JOHN MAXWELL COETZEE (1940 --) FOE (1986)

Coetzee's Foe has as intertext Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe written in 1719. ( Foe, p. 134) Coetzee
writes a minimalist text, highly palimpsestic, which confronts the past (colonization and slavery) and the
present of South Africa (the result of colonization and slavery).At the same time Foe parodies the 18th
century travel and adventure genre, which included castaways, abductions, piracy, legends of cannibals
and the city of the Amazon, etc.

There is also marked metafictionality and self-reflexivity in the text which deals with questions of
language, writing, reality and fiction.

Although Foe does not deal directly with the South African situation, it is clear that the relation of
colonizer-colonized is in Cruso and Friday, and also the great divide of race, inscribed by Susan Barton
and Friday.

“He desires to be liberated.... all his life?” (Foe p. 148)

Colonial powers have thus expressed this contradiction since the very start of colonization over 500
years ago, until more recent times in history. The text it is clearly a postmodern/postcolonial text, and
this is reflected in highly ambiguous plots, time is also ambiguous (1702:?75), there are several modes of
narrations (letters, diary, oral narration), plus numerous intertextual allusions (Morrison’s “spoken the
unspoken” in Foe, p. 141; or Derrida on writing and speech: Foe, pp. 142-143)

The very title of the text is already an intertextual and ambiguous play of meanings. Coetzee diverges
considerably from the original text (some fragments during part I of the text), and invites the reader to
an intertextual activity (the double coding).

A fundamental alteration of the original story consists in making Cruso a secondary figure by the
introduction of Susan Barton: he does not tell the story, as it is the case in the original, but Susan Barton
is the narrator who brings the story to Mr. Foe (Foe, pp. 7, 9, 11, 14, 26, 38, 40, 45: Mr. Foe)The
introduction of Susan Barton dissolves the centre of masculinity of Robinson Crusoe

Friday is another substantial alteration: he is not an aboriginal but African, and mute. By Friday being an
African allows us to see Foe as a reflexion on England in the 18th century and as a metaphor for
contemporary South Africa. Friday is reduced to animality, and his story cannot be told by proxy. He
reflects the unbearable oppression undergone by all oppressed people who are prevented from giving
the other side of the story.

Foe: Mixture of texts or genres

Foe is an intertwined tissue of other texts (genres) which all attempt to deconstruct the grand narratives
of the past (civilazation, progress, etc.) At the same time, Coetzee’s text depends, substantially on the
reader’s recognition of the intertext, which has been radically transformed and therefore difficult to
decode. This is why the text introduces formal markers which help the reader to find various genres
present in the text. Coetzee, in a very Borgesian manner, is only the editor of a book invented and
narrated by Susan Barton.
 Foe as a Palimpsest

Foe, because of these formal characteristics, represents a reflexion on form, since the various
‘documents’ and genres that constitute the narration, hardly allow to call this text a novel.What we have
is a highly palimpsestic text which at the same time that it reflects on form and language, it also reflects
on colonization, slavery and silence. One of the most important formal genre markers used by Coetzee is
the epistolary genre so typical in the 18th century novel in Great Britain. The first two parts are written in
an epistolary style, being intended for Mr. Foe who was expected to write the whole story. The third part
is a direct account of Susan Barton’s life and confrontation with Foe.The fourth part, a real narrative
relay, is meant to solve the mysteries surrounding Friday, but it does not. This last part has two endings,
which both narrate Friday’s death. There is an ambiguity regarding time and space, it seems a mixture of
Foe’s home, the ship wreck, and the island. Friday dies because there is no return: no country, no
identity, no language.His death symbolizes the death of a whole people dispossessed and silenced.

Foe: Epistolary tradition

This goes back to a European epistolary novel tradition where the story, in order to pass as true events,
must be written as a personal story, address directly the reader, and placing the reader in a very close
proximity to the text. In part I, there is Susan Barton's account, where she addresses a ‘you’, which at
first we believe it is addressed to the reader, but later becomes Mr. Foe (Foe, pp. 7, 9, 11, 14,26, 38, 40,
45: Mr. Foe)

Foe

She does this by parodying her intent in part II, whereby she writes on the road to Bristol (Foe, pp. 99),
and earlier it is stated that the letters have never been sent, (Foe, p. 72) and again, in part III it is stated
that "those letters that were never read by you" (Foe, p. 133), thus undermining the writing of the story
and leaving only the narrative by Susan Barton. Parts of the novel engages in metafictional comments on
writing and on the nature of storytelling in general (pp. 7, 12, 17, 40, 47, 51, 58, 67, 81-83, 86, 88-89, 99,
116-122, 131, 133, 134, 140-143 (142-143).

Foe : Origins?

But the book also offers a hypothesis on the possible genesis of Robinson Crusoe, and that tackles
questions of gender and race and destabilizes this famous narrative by foregrounding the masculine,
white colonial discourse that hasd shaped it, and in turn was to shape future historical events. Susan
Barton’s story is from 1702, and Robinson Crusoe was written in 1719, and this suggest an interesting
play of intertextuality, where Foe becomes the intertext for Daniel De Foe, and at the same time,
Robinson Crusoe becomes the intertext for Coetzee.

Susan Barton and writing

Susan Barton has a story to tell, but she cannot write it and make it public since she does not have a
voice, that is why she needs Foe. Susan is the narrator of the story transmitted to us, but this story never
gets written by Foe who is the only one who can provide her with a substance: “When I reflect on my
story I seem to exist ....it doesn't give the substance of the truth.” (Foe , p. 51)

Foe : Importance of language

Susan and Friday represent Coetzee’s desire to tell a story without being ‘present’ in it.In the third part
the correspondence is replaced by speech: Susan doubts to whom she is speaking to. (Foe, p. 133)

By speaking to him she takes control of the narrative but also doubts about her own existence if she
enters into langue: “But now my all my life grows to be story and there is nothing of my own left for me.
[…] But now I am full of doubt. Nothing is left to me but doubt. I am doubt itself. Who is speaking me?
(Foe, p. 133)

In part III ,Susan Barton refers to parts I and II of the text referring to the letters that Foe never read: “‘In
the letters you did not read,’ I said, ‘I told you of my conviction that, if the story seems stupid, that is
only because it so doggedly holds its silence” (Foe, p. 117).

Near the end of the novel, Foe states: “In every story there is silence, some sight concealed, some word
unspoken, I believe” (Foe, p. 141).

These quotations are from passages of metafictional commentary in which Susan Barton and Foe try to
“make sense” of the story of the island and of Friday. These attempts by the characters in the novel to
“make sense” of Friday reflect the reader's attempts to “make sense” of the novel as well.The interest of
the story does not lie in Susan's negotiations with the author, whom she quickly suspects of thinking it is
'better without the woman' (Foe, p. 72), nor in the tension between the historical text of Robinson
Crusoe and what is presented here as the original narrative, but in the concepts of the subject that are
explored, and the relation between power and language, where Susan Barton is central.

The novel presents two opposites poles of the linguistic constitution of the subject. At one extreme we
have Susan, the female castaway who is ‘silenced’ by history but who speaks and writes almost the
entire novel.At the other one, there is also the forceful presence and absence, speech versus silence, or
writing as opposed to the void or blank, represented by Friday. Susan Barton attaches a great
importance to language, nothing is more understandable than her wish to communicate her story of the
island to Foe. And despite the signs she picks up that herself is disappearing from the story she is telling,
that she is becoming merely a linguistic element (Foe, p. 133) or, as she herself says, ‘a being without
substance, a ghost beside the true body of Cruso’ (Foe, p. 51), she also believes to the end that she is ‘a
free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire’ (Foe, p. 131).

Foe: The Voice

She starts to worry, that the powers of language, the constraints of narrative, will suppress her, but Foe
dismisses this fear of the powers of language with the familiar disclaimer that words as such are merely
empty signs. What matters is: who possesses the voice to speak. The paradox of being a subject
constituted in language is, in Barton’s case, her desire to exist in language and take possession of her
own personal history, and this leads to a loss of a sense of self, and ultimately, in the world outside this
particular text, to her complete suppression. Language is treacherous: once you truly become a subject
in language it betrays and silences you, and this is why she says: “Be attentive to yourself as you write
and you will mark there are times when the words form themselves on the paper de novo, as Romans
use to say, out of the deepest of inner silences”. (Foe, pp. 142-143)

Earlier in the text she says: “But now my life grows to be a story and there is nothing of my own left to
me. […]. Nothing is left to me but doubt. I am doubt itself. Who is speaking me? (Foe , p. 133)
 Foe: Language as Discourse

The text demonstrates that becoming a subject in language involves a subjection to discourse. It
highlights the dangers that lie in speaking ‘for’ the ‘other’ instead of letting him or her speak, as the
language used for representing ‘other’ constantly seems to betray intended meanings and is an
instrument of power rather than an innocent mediator of truths. It quietly but insistingly tells us that he
who does not speak is not ‘dumb’.

Foe: Silence

Friday’s Silence

Is the most obvious link that conveys an almost unbridgeable gap between races and cultures. The
failure of communication is conveyed most clearly by Coetzee through the language of music. Friday’s
silence makes us aware that language, although an instrument of self-expression, is also a tool of
oppression when that language is the language of the oppressor. Coetzee does not deprive Friday of
expression, since his silence is expression, or, rather, the impossibility to have a voice both in history and
in the present. Coetzee cannot speak for Friday, and this is yet another reason why Friday does not
speak, and if Coetzee would have chosen to make him speak he would have engaged in a representation
which he, Coetzee, refuses to provide.

Foe: Identity through Language

Language is identity, and this is why also Friday refuses to speak, since speaking the language of the
oppressor does not allow him to express his identity and that of his story, which would remain untold.

Susan Barton states:

“All my efforts to bring Friday to speech, or to bring speech to Friday, have failed”. (Foe, p. 142)

The only power Friday has is his silence and Foe is fully aware of his resistance:

“Friday has no command of words and therefore no defence against being re-shaped day by day in
conformity with the desires of others […]. No matter what he is to himself... what he is to the world is
what I make of him.” (Foe, pp. 121-22)

The silence is a refusal to be represented, but because of its silence he can be represented at will. (Foe,
pp. 121-122)

Friday's refusal to acquire language can be read as a metaphor for the fact that white colonialists never
listened to the people they subjected. Friday is merely a stylistic ‘double’ to Susan’s gender; both are
speechless because they are not heard.

Foe: Feminist representation

The fact that Coetzee takes his cue from feminist discourse and includes the possibility that Friday’s
missing tongue is perhaps only a metaphor for ‘a more atrocious mutilation’, leaving us to wonder
whether ‘by a dumb slave [we are] to understand a slave unmanned’ (Foe, p. 119), only reinforces that
impression. How can the privileged white writer give voice to the black person without falling into the
trap of speaking ‘for’ him?

Would not that be perfectly in line with the old colonial maxim that ‘they cannot represent that
themselves, they must be represented?’ (Said, Orientalism, 1978, p. 21). Friday’s silence is a deliberate
act in the text, which comes from a white writer who realizes that any voice he will give to the Black man
will necessarily sound false.

Foe: Re-writing the Other

Difference and Alterity

Foe, the very title of the of the text suggests issued related to post-colonial aspects of difference and
alterity. It exposes the the difficulties in reconciling the idea of belonging to a nation with the wish to
express singular cultural identities and differences. In rewriting Foe Coetzee cast light on the deep forces
that have driven a voice from the ‘periphery’ or ‘edge’ of the imperial world to engage in open and
dialectic conflict with the voice of the ‘centre’. By reworking Robinson Crusoe it becomes the battle
ground for the conquest of identity and difference. It is a place where the struggle between the I and the
Other is ignited. For instance, Susan Barton manages to find a voice, an outlook, a way of her own to tell
her story. When this happens, Foe leaves the scene and ,in the end, it is Susan who writes of her
adventures on Cruso’s island. In this way, the old Subject (Defoe, the Western novel, the myths of the
cultural supremacy of the white race, the male, power-based relationships between mater and slave) is
displaced by the Other. However, it would be wrong to think that the question of alterity and difference
is to be resolved by substituting the ‘centre’ with the ‘periphery’ or the ‘margin’. It is not this what
happens in Foe. Here, there is an attempt to create a notion of marginality (and thus of alterity) that
differs from then prevailing one.

Foe: The Centre vs. The Margin

The ‘margin’ in Foe’s characters is not a space of marginalisation but, rather, one of resistance; a space
for creativity in which the binary ‘colonised/coloniser’ is put under erasure and overwritten by a plurality
of multiple subjects. The idea of marginality constructed from an ‘us-centred’ vision disappears.With it
disappears the image of a ‘them’ solely considered as food and sustenance for the identity and integrity
of ‘us’. To choose the margin is a political act. As bell hooks, the African American writer, points out, to
speak, write and place oneself in the margin does not mean to withdraw into marginality.

Hooks: I am located in the margin. I make a definite distinction between that marginality which is
imposed by oppressive structures and the marginality one chooses as site of resistance – as location of
radical openness and possibility. This site of resistance is continually formed in that segregated culture of
opposition that is our response to domination.

We come to this space through suffering and pain, through struggle. We know struggle to be that which
gives pleasures, delights, and fulfils desire. We are transformed, individually, collectively, as we make
radical creative space which affirms and sustains our subjectivity, which gives us a new location from
which to articulate our sense of the world.