Cruso, but still offers herself up to him. It is as if she is begging for him to survive by seducing him through senses. Her efforts fail because shortly thereafter, Cruso dies.Susan Barton’s voice is projected through the words of the male author who created her. Using the text as evidence, it seems as though Coetzee purposefully creates a female character of weakness. She goes through a myriad of roles throughout the novel.

Although Susan Barton is the voice of the novel, she is not the main character because she is most concerned with telling the story of “Cruso’s island.” J.M. Coetzee is a male author who uses the voice of Barton to convey a deeper understanding of Defoe’s male character, Robinson Crusoe. As a woman, she is used as an instrument to further define the characters and story of Robinson Crusoe. The beginning of the novel is focused on Cruso and his island, while the end of the novel is focused on Barton defining her relationship with Cruso and also her relationship with Friday. Through her meek subservience and her role as the supporting actress to the ever-present figure of Robinson Cruso, Susan Barton’s voice is lost. Coetzee uses her as merely a device to relay the stories of Cruso and Friday.