Foe By J. M. Coetzee

 

Q. 1 – How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?

Crusoe is no flashy hero or grand epic adventurer, Robinson Crusoe displays character traits that have won him the approval of generations of readers. His perseverance in spending months making a canoe, and in practicing pottery making until he gets it right, is praiseworthy. Additionally, his resourcefulness in building a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable from practically nothing is clearly remarkable. The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau applauded Crusoe’s do-it-yourself independence, and in his book on education, Emile, he recommends that children be taught to imitate Crusoe’s hands-on approach to life. Crusoe’s business instincts are just as considerable as his survival instincts: he manages to make a fortune in Brazil despite a twenty-eight-year absence and even leaves his island with a nice collection of gold. Moreover, Crusoe is never interested in portraying himself as a hero in his own narration. He does not boast of his courage in quelling the mutiny, and he is always ready to admit unheroic feelings of fear or panic, as when he finds the footprint on the beach. Crusoe prefers to depict himself as an ordinary sensible man, never as an exceptional hero. In For Cruso’s character is described as weak and now he is not a hero anymore. So, in one novel he is a hero, in another he is not a hero. 

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

Probably the first nonwhite character to be given a realistic, individualized, and humane portrayal in the English novel, Friday has a huge literary and cultural importance. If Crusoe represents the first colonial mind in fiction, then Friday represents not just a Caribbean tribesman, but all the natives of America, Asia, and Africa who would later be oppressed in the age of European imperialism. At the moment when Crusoe teaches Friday to call him “Master” Friday becomes an enduring political symbol of racial injustice in a modern world critical of imperialist expansion. Recent rewritings of the Crusoe story, like J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and Michel Tournier’s Friday, emphasize the sad consequences of Crusoe’s failure to understand Friday and suggest how the tale might be told very differently from the native’s perspective.

Q.3 Is Susan reflecting the white mentality of Crusoe (Robinson Crusoe)?

Susan, the protagonist of the story, is a British woman who went searching for her lost daughter. After searching for two years, she gives up and tries to return to England, only to be caught in the middle of a mutiny and marooned by the crew of the ship she riding home. The novel begins with her account of becoming a castaway and arriving on Cruso's island. Throughout the novel, Susan is obsessed with the idea of telling her story and the power of words. Although she lacks the talent to write, she is convinced that her story will find her fame. Despite her aging and impoverishment throughout the novel, she relentlessly pushes Foe to write an account of her time on the island. The nature of her character is ambiguous as although she appears good in some parts (e.g., her well-meaning attempt to send Friday back to "Africa" is an example of this), other aspects of her character (e.g., her anger that Friday won't do as she says, or her possible attempt of harm on the girl claiming to be "Susan," her daughter), suggest a less well-natured character. 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.

 

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