coetzee.docx

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Daniel Defoe was one of the most prolific authors in the world of literature. His creation of

the first English novel Robinson Crusoe- granted him literary immortality.Robinson Crusoe

depicts the utopian environment which illustrates the life of the protagonist Robinson Crusoe

in a desolate island, but it does not stop in this level, it goes farther to shed light on the human

interaction with the other, namely with the character of riday. !he story of Robinson Crusoe

pervaded the cultural sphere, and became transmitted through several generations as a modernmyth. "s a canonical wor# of literature, this fact did not set it against criticism and revision.

Defoe has received multiple reactions. $ne of those reactions was embodied in % &.Coet'ee(s

fourth novelFoe, whichis a rewriting of Defoe(sRobinson Crusoe, and a redefinition of its

plot and themes. )t paves the way for a new vision of the characters, the setting, and the

human interaction as a primordial issue.

*ased on the addition of the two central characters in the novel, a female narrator +usan

*arton, and a male author &r. oe who is planning to fashion +usan(s castaway tale into a

novel, Coet'ee wants to shed light on the story of riday who was neglected in the prototype

via rewrhghting his story. )n this respect and through the process of collecting the pu''le of

riday(s story and history, the narrator +usan *arton needs to find the clues in the midst ofversions of self and other that vary inFoe, and she says /but the stories he told me were so

various, and so hard to reconcile one with another, that ) was more and more driven to

conclude age and isolation had ta#en their toll on his memory0 12. )n the light of this search,

this essay analyses the relationship between the multiple characters and riday, which is based

on the interaction between self vs. other, self among other, and self and other. )t focuses, as

well, on the variety and the crucial role of storytelling starting from the prototype-Robinson

Crusoe- ending up with its pasticheFoe.

+tarting to trace the human interaction in Foe , one must not forget that this veryinteraction in built upon the prototype Robinson Crusoe, which witnesses the first contact

between Crusoe and riday that is reshaped via the master3slave paradigm, and therefore the

self vs. other dichotomy. rom his first contact with riday in the island and affected by the

racial pre4udice of his time, Crusoe adopts a self-centered behavior with his only fellow in the

island. He considers riday(s tribe as a bunch of /blinded, ignorant pagans0 215. He draws

the cut line that divides him from riday, which is civili'ation, something that riday lac#s by

nature because he is depicted as a /cannibal in his nature0 267. Defoe presents Crusoe as the

one who brings humanity to a savage animal. *y providing riday with his name, which is not

his real name but refers to the day they met, and in return riday is supposed to call Crusoe

/master0 267.

%.& Coet'ee provided a new vision of the hypo te8t - Robinson Crusoe- through his

hyperte8t Foe- . His first attempt is to deconstruct the binary opposition which is present in

the prototype via putting riday in the periphery. Coet'ee built the whole novel upon the story

of riday, and therefore he becomes the center of the whole novel(s events. He shed lights on

the relationship between riday and the other characters and though he, through a rebellious

and purposeful reaction, #ills the protagonist of the prototype from the beginning of the novel,

he does not overcome the master vs. slave dichotomy that unites riday with Cruso. !he

superiority of Cruso, even partial and not highlighted, still pervades all the atmosphere of the

island. Coet'ee #eeps this dichotomy to put his novel in the heart of the post colonialdiscourse, which necessitates the presence of such a relation as the nourishing ground of the


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oppressed resistance later on. Cruso is still the ruler of the island and the people in it. He

owns them as his sub4ects and servants, in this respect +usan *arton argues09ith these words

) presented myself to Robinson Cruso in the days when he still ruled over his island, and

became his second sub4ect, the first being his manservant riday0 11 riday, as well, is still

perceived as a cannibal, the same first reflection that Crusoe highlights in the prototype,

dwells in the hyperte8t when +usan delivers Cruso(s perception /:he would tell stories ofcannibals, of how riday was a cannibal whom he had saved0 12. !hrough presenting

riday as a slave who is not able to spea#, he even traces something more dangerous in terms

of communication between the latter and Cruso. Cruso does not manipulate riday only in

terms of physicality, but it becomes a linguistic manipulation. !he /&aster0 owns the place

and the tools of e8ercising his manipulation, which is language. Crusoe himself puts emphasis

on this idea saying0 &y first thought was that riday was li#e a dog that heeds but one

master; yet it was not so. /irewood0 is the word ) have taught him0 21. !he vertical

relationship that gathers Cruso with riday, ma#es him the first suspect of cutting the latter(s

tongue, to enlarge his sphere of domination. !o avoid all the suspects Cruso claims

that0riday lost his tongue before he became mine0 5


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their superiority. !he notion of otherness(, as a primordial notion in the post colonial

studies, plays a pivotal role in the interaction between riday and +usan *arton.

!hrough adopting a sterile mode of communication, riday puts +usan in the periphery

of discourse. He does not allow her to discover the truth of his story, #eeping it in an

intact and unreachable 'one.

!he same idea of self vs. other is articulated in the relationship between &r. oe and

riday in Coet'ee(s novel. &r. oe, as the author of riday and *arton(s story, is hampered by

the latter(s silence. He is unable to articulate the story properly without having, even, hints

about riday(s history and the truth about his mutilated tongue. +usan foregrounds this idea

when she says /: the story of riday, which is properly not a story but a pu''le or hole in

the narrative.0 121. "s a reaction, &r. oe tends to erase the story of riday. He resorts to

invent another story of adventures and fantasy. !his process of erosion is typical in the

coloni'ers attitude. )t holds its roots at the heart of the discourse of superiority. He does not

attempt to reshape riday or to distort his history, but worse, he wants to obliterate itcompletely from the e8istence. &r. oe(s reaction shows his antagonism and the racial

pre4udice, again, within the various characters who encounter riday. &r. oe puts this idea

and says

/(!he island is not a story in itself,( said oe gently, laying a hand on my #nee. 9e can

bring it to life only by setting it within a larger story. *y itself it is no better than a

waterlogged boat drifting day after day in an empty ocean till one day, humbly and without

commotion, it sin#s. !he island lac#s light and shade. )t is too much the same throughout. )t is

li#e a loaf of bread. )t will #eep us alive, certainly, if we are starved of reading; but who will

prefer it when there are tastier confections and pastries to be had( 0 11


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the latter(s solitude. Crusoe turns to share some affection on his behalf towards riday and he

says about this idea

/*esides the pleasure of tal#ing to him, ) had a singular satisfaction in the fellow

himself; his simple unfeigned honesty appeared more and more in every day, and ) bean really

to love the creature; and on his side, ) believe he loved me more than it was possible for himever to love anything before.0 216

Crusoe thin#s that the companionship of riday granted him /complete happiness0. He even

shows signs of admiration to his fellow saying that riday /was the swiftest fellow of his foot

that ever he saw0 257. !hrough his presence with Crusoe, riday is provided with a

lu8urious opportunity to learn languages, namely some English and ortuguese, and to be out

of a disastrous state that was about to lead him to perish. riday helps Crusoe in finding food

and in ameliorating their situation in the island. !herefore the island becomes an agreeable

place to live in, since the two necessary things that hamper the happiness of a human being

e8ist bread and companionship. )n the pastiche of the prototype,Foe, Coet'ee does noteliminate the element of companionship between riday and Cruso. !hough, the master-

servant relationship along with the notion of superiority still prevails, there is a room for

harmony. )n Cruso(s speech there is an emphasis on the /we0, which stands as a testimony of

his dependence on riday when he says /9e sleep, we eat, we live. 9e have no need of

tools0 52. Even though there is a lac# of communication because of riday(s mutilated

tongue, Cruso en4oys /!he voice of man0, which riday radiates in the place even when he

/hums in a low voice0 22. )t satisfies Cruso to hear him. )t stands as a substitute of his

loneliness though it is ephemeral. )t ma#es him remember that he is not alone, and that there

is somebody with whom he can share something spiritual. )t is the power of coe8isting.

Coet'ee goes on with this idea through another character inFoe, which is +usan *arton.

!he only female narrator in Foe, +usan *arton, e8changes with riday a relationship,

which e8presses the interaction of self and others. Her first contact with him is full of

pre4udices, but after the death of Cruso, and in the midst of her search for the truth behind

riday(s tongue, her perception of the latter changed radically. "s she comes closer to him,

she understands that the notions of barbarity and inhumanity that were engraved in her mind

about riday are but mere pre4udices and a set of hallucinatory illusions. !he first thing she is

eager to do is to grant riday his freedom and she did it after Cruso(s death. +he as well

refuses that anyone calls riday her servant or /slave0, since she liberated him, and she

says0riday was not my slave but Cruso(s, and is free man now. He cannot even be said to bea servant, so idle is his life0


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this regard +usan says /riday too has a life of his own0 12B. )n Foe, Coet'ee occupies

+usan *arton with the burden of investigating riday(s story. +he carries this load

throughout the novel, in a hope to unearth the truth in a midst of a variety of stories and

versions. ridays muteness adds insult to in4ury in this process, but it is a purposeful

addition, through which Coet'ee highlights the confines of the procedure of representing the

other.

)nFoe, +usan *arton plays the role of the narrator of the story and the investigator of

riday(s story, and especially of the enigma which revolves around a primordial @uestion

/9ho cut out his tongue025. +ince Cruso is the one, who owns riday, +usan suspects that

he is the one who owns the story. Coet'ee wants to ma#e her mission even harder, as a matter

of fact; +usan is struc# by Cruso(s inconsistency. He provides her with nothing but different

versions of scattered stories. +ince /Cruso #ept no 4ournal0 1?, her process of in@uiry is

hampered. Cruso provides her with ambivalent stories about his adventures especially the part

concerning the shipwrec#, which is #ept as a riddle. +he comes at a point where she is not

able to believe him and she says /so in the end ) did not #now what truth was, what was lies,

and what was mere rambling.0 12. Crusos fever as well foregrounds the idea of hisdiscrepancy. He presents riday as his / little slave-boy0 who accompanies him since his

childhood, and then turns to change his words claiming that he saved him from the hands of

the cannibals, where there first encounter between him and riday comes to happen. Cruso

reaches a point where he shatters all of +usan(s aspirations about finding the truth when he

says /=othing ) have forgotten is worth the remembering.0 1


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when she says /*ut now ) began to loo# on him ) could not help myself-with the horror we

reserve for the mutilated.0 27. +tunned with the horror of riday(s defect, she resolves to

forget about his story saying that she /regretted that Cruso had told her the story0 27.

+usan(s attitude ta#es another path when she decides to put her story as a castaway, and her

story in the island with riday and Cruso in a boo#, which will be distributed all over the city,

and will grant her prosperity and wealth. !he process of investigation about riday(s historybecomes more enthusiastic for her. )t has a materialistic dimension now. Her narrow thin#ing

about writing her story is reflected through her description of it as mere /confessions0, and

the author who will put them in a well organi'ed story is supposed to be /a very secret man0,

who is &r. oe. However, Coet'ee does not present the process of writing the island(s story

for granted; he uses the foreshadowing techni@ue to emphasis that the process if rewrhghting

is not arbitrary. )t might include gaps of shadow, which will erase later on the @uestion of the

authenticity of /the story of Cruso(s island which will go there page by page as he writes

it, to lie with a heap of other papers0 >6. !he word /lie0 in this respect is used on purpose, to

foreshadow the process of the historical distortion that the author wants to e8ercise. Coet'ee

tends to relate +usan(s story with riday. !he elusive aspect of the latter(s history and story of

his mutilated tongue, hampers the growth of +usan(s story. Coet'ee turns +usan(s search for

riday(s story into a search for identity.

+usan(s investigation becomes one, which holds @uestions about the fundamental

status of being. !hroughout the process of writing, riday(s history stands as a threat for her

own story. )t can even obliterate it. +usan alone cannot be the ob4ect of writing. !he writing

itself, the being of +usan and the history of riday are lin#ed together. !he absence of one of

those elements, leads to the unraveling of the whole chain. Coet'ee in this conte8t is in the

heart of the post colonial discourse, which deconstructs the self-other dialectic. He

emphasi'es the idea of continuity. !hrough the struggle of +usan, he shows that the self

defines itself through the other, without the other the self cannot e8ist. !he e8istence of +usan

depends on the e8istence of riday. !heir relationship, according to Coet'ee, must be one ofco- signification and simultaneity. )t is similar to the relationship between the mother and her

child as +usan puts it /" woman may bear a child she does not want, and rear it without

loving it, yet be ready to defend it with her life0 111. +he cannot detach herself from him

because she feels that she is incomplete without him in writing and in life that is why, Coet'ee

ma#es the shift in her attitude towards riday crystal clear. +usan stands as a storyteller, of her

story and of riday(s. +he feels that she is not able to represent the other in a convincing way.

+he feels that each one should stand for his or her own story till the end, recite it as he or she

wishes, with its details, events, and the emotions that accompany it. $therwise, it turns to be a

story without a soul. However, at the same time, she cannot trust her own words. Concerning

her representation of Cruso she says /9ho but Cruso, who is no more, could truly tell youCruso(s story0 >1. +he, even, starts to doubt the trustworthiness of the process of writing

itself, and says /) may have seemed to moc# the art of writing0 >2. +ince she lac#s the

necessary information and materials to write her story because Cruso provides her with

nothing but unreliable stories, scattered here and there in his memory. +he resolves to write

what she saw, and nothing more /to build a bridge of words0 ?6 coming from the island the

/storing-place of memories0 >A. Coet'ee does not want to offer a mere writing of the story

in the island, and especially the story of riday, he highlights the fact that a white man is

writing it. He is the oe( of the story, its enemy, the one who tries his best to reshape it

according to his own desire. )t is the recurrent image of the coloni'er who wants to e8ercise

his power over the other, his longing to remold not only his present, but his past as well.

Coet'ee ma#es +usan aware of this process, and purposefully he ma#es her react against itsaying to oe /&ore is at sta#e in the history you write, ) will admit, for it must not only tell


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the truth about us but please its readers too.0?5. +usan wants to write her story by her own.

+he wants to be its owner and the one who deliver it as a reliable truth /your pen, your in#, )

#now, but somehow the pen becomes mine while ) write with it0 ??. +he wants to write a

story /without strange circumstances0, something that oe is craving for, she wants to lay

bare the truth behind riday(s mystery. Coet'ee creates her character to ma#e the world aware

of the atrocity that riday went through. +he says

/*ut what we can accept in life we cannot accept in history. !o tell my story and be

silent on riday(s tongue is no better than offering a boo# for sale with pages in it @uietly left

empty. Fet the only tongue that can tell riday(s secret is the tongue he has lost0 ?


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perceives herself as the /father of her story0. 125. +he refuses to be perceived along with

riday as /puppets in a story0 15>. However, riday owns his story and owns +usan(s story.

His ambiguity hampers her.

riday(s story and history belongs only to him. He is the one who manipulates the

truth of his mutilated tongue. Coet'ee presents his story as a pu''le from the first pages.riday(s atrocity appears only in Foe. )n the prototype he is able to spea# and learn some

words from Crusoe. !his fact, contributes in his sub4ugation and it becomes doubled physical

and linguistic. He obeys Crusoe and articulates his submission through language, a weapon

that Crusoe uses it against him. Conversely, in FoeCoet'ee provides a different image of

riday, a mute slave, but he enslaves those who want to misrepresent him. His inability of

speech puts him in the center of concern. )t is a 4ourney in search for an enigmatic persona, a

ha'y history, and a strange story. riday uses his silence as a weapon against those who want

to spea# on his behalf +usan and oe. He is willing to remain unvoiced. He wants to #eep his

history intact, away from the hands of the coloni'er who wants to coloni'e his past before his

present, the coloni'er who is willing to coloni'e the mind and the memories of the coloni'ed.

Coet'ee provides riday with an effective weapon, which his silence. !he defense mechanismof riday is clear in the novel when he refuses to show his painting to +usan, reacting in a

defensive way, as if he is hiding one of his Childs from a beast because /he is neither cannibal

nor laundryman, these are mere names, they do not touch his essence, he is a substantial body,

he is himself, riday is riday0 122. )t is the contrary of what +usan thin#s about him, as a

person who can be owned and reshaped. riday owns himself because he owns his secret. He

ma#es the other characters chained with him because they cannot define their e8istence away

from him, li#e +usan. riday does not erase only his history; he erases every attempt to reach

it in a protective way /9hereupon, instead of obeying me, riday put three fingers into his

mouth and wet them with spittle and rubbed the slate clean.0 17


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two personae. !hose relationships are presented within a different frame wor# in Foebecause

they happen to e8ist accompanied by different versions of stories about this other. )n the light

of this variety the @uestion of representation and its authenticity needs to be scrutini'ed,

especially when Coet'ee presents the novel within a post colonial discourse, one which

studies the power relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed, and lays bare the

truth behind the process of rewriting the story, which is nothing but a frame of a biggerhistory, the history of the enslaved and sub4ugated community.

coetzee.docx

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