Re-writing of Robinson Crusoe by Coetzee
Essay question:
Show how Foe relates to a pre-text on which they are based, or which they problematise. What is the intention of the re-write, and is it achieved?
Fiction is a “collection of made-up sentences describing events that never happened” (MacLeod, 2006, p.1) it is “the substitutive, dispossessive and transformative process” (Wittenberg 2006). The novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) written by Daniel Defoe is widely recognised as one of the most popular castaway novels from the early eighteenth century. Coetzee’s novel Foe is based on the story behind the writing of Robinson Crusoe. This essay focuses on Coetzee’s purpose for re writing the novel and discusses the interesting post-colonial themes and issues raised by the novel Foe. These issues include the rejection of castaway genre, narrative symmetry within Foe, the power relationship between servant and master, sexism and commodification of storytelling. Coetzee wrote the novel Foe so that it effectively pre dates Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe.
Castaway Genre
According to Weaver-Hightower (2006), the origin of castaway tales can be traced back to the time of European colonisation, particularly when Christopher Columbus started the world colonisation in the fifteenth Century. The formula for the early tales involved the main characters getting ship-wrecked and castaway on a faraway deserted island. The individual’s unexpected adventures evolved in to stories of how a group of men went on to conquer the New World. This ‘burden of the white man’ is described by Weaver-Hightower (2006) as unavoidable and legitimate as they believed that they were doing the work of God and there is a purpose for each voyage. For this reason the readers of castaway novels as well as the general public believed that the colonial voyage of Europeans represented the concept of “righteous colonisation”. This is also described as “specific cultural fantasy”, this term suggests that the people were slightly deluded to believe that they were justified in their voyages. The main characters in the castaway genre are portrayed as heroes who discover far away lands this is said to parallel to both imperial and neo-imperial expansions.
The castaway stories remain popular and valued today, even though there are few books written on the subject there are many television shows and movies such as the American show Survivor and Tom Hank’s movie Castaway. The Survivor television show concept has been replicated all over the world and Tom Hanks was nominated for the Best Actor award at the 2000 Academey Awards demonstrating the continuing popularity of the genre. Despite the fact that the stories and perspectives differ from the original castaway stories the characters still continue some of the same ideological and psychological themes. These themes include the isolation of the Tropical Island and power relationships as a source of conflict between men and women or older people and youth.
Rejection of castaway genre
There are a few distinctions found between the two novels, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Coetzee’a Foe. Foe (1986) demonstrates the author’s rejection of the general themes of Robinson Crusoe and the whole castaway genre by purposely drawing differences in the novel’s characters such as Cruso and Friday, the features of the island and the structure of the novel.
Foe’s characters Cruso and Friday, are quite different to the characters in Robinson Crusoe. Firstly, in Robinson Crusoe Crusoe tries to territorize the island as a governor as soon as he reaches the island. This is portrayed by his actions of burying dead sailors and using a cross as a monument to them, importantly the cross is also the most recognised symbol of Christianity. Crusoe also sets up camp and establishes crops and other agriculture on the island. However, Coetzee’s character Cruso did not show any of the coloniser’s typical desires to control the island. Also, while Crusoe is known as a reliable, knowledgeable and noble hero who saves Friday’s life teaching him English and coaching him in Christianity, Cruso is depicted as a weak old man who he refuses to ‘civilise’ Friday in anyway. Cruso also breaks the rule of castaway narratives by refusing to leave the island to go back to England.
Focussing on the characteristic differences of Friday between the two novels, while Friday in Robinson Crusoe learns to talk with Crusoe in English, Friday in Foe is believed to have no tongue and is unable to speak. According to Plasa (2001), the main reason of conflicts between slaves and masters during the colonial period was the settlement of the religion. As noted above, Friday in Robinson Crusoe was fully christened and told Crusoe that if they went to Africa, he would teach people to stop eating human flesh and become Christians. On the other hand, Friday in Foe is quite opposite until the end of the novel. The idea of having a female voyager in castaway stories was also incredibly rare in the early eighteenth Century and the existence of Susan Barton also broke the rule of castaway genre.
Another difference is seen in Susan’s description of the island in Foe, she describes the island as “a great rocky hill with a flat top, rising sharply from the sea on all sides except one, dotted with drab bushes that never flowered and never shed their leaves (p.7)”. This is notably different to the typical deserted island described by Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe; “soft sands and shady trees where brooks run to quench the castaway’s thirst and ripe fruit falls into his hand (p.7)”.
In terms of the structure of the novel, Coetzee operates the narrative in “Island–Europe–Europe–Europe” pattern and ignores the classic structure of “ship-wreck-island-Europe”. By breaking the typical rule of castaway narrative, Coetzee changed the reader’s expectations. How stories are told in the each section also differs since they are told by different characters. While section one is a story of the island told by Susan, in the section two, narratives are told through a collection of carefully dated letters written by Susan to Foe. Rather than Susan interacting with people, she tells her story as a reporting witness. Then she carries on the story as the first person narrator and talks to Foe about the construction of their narrative, the story of the island and their adventures.
Narrative Symmetry within Foe
Interestingly, Wittenberg (1995) identifies a few intertextual features found in the novel Foe. Firstly, Cruso and Friday piled up stones on the terraces and worked on the land while their crops failed to produce anything. This meaningless labour parallels how Susan failed to gain authorship to write a story by breaking Friday’s silence. Cruso and Foe also have some similarities in terms of how they are both lonely and have no interest in Susan as a woman. She offered sexual favours a few times in the novel and even wished to catch Friday sneaking up to see her washing herself. If she wanted someone to love her, she certainly would’ve talked a lot more about her daughter and perhaps tried to obtain some kind of true love relationship with one of the other characters. It is also important to point out that the isolation that Susan experiences on the island continued to curse her at Foe’s house. Here, the minimum interactions occurred in Foe’s house and both Susan and Friday are isolated from the society even though they are living in the middle of the capital city. In Foe’s house, Susan writes letters to Foe but they never leave the house and they become like “ghosts”.
The success of Friday’s tongue
Friday in Foe is believed to have no tongue and according to MacLeod (2006), many critics including Worthington, MacAskill and Colleran believe that Friday’s tongue was taken from him and with it his speech was taken too. This incident performed by slavers is widely believed to simply represent the racial discrimination which occurred in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. However, another theory is introduced by McLeod (2006, p.8) where he argues that there is nothing in the novel to prove that Friday has no tongue, therefore, Susan and Foe’s assumption of the “tonguelessness” is “a discursive reality”. So it is possible to argue that Friday is in fact is capable to speak out but lacks the inclination to.
If Friday actually had his tongue and he purposely resisted sharing his valuable story, his silence operates like a “heroic restraint” that gives him power and authority (McLeod, 2006). Friday’s resistance can be spotted throughout the novel, especially when Susan contributed to the ‘economy of exchange’ by offering sexual favours in an attempt to gain opportunities for telling her story and selling Mr Foe’s books. Intelligently Friday resisted joining the economy of exchange by refusing to share his story with Susan and Foe. This symbolizes Friday’s successes in not being manipulated into handing over his story and becoming a “narrative informant” (McLeod, 2006). It may be possible to suggest that both Susan and Foe represent colonialists from the world colonisation period. Friday’s character is similar to a protester who demands some kind of respect and authority towards his story and identity.
Interestingly, this theory of Friday gaining power can be spotted in a scene where Friday puts on Foe’s robe and writes many “O” on a piece of paper with ink and a pen. This “O” is believed to suggest a divine circle, meaning it represents the connection between Friday and God. This may suggest that because he kept his story unspoken throughout the novel, he turned his story into power and gained the authority to write in the end. The fact that Friday was possibly trying to communicate with God may refer to him achieving higher status like Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe who also believed that he could interact with God without going to church services. This could indicate that Friday’s status switched with Susan and Foe and how he actually has the power to construct the narrative.
Power Relationship
In the third section of the novel Foe, Susan and Foe experience a series of conflict with each other about the structure of the narrative. Foe’s idea for the narrative is: 1. loss of the daughter, 2. quest for the daughter in Brazil, 3. abandonment of the quest, 4. adventure of the island, 5. quest by the daughter and reunion, which uses the pattern “beginning-middle-end” to construct the narrative according to the steps of “loss-quest-recovery” (Wittenberg, 1995). In this structure, the section which talks about the island is very small. This is because Foe believes that the adventures and quests lack on the island and suggests using this five step narrative. On the other hand, Susan argues that there are many things to talk about the island. For example, the loss of Friday’s tongue, Cruso’s ship-wreck, his death and new hopes that Susan had in England.
The conflict between these two characters represents the power structures in post-colonial period. As Foe is a professional writer, his power of authorship can block and silence other versions of narrative such as Susan and Friday’s stories. According to Wittenberg (1995), Foe who is a white male living in the capital city, maintaining the authorship represents the power and authority of European colonists.
Sexism
According to Attridge cited in MacLeod (p. 4), Susan failed to gain the authorship because she is a woman. Worthington cited in MacLeod (p. 4) also suggests that this makes Susan a victim of Cruso’s misogyny and Mr Foe’s patriarchal plotting. This idea is believed to match or fit into a colonisation feature, sexism, where white men’s masculinity represents the control and power of colonists and women are portrayed as victims of this to the position of victims.
MacLeod (2006) disagrees with the theory of Susan being the powerless victim as there are a few statements and actions by Susan which makes her not so powerless. Firstly, Cruso does not seem to represent the masculinity or a position to be threatening Susan as he was described as a tired, feeble old man who later be called a dying man. Secondly, when she found out that Cruso has left no record of his story, she emphasized the importance of recording and he should have written them down. Thirdly, she tried to deconstruct Cruso’s story as he provided different stories and none of them could not be trusted. Finally, Susan explored the island even though she was warned about the apes by Cruso and was told not to leave the place. Finally, Susan kidnapped a dying Cruso and Friday taking them on the ship to return to England.
These incidents prove that Susan was able to express her opinions explicitly and acted according to her will, therefore, she was not the victim of sexism. Furthermore, while Foe is described as “a regulator of capitalist, bourgeois patriarchal, imperial society” (Hutcheon cited in MacLeod, 2006, p.4), and succeeded in commodifying Susan’s story, she never gave up refusing the alterations. Considering Susan’s capability, she seems like a woman from the 21st Century as I personally feel that I would have acted the same way if I was in her position. The continuous battles between Susan and Foe seem to represent her strong desire and desperation to be heard as well as her ability to take action.
Commodification
Throughout the battles between two characters, the complicated, deferred and frustrated disapprovals are raised by Susan who continuously attempted to resist the commodification of the story. The desperation of her resistance is seen in the calculated shift of her audience within the first section of the novel. The first section where Susan started telling her story of the island (p.5) used the term “you” to indicate Foe. This is because the purpose of telling her story to Foe was to convince him to listen to her view of story and produce a novel in her favour. However, when she was telling the story about meeting Cruso for the first time and explaining him her situation (p.11), she used the same term “you” to indicate Cruso instead of Foe. This is because she believed that the story of the island is a gift from Cruso and therefore, the fact that he existed should be valued and be used as the centre of the narrative (Wittenberg, 1995).
MacLeod (2006) discusses that history itself is the only particular radar that leads to a particular view of many narratives agreed to be told by many people. Therefore, a story is something that can be altered or commodified and after all, it is only a framework that is selected by people who have power. They can modify the angle of the radar or replace with a complete new one (MacLeod, 2006). This theory reflects how Foe, who had power, tried to commodify Susan’s story while Susan had her own radar. It also indicates how Coetzee, the author of the novel Foe, created new radars and provides Susan and Friday the opportunity or authority to tell their stories.
Pre-dating Robinson Crusoe
As Foe was published in 1986 after Robinson Crusoe in 1719, chronologically Defoe’s novel was written first. However, Foe is written in a way so it pre-dates Robinson Crusoe, meaning that Coetzee positioned Foe as an original story which was written prior to Robinson Crusoe. He also puts Robinson Crusoe in a position of being doubted by creating the sense of uncertainty towards the novel. Walcott (1974, p.2) refers to the literature written by descendants of slaves as “revenge” or “historical truth”. This means that the novel Foe exposes the true story of this particular castaway. By doing this, he criticises the commodification also called “violent translation or ventriloquism” (Krupat, cited in Wittenberg, 1995) of Robinson Crusoe and raises the issue of hegemony which is seen in colonisation and the post-colonisation process.
To conclude, stories from the eighteenth century were often constructed and controlled by white men with high status or in positions of power. This allowed them to produce stories which put them into the position of heroes. It also allowed them to create and control a space to admire their achievements of “not so genuine” stories. As the system of the space was controlled and played by white men, literatures of early eighteenth century are said to problematize some of post-colonial issues such as gender, class/economic relationships and race/ethnicity. In the novel Foe (1986), Coetzee replaced those players and demonstrates how their space can be transformed into something different.
Essay question:
Show how Foe relates to a pre-text on which they are based, or which they problematise. What is the intention of the re-write, and is it achieved?
Fiction is a “collection of made-up sentences describing events that never happened” (MacLeod, 2006, p.1) it is “the substitutive, dispossessive and transformative process” (Wittenberg 2006). The novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) written by Daniel Defoe is widely recognised as one of the most popular castaway novels from the early eighteenth century. Coetzee’s novel Foe is based on the story behind the writing of Robinson Crusoe. This essay focuses on Coetzee’s purpose for re writing the novel and discusses the interesting post-colonial themes and issues raised by the novel Foe. These issues include the rejection of castaway genre, narrative symmetry within Foe, the power relationship between servant and master, sexism and commodification of storytelling. Coetzee wrote the novel Foe so that it effectively pre dates Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe.
Castaway Genre
According to Weaver-Hightower (2006), the origin of castaway tales can be traced back to the time of European colonisation, particularly when Christopher Columbus started the world colonisation in the fifteenth Century. The formula for the early tales involved the main characters getting ship-wrecked and castaway on a faraway deserted island. The individual’s unexpected adventures evolved in to stories of how a group of men went on to conquer the New World. This ‘burden of the white man’ is described by Weaver-Hightower (2006) as unavoidable and legitimate as they believed that they were doing the work of God and there is a purpose for each voyage. For this reason the readers of castaway novels as well as the general public believed that the colonial voyage of Europeans represented the concept of “righteous colonisation”. This is also described as “specific cultural fantasy”, this term suggests that the people were slightly deluded to believe that they were justified in their voyages. The main characters in the castaway genre are portrayed as heroes who discover far away lands this is said to parallel to both imperial and neo-imperial expansions.
The castaway stories remain popular and valued today, even though there are few books written on the subject there are many television shows and movies such as the American show Survivor and Tom Hank’s movie Castaway. The Survivor television show concept has been replicated all over the world and Tom Hanks was nominated for the Best Actor award at the 2000 Academey Awards demonstrating the continuing popularity of the genre. Despite the fact that the stories and perspectives differ from the original castaway stories the characters still continue some of the same ideological and psychological themes. These themes include the isolation of the Tropical Island and power relationships as a source of conflict between men and women or older people and youth.
Rejection of castaway genre
There are a few distinctions found between the two novels, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Coetzee’a Foe. Foe (1986) demonstrates the author’s rejection of the general themes of Robinson Crusoe and the whole castaway genre by purposely drawing differences in the novel’s characters such as Cruso and Friday, the features of the island and the structure of the novel.
Foe’s characters Cruso and Friday, are quite different to the characters in Robinson Crusoe. Firstly, in Robinson Crusoe Crusoe tries to territorize the island as a governor as soon as he reaches the island. This is portrayed by his actions of burying dead sailors and using a cross as a monument to them, importantly the cross is also the most recognised symbol of Christianity. Crusoe also sets up camp and establishes crops and other agriculture on the island. However, Coetzee’s character Cruso did not show any of the coloniser’s typical desires to control the island. Also, while Crusoe is known as a reliable, knowledgeable and noble hero who saves Friday’s life teaching him English and coaching him in Christianity, Cruso is depicted as a weak old man who he refuses to ‘civilise’ Friday in anyway. Cruso also breaks the rule of castaway narratives by refusing to leave the island to go back to England.
Focussing on the characteristic differences of Friday between the two novels, while Friday in Robinson Crusoe learns to talk with Crusoe in English, Friday in Foe is believed to have no tongue and is unable to speak. According to Plasa (2001), the main reason of conflicts between slaves and masters during the colonial period was the settlement of the religion. As noted above, Friday in Robinson Crusoe was fully christened and told Crusoe that if they went to Africa, he would teach people to stop eating human flesh and become Christians. On the other hand, Friday in Foe is quite opposite until the end of the novel. The idea of having a female voyager in castaway stories was also incredibly rare in the early eighteenth Century and the existence of Susan Barton also broke the rule of castaway genre.
Another difference is seen in Susan’s description of the island in Foe, she describes the island as “a great rocky hill with a flat top, rising sharply from the sea on all sides except one, dotted with drab bushes that never flowered and never shed their leaves (p.7)”. This is notably different to the typical deserted island described by Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe; “soft sands and shady trees where brooks run to quench the castaway’s thirst and ripe fruit falls into his hand (p.7)”.
In terms of the structure of the novel, Coetzee operates the narrative in “Island–Europe–Europe–Europe” pattern and ignores the classic structure of “ship-wreck-island-Europe”. By breaking the typical rule of castaway narrative, Coetzee changed the reader’s expectations. How stories are told in the each section also differs since they are told by different characters. While section one is a story of the island told by Susan, in the section two, narratives are told through a collection of carefully dated letters written by Susan to Foe. Rather than Susan interacting with people, she tells her story as a reporting witness. Then she carries on the story as the first person narrator and talks to Foe about the construction of their narrative, the story of the island and their adventures.
Narrative Symmetry within Foe
Interestingly, Wittenberg (1995) identifies a few intertextual features found in the novel Foe. Firstly, Cruso and Friday piled up stones on the terraces and worked on the land while their crops failed to produce anything. This meaningless labour parallels how Susan failed to gain authorship to write a story by breaking Friday’s silence. Cruso and Foe also have some similarities in terms of how they are both lonely and have no interest in Susan as a woman. She offered sexual favours a few times in the novel and even wished to catch Friday sneaking up to see her washing herself. If she wanted someone to love her, she certainly would’ve talked a lot more about her daughter and perhaps tried to obtain some kind of true love relationship with one of the other characters. It is also important to point out that the isolation that Susan experiences on the island continued to curse her at Foe’s house. Here, the minimum interactions occurred in Foe’s house and both Susan and Friday are isolated from the society even though they are living in the middle of the capital city. In Foe’s house, Susan writes letters to Foe but they never leave the house and they become like “ghosts”.
The success of Friday’s tongue
Friday in Foe is believed to have no tongue and according to MacLeod (2006), many critics including Worthington, MacAskill and Colleran believe that Friday’s tongue was taken from him and with it his speech was taken too. This incident performed by slavers is widely believed to simply represent the racial discrimination which occurred in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. However, another theory is introduced by McLeod (2006, p.8) where he argues that there is nothing in the novel to prove that Friday has no tongue, therefore, Susan and Foe’s assumption of the “tonguelessness” is “a discursive reality”. So it is possible to argue that Friday is in fact is capable to speak out but lacks the inclination to.
If Friday actually had his tongue and he purposely resisted sharing his valuable story, his silence operates like a “heroic restraint” that gives him power and authority (McLeod, 2006). Friday’s resistance can be spotted throughout the novel, especially when Susan contributed to the ‘economy of exchange’ by offering sexual favours in an attempt to gain opportunities for telling her story and selling Mr Foe’s books. Intelligently Friday resisted joining the economy of exchange by refusing to share his story with Susan and Foe. This symbolizes Friday’s successes in not being manipulated into handing over his story and becoming a “narrative informant” (McLeod, 2006). It may be possible to suggest that both Susan and Foe represent colonialists from the world colonisation period. Friday’s character is similar to a protester who demands some kind of respect and authority towards his story and identity.
Interestingly, this theory of Friday gaining power can be spotted in a scene where Friday puts on Foe’s robe and writes many “O” on a piece of paper with ink and a pen. This “O” is believed to suggest a divine circle, meaning it represents the connection between Friday and God. This may suggest that because he kept his story unspoken throughout the novel, he turned his story into power and gained the authority to write in the end. The fact that Friday was possibly trying to communicate with God may refer to him achieving higher status like Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe who also believed that he could interact with God without going to church services. This could indicate that Friday’s status switched with Susan and Foe and how he actually has the power to construct the narrative.
Power Relationship
In the third section of the novel Foe, Susan and Foe experience a series of conflict with each other about the structure of the narrative. Foe’s idea for the narrative is: 1. loss of the daughter, 2. quest for the daughter in Brazil, 3. abandonment of the quest, 4. adventure of the island, 5. quest by the daughter and reunion, which uses the pattern “beginning-middle-end” to construct the narrative according to the steps of “loss-quest-recovery” (Wittenberg, 1995). In this structure, the section which talks about the island is very small. This is because Foe believes that the adventures and quests lack on the island and suggests using this five step narrative. On the other hand, Susan argues that there are many things to talk about the island. For example, the loss of Friday’s tongue, Cruso’s ship-wreck, his death and new hopes that Susan had in England.
The conflict between these two characters represents the power structures in post-colonial period. As Foe is a professional writer, his power of authorship can block and silence other versions of narrative such as Susan and Friday’s stories. According to Wittenberg (1995), Foe who is a white male living in the capital city, maintaining the authorship represents the power and authority of European colonists.
Sexism
According to Attridge cited in MacLeod (p. 4), Susan failed to gain the authorship because she is a woman. Worthington cited in MacLeod (p. 4) also suggests that this makes Susan a victim of Cruso’s misogyny and Mr Foe’s patriarchal plotting. This idea is believed to match or fit into a colonisation feature, sexism, where white men’s masculinity represents the control and power of colonists and women are portrayed as victims of this to the position of victims.
MacLeod (2006) disagrees with the theory of Susan being the powerless victim as there are a few statements and actions by Susan which makes her not so powerless. Firstly, Cruso does not seem to represent the masculinity or a position to be threatening Susan as he was described as a tired, feeble old man who later be called a dying man. Secondly, when she found out that Cruso has left no record of his story, she emphasized the importance of recording and he should have written them down. Thirdly, she tried to deconstruct Cruso’s story as he provided different stories and none of them could not be trusted. Finally, Susan explored the island even though she was warned about the apes by Cruso and was told not to leave the place. Finally, Susan kidnapped a dying Cruso and Friday taking them on the ship to return to England.
These incidents prove that Susan was able to express her opinions explicitly and acted according to her will, therefore, she was not the victim of sexism. Furthermore, while Foe is described as “a regulator of capitalist, bourgeois patriarchal, imperial society” (Hutcheon cited in MacLeod, 2006, p.4), and succeeded in commodifying Susan’s story, she never gave up refusing the alterations. Considering Susan’s capability, she seems like a woman from the 21st Century as I personally feel that I would have acted the same way if I was in her position. The continuous battles between Susan and Foe seem to represent her strong desire and desperation to be heard as well as her ability to take action.
Commodification
Throughout the battles between two characters, the complicated, deferred and frustrated disapprovals are raised by Susan who continuously attempted to resist the commodification of the story. The desperation of her resistance is seen in the calculated shift of her audience within the first section of the novel. The first section where Susan started telling her story of the island (p.5) used the term “you” to indicate Foe. This is because the purpose of telling her story to Foe was to convince him to listen to her view of story and produce a novel in her favour. However, when she was telling the story about meeting Cruso for the first time and explaining him her situation (p.11), she used the same term “you” to indicate Cruso instead of Foe. This is because she believed that the story of the island is a gift from Cruso and therefore, the fact that he existed should be valued and be used as the centre of the narrative (Wittenberg, 1995).
MacLeod (2006) discusses that history itself is the only particular radar that leads to a particular view of many narratives agreed to be told by many people. Therefore, a story is something that can be altered or commodified and after all, it is only a framework that is selected by people who have power. They can modify the angle of the radar or replace with a complete new one (MacLeod, 2006). This theory reflects how Foe, who had power, tried to commodify Susan’s story while Susan had her own radar. It also indicates how Coetzee, the author of the novel Foe, created new radars and provides Susan and Friday the opportunity or authority to tell their stories.
Pre-dating Robinson Crusoe
As Foe was published in 1986 after Robinson Crusoe in 1719, chronologically Defoe’s novel was written first. However, Foe is written in a way so it pre-dates Robinson Crusoe, meaning that Coetzee positioned Foe as an original story which was written prior to Robinson Crusoe. He also puts Robinson Crusoe in a position of being doubted by creating the sense of uncertainty towards the novel. Walcott (1974, p.2) refers to the literature written by descendants of slaves as “revenge” or “historical truth”. This means that the novel Foe exposes the true story of this particular castaway. By doing this, he criticises the commodification also called “violent translation or ventriloquism” (Krupat, cited in Wittenberg, 1995) of Robinson Crusoe and raises the issue of hegemony which is seen in colonisation and the post-colonisation process.
To conclude, stories from the eighteenth century were often constructed and controlled by white men with high status or in positions of power. This allowed them to produce stories which put them into the position of heroes. It also allowed them to create and control a space to admire their achievements of “not so genuine” stories. As the system of the space was controlled and played by white men, literatures of early eighteenth century are said to problematize some of post-colonial issues such as gender, class/economic relationships and race/ethnicity. In the novel Foe (1986), Coetzee replaced those players and demonstrates how their space can be transformed into something different.
References
Coetzee, J.M. (1986). Foe. London: Penguin.
Defoe, D. (1719). Chapters 15-17. In Robinson Crusoe (pp.89-109). Project Guttenburg.
MacLoud, L. (2006). “Do We of Necessity Become Puppets in a Story?” Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 52, No. 1, Spring 2006.
Plasa, C. (2001). There is Always the Other Side: African and Carribean Perspectives In Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea (p.96-120). London: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Walcott, D. (1974). The Muse of History: an essay. In Coombs. O. (Ed.), Is Massa Dead? Black moods in the Caribbean (pp.1-27). NY: Anchor.
Weaver-Hightower, R. (2006). Cast Away and Survivor: the surviving castaway and the rebirth of empire. In Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 39, No. 2, April 2006.
Wittenberg, H. (1995). Spatial systems in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe. Inter Action 3. Proceedings of Conference. Bellville: UWC Press, P.1421-151.
Defoe, D. (1719). Chapters 15-17. In Robinson Crusoe (pp.89-109). Project Guttenburg.
MacLoud, L. (2006). “Do We of Necessity Become Puppets in a Story?” Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 52, No. 1, Spring 2006.
Plasa, C. (2001). There is Always the Other Side: African and Carribean Perspectives In Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea (p.96-120). London: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Walcott, D. (1974). The Muse of History: an essay. In Coombs. O. (Ed.), Is Massa Dead? Black moods in the Caribbean (pp.1-27). NY: Anchor.
Weaver-Hightower, R. (2006). Cast Away and Survivor: the surviving castaway and the rebirth of empire. In Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 39, No. 2, April 2006.
Wittenberg, H. (1995). Spatial systems in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe. Inter Action 3. Proceedings of Conference. Bellville: UWC Press, P.1421-151.
