'Foe' Novel By John Maxwell Coetzee : Brief Question-Answer Activity

Introduction : This blog is written as a part of Thinking Activity assigned by Yesha Bhatt regarding John Maxwell Coetzee's novel 'Foe' published in 1986.

In this blog, I will be answering few questions asked from the faculty.

Question-Answer of 'Foe' Novel :

(1) How would you differentiate the

character of Cruso and Crusoe? 

Answer : In Robinson Crusoe, the reader gets authentic details of Crusoe’s identity since the male figure is the direct focus of the novel, but in Foe, Barton offers the reader individual, physical characteristics that was not depicted in the first novel. 

Foe follows the aspects of a more modern view. Even though Coetzee portrays a more feminine viewpoint through incorporating Susan Barton, her decisions and mindset raise a debate in how they relate to the life of a woman in the twentieth or even twenty-first centuries. As Barton falls asleep one night, Crusoe begins to pursue her. She described that night by saying, “I pushed his hand away and made to rise, but he held me. No doubt I might have freed myself, for I was stronger than he” (Coetzee 30). Although she realizes she is stronger than him, she decides not to leave but to “let him do as he wished” (Coetzee 30). Barton’s reputation is altered from the beginning to the end of the book by reshaping her morals. 

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

Answer : In Robinson Crusoe, Friday is a native who is about to be eaten by other natives. He is described as “tall and well shap’d,” and “all the sweetness of and softness of an European in his countenance too, especially when he smiled”(219). Foe differs from this completely; we are told that he is not as tall as Susan (although she may be tall herself), and there are few, if any, instances of him ever actually smiling. His race in Foe is African, not native, and his hair is described as “A head of fuzzy wool”(5) and “like lambs wool,”(154) opposed to in Robinson Crusoe, where is his hair is “long and black, not curl’d like wool”(219). The final difference is that fact that in Foe, he has no tongue. This changes his whole plot line in the story of Foe. Why was Friday so different in each story? Although there are many answers to that question, many of them can be summarized into the fact that Friday’s entire story is changed, and when your heritage changes, your race and influences change too. 

(3) Is Susan reflecting the white

mentality of Crusoe (Robinson Crusoe)? 

Answer : Yes, near the end of the second chapter in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Susan Barton and Friday are on their way to Bristol in order to catch a ship that will take Friday back to Africa. Along their journey, they come across a stillborn baby in a ditch. Susan leaves the baby, but as she awakes the next day, she begins to think about Friday and his possible cannibalism. “Had I not been there to restrain him, would he in his hunger have eaten the babe… Cruso had planted the seed in my mind, and now I could not look on Friday’s lips without calling to mind what meat must once have passed them” (pg. 106). Up to this point in the story, Friday had never shown any signs of being aggressive or violent towards anybody, especially Susan. Regardless of Friday’s seemingly docile nature through the entire time that she has known him, she still fears that Friday possesses cannibalistic tendencies. Why exactly I wanted to focus on this specific part of the story is because of the societal implications of the time. It is essential to bring up the fact that J.M. Coetzee is a South African author who published Foe in 1986. From the late 1940s to the early 90s, institutionalized racial segregation, that went by the name “Apartheid”, was enforced in South Africa. 

(4) Traces of white mentality in all the characters. (Master-slave, savage-Christian (white - civilized), giver – taker, shifting of power position – One is always ready to take place of Master) 

Answer : The Master-Slave relation is seen between Susan Barton and Friday, the Savage-Christian (White, Civilized) mentality is seen in Susan Barton's character. 

Susan Barton : She can be seen throughout the novel attempting to control the narrative, in particular in the third section when she becomes Foe's lover (or as she sees it, his "Muse") in an attempt to inspire him to write the story in the way she wishes. In the last few sections, she appears to lose her mind as her speeches become longer and more erratic and she convinces herself that Foe and the others in the room are not real. 

Cruso : He is shown to be an aging man and takes ill a number of times in the first part before dying on board the ship that saves them. He also enjoys telling stories about how he ended up on the island and how he found Friday, all which contradict each other and vary greatly, suggesting to the reader either forgetfulness due to old age or that Cruso repeatedly tells lies to suit his needs and in this case, the story. Both cause Cruso to be portrayed as a highly unreliable character. 

Friday : As Friday is a predominately silent charter, many of the other characters in the book try to impose a meaning onto his silences or speak for him. Susan becomes obsessed with Friday's lack of a tongue, convinced his perspective is the missing piece to her castaway story. Despite Friday not speaking, he is shown to express himself in different ways multiple times in the novel, such as by dancing in robes at Defoe's house and drawing on the chalk board. Yet in general his mind is left closed to Susan and Foe and therefore also to the reader. 

Foe : He is seen as a dominating figure who eventually succeeds in subduing Susan’s wish for a true and plain story. The good impression a reader usually has of a famous author is tainted by the implication that Foe is hiding from debt collectors (alluding to his dishonesty), and that he is enthusiastic to bend the truth of Susan’s story. Yet Foe being in debt also highlights the struggles of writing for money. Foe's insistence on writing a story that is interesting and that people will want to hear can be seen as his desperation to write a novel that will sell well and make money, rather than a commitment to the truth. 

(5) Which novel is convincing and has poetic justice? (or is there poetic justice? – Has writer achieved what it wished for? – Has Friday got the justice? ) 

Answer : There we find Poetic Justice in 'Robinson Crusoe' novel whereas in 'Foe' novel has blurred end, so it does not fit in any manner to Poetic Justice. 

Robinson Crusoe : At the end of the novel, Crusoe returns to Europe, where he comes into a great deal of money from his sugar plantations. He then gets married, has children, and eventually revisits his island. The novel ends with this following note: 

"All these things, with some very surprising Incidents in some new Adventures of my own, for ten Years more, I may perhaps gave a father Account hereafter." 

The last lines of the novel, then, are a promise of continuing adventures, and indeed, Defoe delivered just that when he wrote 'The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' the very same year." 

Foe : In the final chapter of the novel, we enter full-fantasy mode as Susan descends into the wreck where a ghost-like figure of Friday is chained. Though thoroughly fantastical, the image points to the actual. The actual Friday of the wrecked slave ship is the man who went down in chains, the one at the bottom of the ocean. 

At the end of the novel, he attempts to give the subaltern the power to speak. He puts a substance in Friday’s mouth that moves out of it like water: “it flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth. Soft and cold, dark and unending” (157). The voice he gives the subaltern resembles the ocean itself. It is all encompassing and reaches everything. But is this a fair voice? Is this not overly poetic and ambiguous and another form of silencing? Of course, though, there can be no singular, correct way of representing those who can’t speak. Maybe the writer’s position will always be ethically flawed whether they turn to the heavily figurative or starkly realist. Maybe Coetzee here suggests, though, that the writer’s power is their responsibility. For clearly it’s an immense power with the means to suggest, as he does in the final image, that the experiences of slaves and subjected peoples, of all those without a voice, is the substance that flows through everything in the world, connecting it, binding it together. In his haunting and terribly sad final scene, Friday’s suffering is brought to life. 

(6) Who is Protagonist? (Foe – Susan –

Friday – Unnamed narrator) 

Answer : All the narrators in 'Foe' are protagonist, but major portion of the narration is given by Susan Barton, so se may be called the chief protagonist. 

Barton’s role as a submissive supporting character to Cruso displays Coetzee’s formulation of Susan as a man’s woman. Susan is a sensual woman, and as the only female character in both Defoe’s novel as well as Coetzee’s novel, she is represented through her sexuality. Susan’s sexuality is first displayed in the beginning of the novel, when she is on the island and Cruso is alive. As she falls asleep one night, Cruso begins to make advances toward her. She describes the event by saying, “I pushed his hand away and made to rise, but he held me. No doubt I might have freed myself, for I was stronger than he” (30). Although she realizes she is stronger than him, she decides not to leave but to “let him do as he wished” (30). Barton’s reaction to Cruso’s unwarranted actions towards her identifies her as a character of meek subservience—she is easily overpowered by the male character of Cruso. She even rationalizes his unprovoked advances towards her by saying, “he has not known a woman for fifteen years, why should he not have his desires?” (30). The fact that she excuses his actions of degradation to an impulse of desire solidifies her role as an accessory in the novel; she not only lets Cruso use her, but excuses it as a right of his male desires. 

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

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

She uses every part of her body that defines her as a woman—tongue, cheeks, and thighs—in an attempt to alleviate Cruso of his sickness. She is not sexually or emotionally interested in Cruso, but still offers herself up to him. It is as if she is begging for him to survive by seducing him through senses. Her efforts fail because shortly thereafter, Cruso dies. 

Thank you!