New Literature: re-writing Robinson Crusoe

AUT University

BA English Studies


New Literature 167102

Assignment Two: Short Fiction,
(Re-write of the novel Robinson Crusoe)

“The Truth of Black”


PART ONE

“What is life? Why do we live?
Where do we come from?
Are some people gifted with
Missions by our father and
some not?”

I struggled to think of what to write next. I closed my diary and put it down on the nicely polished table with the pen. I was sitting in my sofa with a tea cup on my hand. As I had a sip of the tea, I looked out the window and saw my Uncle’s car stopping just outside my house. I sighed.
“Uncle John again…”
I heard the bell rang and heard one of our maids running towards the front door to welcome this familiar visitor. The door flung open and I heard his usual loud voice.
“Robinson!! Is Robinson around!?”
I saw Robinson walking towards the front door, passing the door of living room where I sat.
“John! Come in! I got to tell you about this idea for my next novel!”, Robinson said, excitedly.
Within a seconds, I saw Robinson walking past me again with Uncle John following him. I listened to them entering my husband’s office, closing the door after him.
“Oh, hello, Uncle John. How are you? Oh, did you know that I lived here?’, I whispered bitterly, face smiling pathetically. It seems like he doesn’t notice my existence anymore. He is too busy chatting to Robinson about the next novel. The door of the office is kept closed at all time during my uncle’s visit. All I hear about these days is the success of my husband’s venture to this silly island and his first novel, Robinson Crusoe. It all started when he returned to England from the island with a black slave and full of righteous stories.”
“Oh, this arranged marriage was a mistake.”, I whispered.
All I have gained is the wealth, fame and the continuous visits of my uncle. He helped Robinson to publish his first novel who talks about nothing else but the venture.
And all the women!! Why do they all envy me? Do they think I am such a lucky woman who is his wife? What makes it so special to be
a wife of a writer who never love me?”, I signed. I thought of my children. I have threes precious children who love me and keep me busy. Without them, what would I be like? I will be nobody. Still, I must mention that I just have had enough of receiving stupid fan letters and seeing my husband come home late every night. All the women must be keeping him busy. What can this thirty-two year old wife do? Not much really, apart from ignoring my husband’s love affairs by focusing on the teaching at Kingston College.
I sipped the tea again and gazed out the window where I spotted nothing but the bright blue sky.
“Is there any purpose of my life and if so, where does it lead me to?”, questions stirring in my head. I imagined myself as a little blue bird, flying off this place into the empty sky. I often call this place the prison with a look of luxury hotel. The clock went. It was 12 p.m. I had to go to school to finish off marking my students assignments. I stood up and shook my head, trying to switch my mind from day dreaming to reality. I took my spring coat and a hat that I bought just the other day as walked out the front door to the bright day light.

The sunshine was particularly strong after the storm that we had last night. I could smell the wet soil and saw the trees glittering in joy with the rain we had last night. When I go outside in a day like this, I realise how dark my house is inside.
“Prison”, I mumbled as I cruised towards my school. School is just around the corner but I must go passed this old bookshop, the old bridge called Manhill Bridge and a bakery. I go there at least three times a week to get their freshly baked date’s scone. It was when I was passing the bridge, I spotted this crude oil painting of my husband with a necklace around his neck. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was the one I gave him the Christmas before he left to his venture. I was sure that he didn’t mention about it in his first novel. I stared down at this black African painter who was lying on the ground, covered with the newspapers. I could tell he was an African man because he had no shoes and I saw his black feet pocking out of newspapers. I wondered how long he has been living here, trying to sell his art works day after day. I looked at other paintings of him, wondering how he got to know about the necklace. Then, I spotted another canvas which was painted only with a blue paint. It could’ve been a boring painting of the sky or the sea, I don’t know. Another canvas I saw at the back was of a red large bird that I have never seen before. Maybe it’s from Africa. I looked at the man’s face, totally confused. Who on earth would purchase these oil paintings? After staring down at him and his art works for a few minutes, he suddenly moved and sat up, trying to block the bright sun light from his face. He caught my eyes and stared at me for a few seconds, then quickly reached to his bag and got out what it looked like a sketch book. He sat up straight and started to draw. I could tell that he was drawing me because he was staring at me and his book back and forth.
“How did you know about his necklace?”, I asked. But he did not reply.
He stopped drawing, then smiled at me and continued to draw again.
“Poor thing. He must be a bit mental”, I thought.
“I haven’t got any money for you”, I told the man. But he still remained silence.
“I can’t stay here for long, you know. I have to go to work”. I received no reply. I signed. I gave him a penny and left the bridge.
That night, I wrote about this mysterious man in my diary. I didn’t know his name so I called him Mr Manhill, after the name of the bridge. I wondered how he got to know about Robinson’s necklace.
“I must ask his name tomorrow”, I told myself. I closed the diary and turned the bedside light off.

*

Next morning, I saw Mr Manhill lying on the same spot as I saw yesterday. When I was walking passed him, he spotted me, then got up and waved at me, asking to come closer.
“What a strange man”, I told myself.
But he seemed to be harmless to me. I walked towards him. I noticed he was holding up his sketch book. I went closer to see his drawing. There was a picture of a woman in the dress I was wearing yesterday. It must have been me. I wasn’t smiling but looked very beautiful. This made me smile.
“Thank you. I really like it. How much is the drawing?” But again, I had no reply. Instead, he turned over the page and started to draw again, looking back and forth between me and the sketch book. How he drew was quite different to how I do. I usually want the model to stay still while drawing but he used gestures and told me to walk around while he sketched me. So I did. I walked around the bridge, looking at his art works. There were around thirty-three of them and all of them looked like if they were painted by children. He seemed to have no education in art what so ever.
“But that’s what I like about paintings.” I mumbled.
“I love my job”, I told myself.
I get to see students’ paintings everyday. All of them are unique and excellent in different ways. Thomas likes to paint objects like fruits or people exactly as he sees. Kate and Michael are different. They like to draw without models and express their thoughts and feelings on their canvases. With art, no such ways of painting are right or wrong and everyone has their own way of putting life into their canvases.
After a few minutes, I saw him waving at me, smiling like my students wanting to show off his work. I smiled back and went to see his drawing. The drawing had me looking at one of his canvases, smiling. His drawing is quite simple but he got the basics right. He got my face structure well drawn, same as my hands. I looked at him who was now smiling at me.
“Thank you, again. Nice drawing. My name is Catherine by the way. Catherine Crusoe. I forgot to ask your name yesterday.” I put my hand out to shake his hand. For a moment, he stopped, completely. Looking completely astonished. It is after all, strange for a white woman to introduce her self to a black man. Then he grabbed my hand and shook tightly. For the first time, he spoke.
“Friday”.
I was taken back with this word. I looked at him, very suspicious.
“He probably heard about the novel and pretending to be Friday as a joke”, I told myself. I laughed and shook my head, denying to believe it.
The man looked more confused. “Friday”, he repeated.
I remembered about the paint of Robinson’s necklace. And the red bird. Is that from the island too?
“It all makes sense”, I mumbled as I looked at his face closer, still suspicious.
“Are you really? I mean, are you Friday from my husband’s novel? But my husband taught you English. Didn’t he? Have you forgotten how to speak English?”
He didn’t say anything. He seemed not to understand what I was saying. He still had a look of puzzle and confusion.
After a few attempts of trying to get Friday to speak English, I realised that he only knew how to say his name. The name Robinson gave him. But why? Then I clicked and looked at Friday’s face in horror.
“Did my husband lie about educating you in Christianity and teaching you English? Did he use you to become famous? Did he treat you like a slave and not a friend?”
I slowly sat down on the ground, completely shocked about what my husband has done. For a while, I couldn’t bare look at or talk to Friday as I was so disgusted with the truth and embarrassed of being a white person.
“How selfish… How dear him do such a thing…” I mumbled, my voice was now shaking in anger. I felt Friday’s hand on my shoulder. He was trying to calm me down. I took his hand and stood up. His hand was as rough as rocks, covered in dust and dirt. I noticed a few holes in his shirt. Same with his trousers. He had no shoes and how feet looked pretty dirty too. Suddenly, I felt my responsibility for Friday, not only because the heartless man happened to be my husband, but as a white person. While Robinson made his fame and wealth, Friday got nothing. He was used and now chucked away. I felt my eyes turning hot and felt the tears run down my cheeks. It tasted really salty, just like a sea water. I had to stay strong.
“You need a good wash”, I told Friday, as I wiped off my face.
“Come. I will get you cleaned up and you need to eat something too”. I smiled and gestured him to pack his bag. He hesitated a little but nodded in the end. Within three minutes, we left the bridge and headed to my school. I wasn’t sure where I was going to get him cleaned. We walked narrow streets where not many people walked pass. Many people were staring at us. No white woman walks with a black man. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was not to be seem by people from the publishing company or worse, caught by my husband or uncle.

*

We managed to arrive at the school safely. When we got to the art classroom, I got the key out of my bag and opened the door. I gestured Friday to go inside. So he did. The classroom looked exactly the same as how I left it yesterday. I could still smell the paint. I grabbed his arm and took him to the basin where I found a cloth and the sink. I poured some cold water and hot water into a bucket and gestured him to take his cloth off and clean himself with the cloth. He nodded and I closed the door behind as I left the basin. I walked across the room and sat down on my desk, looking down at students’ assignments. I signed and whispered, “Thank god we weren’t caught. What do I do now? What does he need?”.

I stood up and left the classroom to go to the closest dairy where I picked up some sandwiches and pies. When I came back, Friday was fully dressed and was now walking around the classroom, looking at my students’ art works hanging on the wall. Students’ desks looked smaller beside Friday’s big body. His body are cleaned and he looked so much like ahuman being. He was smiling and it explained everything, I thought. Even he didn’t say a word, I could tell that he was grateful of what I have done for him. I gave him two sandwiches which he didn’t take very long to finish it. When he finished them, he looked even happier than ever. I slowly sat down on my desk, thinking what I’m going to do with him.
“I brought him here to keep him safe but for how long?”, I told myself.
I stared at this poor man who is now pointing at drawings on the wall, whispering something. I was the only art teacher at this school and I knew that this classroom is used only on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. So Friday has to hide during the day from Monday to Friday but he can come out from the basin during the night and weekends. But he must always be quiet. Otherwise someone will find him.
“It could be tomorrow that one of my students discover a black man hiding in the basin or if not, the day after. I must keep him hidden here some how. Forever, if necessary. I got no where else to hide this poor thing. But he can’t just hide there and do nothing. He is a human. He needs some activities.”
I jumped up the chair suddenly, excited with an idea. I quickly went into a small room where I kept all the materials for my classes. I came out with a large fabric. I neatly spread it in the corner of the classroom.
“Look, Friday, here is your place to do your paintings, now on!”, I told Friday.
Friday looked confused, staring down at this little piece of fabric. I grabbed his bag and put it on the fabric. I then went to get the easel and a brand new canvas and placed on the fabric. I opened his bag and got out his paints and brushes. He seemed to understand what was happening by then. I could see his eyes wide open, staring down at his new work place, totally astonished. He then turned around and held my hands with his hands, very tightly. He didn’t say anything because he couldn’t speak English. All he did was smile in tears and kept nodding.

I reached to my bag and got out a handkerchief and gave it to him. He wiped his face and stared at my face again, with a great respect.
“You really deserve better but all I can do for you is this”, I told him softly. Then I looked out the window into the sky. I signed and whispered in my heart.

“I wonder how long he will be able to live here before anyone finds out”.

iResearch mini project

How do they write up?: Examination of the discussion sections of research reports in the field of Applied Linguistics

YOSHIE MORI

Auckland University of Technology

This study selected the discussion sections of five recent academic journal articles from the field of Applied Linguistics. The study investigated the macro-structure and move-step classifications of the sections and how authors carried out their discussions and arguments. The research also examined the application of connectors and their frequency. The main purpose of this study is to identify a common pattern in the discussion sections of this particular area of academic fields and provide an idea of what is expected for students who are learning to write up research reports in this field. The main assumption of the study was that all samples follow the moves introduced by Swales (1990). Findings show that articles had similar macro-structures and included most of the eight moves, however, the orders of those moves presented varied significantly. Also, the most frequently used connector was However followed by For example and Thus. The study suggests that the model presented by Swales (1990) is only applied to a certain extent in the recent articles. It seems that authors of journal articles have some kind of freedom in terms of how to deliver their arguments and points.

1. INTRODUCTION
There has been an increasing interest in the examination and analyses of journal articles from the genre perspective (Swales, 1990) using a move-step classification (Hyland, 2004). While many of these analyses focus on the introduction section, such as Swales’ CARS model, there has been a more recent investigation into other sections of the IMRD pattern including the discussion section. Hopkins & Dudley-Evans (1998) provide one of the early examples of a move-step classification of the discussion section. They offer the 11-move pattern which include 1) background information, 2) statement of results, 3)(un)expected outcome, 4) reference to previous research, 5) explanation of unsatisfactory result, 6) exemplification, 7) deduction, 8) hypothesis, 9) reference to previous research, 10) recommendation and 11) justification. Swales (1990) summarises McKinlay (1984), Hopkins (1985), Peng (1987) and Hopkins & Dudley-Evan (1998) and comes to a useful 8 move-step classification which includes, 1) background information, 2) statement of results, 3) (un)expected outcome, 4) reference to previous research, 5) explanation, 6) exemplification, 7) deduction and hypothesis and 8) recommendation. This has been further simplified into a three move-step classification by Swales and Feak (2004) for student writers. The process include, 1) points to consolidate the research space, 2) points to indicate the limitation of the study and 3) points to recommend a course of action and/or to identify useful areas of further research. Some genre research focuses on providing a discipline-specific classification of moves. For example, Levin, Fine and Young (2001) explore the discussion sections in the field of social science. They state that moves can be delineated in a number of ways, including; discourse units, sentences and lexis grammatical units and conclude that there is an inconsistency in terms of levels of generality and it is difficult to identify moves because there are no clear criteria. This is a genuine answer for the discussion section because it is a complex and difficult area for novice researchers to write. Other studies of this subject-specific nature include Neuroscience, Biology, Agriculture and Chemical Engineering (Levin, et al, 2001). However, there has been little attention paid to the field of Applied Linguistics. This paper aims to provide a move-step classification of discussion sections of the journal articles from the field of Applied Linguistics. This paper investigates how discussion sections in research articles from the area are constructed, how the ideas or arguments are presented and in terms of the use of language, which connectors are commonly used. This paper also aims to examine the effectiveness of this particular model introduced by Swales (1990) by analysing the sample using his model. This research is valuable because there are needs for the investigation of journal articles in the field of Applied Linguistics especially for the students who are learning to write up their research reports.

2. THE STUDY
Collection of the sample
In order to provide a genre analysis, I chose the most recent database under Applied Linguistics and searched for “ESOL”. I selected five journal articles for the sample which were randomly selected to avoid any personal preferences towards the choice of articles which could heavily influence the outcomes. All of the chosen articles were selected from the AUT e-journals database which means that all of those articles are filtered and written by academics and not by random people off the internet.

The Strategies
The analysis can be divided into following three sections; macro-structure, move-step classifications and connectors. Firstly, the macro-structure of the discussion sections of the sample was investigated. By breaking down the discussion sections, it became easier to break down further into a move-step classification which was analysed next. Secondly, the investigation looked closer to find out what is the purpose or meaning of each sentence. Thirdly, I identified any connectors used in the discussion sections of the sample and found out which connectors were most commonly used.

There are a few different models introduced by previous researchers however, they face difficulties in constructing an appropriate and effective model for the analysis. For example, Lewin and Young (2001) argue that the early model introduced by Dubois (1997) investigated journal articles by looking at the use of lexical items. This method was considered to be unreliable and ineffective. In addition, the model offered by Lewin Young (2001) contains the total moves of twenty-one and because this model contains so many moves, it is more likely to bring a number of different results which makes it difficult to identify common characteristics. On the other hand, Swales (1990) focuses on identifying the meanings of moves and the message that the authors try to output. This move-step classification is used for the examination and analysis of the discussion sections of the sample in this research.

3. RESULTS
Table 1 displays the macro-structure of the discussion sections of the sample. These results demonstrate that while the all tested five articles had similar structure, article A contained three categories; Discussion, Summary and Conclusion. Also, the author of article D named the summing up category Summary while others named Conclusion. Interestingly, some of the journal articles had subtitles inside these categories which break down into smaller scale of the macro-structure.

Table 2 represents the move-step classification of the discussion sections introduced by Swales (1990). This shows that the article E contained all of the moves while article D only contained five of them. Moves such as Background information and Unexpected outcome were less likely to be found in the discussion sections of journal articles in the field of Applied Linguistics. Furthermore, most of the articles began by stating the main findings and often the acknowledgement of Background information was ignored.

From the Table 3, it is evident that the most frequently used connector was however with ten instances and there was a moderate use of for example (7 instances) which was followed by thus and by contrast (3 instances). Unexpectedly, the use of the connector thus was more frequent than therefore. Also, multi-word connectors such as on the other hand and on the contrary were less likely seen in the discussion sections of this particular academic field. In addition, the functions of the frequently used connectors are given in Table 4.


4. DISCUSSION
The methodology used in this study has captured that all articles contained the move of the statement of results. In addition, the majority of articles contained the moves introduced by Swales (1990) such as references to previous research, explanation, deduction and hypothesis and recommendation. However, different moves are applied in different orders in journal articles. It may be that authors wanted to carry their discussions in different ways because they had their own beliefs in terms of how to present the discussions smoothly, effectively and persuasively.

By contrast, moves such as background information and unexpected outcomes were less likely to be found in the discussion sections of the journal articles. This incident can be supported Swales (1990) who explains that it often appears when the authors wish to re-state main points, theoretical and technical information. He also suggests that this move can occur anywhere in the discussion section. It may be possible to suggest the following three reasons; 1)that authors felt it was unnecessary to repeat such information, 2) those moves were blended in to other moves or 3) most of the outcomes were not surprising amongst the researchers.

In terms of the use of connectors, there was a frequent use of however and moderate use of for example. Surprisingly, the connector thus was used more often than therefore. Perhaps, it makes the article to look more academic and formal. In addition, multi-word connectors such as on the contrary and on the other hand were less likely to be seen in the sample.

According to Swales and Feak (2004), authors often expect that readers have a good understanding of the research and may not re-state information. Some academics believe that a long discussion section creates short and weak methodology and results sections. This may explain how some authors of sample articles decided not mention the methodology and its information in details again. Furthermore, as Swales and Feak (2004) suggested, most of sample started the discussion sections with the statement of results. Perhaps this move is the most logical one to start with as the background information is less applied in the sample. Furthermore, Swales and Feak (2004) state that discussion sections often contain terms that summarises the discussions such as overall, in general and on the whole. These exact items were not found, however, I identified several terms such as in summary, in conclusion and finally and most of them were located towards the end of the discussion sections.

With only five journal articles as the sample, this study is no more than exploratory. Reinvestigation with a larger sample may bring more accurate outcomes. In addition, it seems that this study could have focused deeper on the language level. For example, further investigation could look at the use of tenses and the level of formality in the language.


REFERENCES

Hopkins, A. & T. Dudley-Evans (1988). A genre-based investigation of the discussion sections in articles and dissertations.
Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press (pp. 64-71).
Lewin, B. Fine, J. & Young, L. (2001). Expository discourse: A genre-based approach to social science research texts. London, New York: Continuum. (pp. 18-21)
Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic Settings. Cambridge University Press. (pp. 171 - 174)
Swales, J.M. & Feak, C.B. (2004). Academic Writing for Graduate Students (2nd ed.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.(pp. 268-277)

Teaching English to Adults Blog

This blog is very useful for teacher. As the author states, English teacher often don't get paid for the time spent for the preparation of lessons. Junior teacher (who jsut started teaching) can spend 2~3 hours per day, preparing for the followign day's lesson. It starts from lesson planning, what to teach, how to teach, and they need to know well about what they are teaching. If you are a native English speaker, who wants to teach English language, it might be challenging to understand the grammar as you probably never thought about the ggrammar of English, because you grew up speaking it. This site will help you to get an idea. You can also use Corpus to find collocations that occur together frequently in natural English. If you are going to follow textbooks, you really need to think about the benefits that students will gain from the activities or lessons and make sure the language used in them are natural.

Teaching humours; advantages and disadvantages

So we talked about teaching figurative language and humours.

An interesing comments has been made by Garcia who teaches English to adults. She states that she teaches humours such as Halloween jokes to her students when there is a time available and feels that it is the right moment (meaning, students are probably up for it).

Advantages within teaching humours to her students are;
1. they learn new words.
2. raise the awareness towards the subject e.g. existance of Halloween jokes
3. students feel that they learnt a lot and feel the satisfaction

Disadvantages are;
1. if students are studying towards IELTS of TOEFL (which are the two main English Examinations which are recognised world wide), they are less likely to be tested on these jokes.
2. Because jokes are based on cultural references and wordplay, students may not understand it or find it funny.

I recently observed a class full of Chinese students aged between 40 and 50, learning proverbs. Because they had knowledge of Chinese proverbs, they were able to draw the similarities of their proverbs and English proverbs. The lesson was veery successful as those proverbs made it extremely interesting for both students and teachers to learn.

What do you think? IF you were to learn a new language, would you prefer to learn proverbs, jokes and saying? If so, you do think you should master the use of it? (e.g. understanding the right context and right time to say them) or do you think you only want to understand the meanings so if someone said it, you will understand and laugh?

Critique of the teaching method, P-P-P

If you have ever been trained to teach English language, you probably heard of the teaching methodology called P-P-P (Present-Practice-Produce approach). This approach has been inplemented in the classrooms for a long time as it aws believed to be an effective methodology.

When using this approach, the lesson begins with presenting new language (e.g. new words) to students. At this stage, students are less active and the teacher does the most of the talking. Then, students start practicing by completing activities and tasks provided. This stage provide less guidelines to students but they do recieve feedback on pronunciation etc. At last, students are given a task where they are expected to produce the language fluently.

I tried this method myself in real classrooms and this didn't work. This was because it was unrealistic to expect students to learn so much and master it at the end of a single lesson. If you imagine learning a new language, do you think you would be able to master the use of new workds or functions of grammar associated with those words in only one lesson?

Injecting newly formed neurons into brain = babylike learning!!

>> Adnan
Thanks for your comment. I looked in and Edwards states that human needs to create a new neurons and they need to be connected to other neurons for us to connect new knowledge to old knowledge. This successful finding has lead to doctors being able to inject it to a certain part of the brain (where neurons are missing) of people with diseases such as Parkinson's disease.

Both Edwards and Swaminathan agree that by injecting it to the brains of older people, it will make them learn as fast as babies. So I guess there is a way out of it for us in the future.... haha

Essay: Post-colonization features in Foe

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.

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.

Our Organic Fruit&Vege Garden

I have never mentioned about my organic fruit&vege garden. I got one at the back of my house. At the moment, I'm growing some strawberries, lettuce and zucchinis. We also got tomatoes and passionfruit. I'm not sure about the passionfruit as most of the leaves are eaten by snails.

We put yellow strings around the garden so birds can't get inside but our veges will still get plenty of sunshine during the day.

We got strawberries growing (still small and green though) and lots of flowers are growing which will soon become strawberries.

You can see some of them in the middle of the photo.

Oh M God!! I love these guys!!!

Oh they are so hilarious!!! By now, many of you may heard about the comedy band called Flight Of The Concords. Here are their pics which gives an idea of what they look like. They are originally from NZ and they are so hot in USA at the mo!!! Check out their videos from My Favorite Videos on the right!!! Just imagine inviting them to your party or something....

Teaching figurative language to adults

Many people like Scrivener and Henry introduce ways of teaching figurative language or idioms on the internet. On the other hand, I find many academics suggest language teachers not to encourage students to use figurative language as simply it is difficult to use. Even a small mistake in the phrase or choosing unappropriate context to use figurative language can make students look stupid. BuI personally value the lessons on figurative language because they are simply useful things to know about. I don't think students should be forced to practice using them by creating a fake context. It will be too unnatural. But knowing their meaning will help to understand what others are trying to get through to them. Comments welcome.

What can teachers do?

This site tells you the list of things that students and teachers can do to increase their learning speed and depth. It says that make students laugh helps as it relaxes them and they become more receptive to new ideas. Maybe I should be joking a lot or saying funny things in the classroom in frong ot a bunch of Chinese students aged between 40 and 60. hmmm.... Anyway, other tips were:
Students- Set a goal, Motivate themselves, Give themselves some credit and Think positive.

Appranately, teachers can help this by engaging ideas, appluing role plays and telling stories. I know for hte fact telling stories are very good as long as it's well constructed and prepared. It's also good to make students to write a story as thei can show their creativity, which is nice and different.

Adult like to be lead?

The opposite theory is argued by Smith and E-Diva who states that adults prefer to learn in a traditional teacher-lead way. I personally feels that this is an old fashion way of teaching adults and it fails to motivate learners. I have observed a few language school tutors and the one makes sure that students achieve their outcomes is very flexible and negotiate with students well. Often students in what I call "passive classroom" are less focused and interested in the lesson it self. And sometimes, falling into a sleep.

I also disagree with the theory that believes in how adults learners prefer to do their exercises individually. Maybe in the beginners level but students in the upper-intermediate and advanced level at my language school are happy to be creative and discuss with the whole class. THey often like to work in pairs or small groups to produce a story that relates to what they learnt. e.g. after reading a story of a crime, they learnt collocations that often seen in the story-telling genre and tries to produce stories that reports a crime. I do notice that students at the intermediate level are more talkative than the advanced level. This could be because students at the advanced level are affraid of making a silly mistakes. But don't we all make silly mistakes all the time?? Maybe it has go to do with being polite, the cultural things.

Satisfying adult students

Lieb suggests that adults are "autonomous and self-directed", meaning that instead of constructing the lesson on tight schedules, they prefer to be actively involved in the learning process. This is seen in how my tutor at the language school is always flexible with the lessons. She shows that she does not mind getting side-tracked for a while as the topics are students' interest and it is important to keep them motivated. The tutor also negotiate with students what to do for the homework. Like today, students were confused with the use of "even though" and the tutor photocopied a two-pages long grammar exercise. As Speck suggests:

1. "Adult learners need to see that the professional development learning and their day-to-day activities are related and relevant."
2. "Adult learners need direct, concrete experiences in which they apply the learning in real work."

So it seems like maintaining motivation by allowing them to apply or link what they have learnt in the classroom to outside the classroom is a key to the success of teaching adults.

How adults prefer to learn passively.

According to Conner, adults tend to think that they cannot learn new things, but in fact, this is wrong and the capability of adult brains to "build and strengthen neutral pathways" is proved. I met so many adult learners who would tell me that they cannot remember what they have learnt in past because they are old. And they often take an English course that are not too challenging so that they learn a small amount of new knowledge at a time. It seems like many students are happy to go over what they have learnt over and over. They assume they forgot things, but their test results would reflect excellent understanding of what they were required to acquire. Most of students, especialy those who are unaware of their capability would get over 90%. Speck points out an interesting theory that adult learners prefer to be the origin of their own learning, some learning activities can be an attack on their competence. This possibly means that they prefer to complete exercises individually rather than in groups as they are afraid of making mistakes in front of other students or being compared to the others. Perhaps, it is fair to say that their perfectionism decreased their level of confidence and therefore, become less challenging. The students in a migrant class at my language school get taught English in Chinese as all students are from China. The tutor avoids to use interactive exercises and let students to do more individual works such as reading and writing tasks. This is what they prefer, bot the question is, "is this method appropriate?".

The first post!

Welcome to my new blog! Comments welcome!!