I have found in everyone of the novels I have read by Coetzee an exploration of storytelling, and history and Foe has not been the exception. Coetzee has dealt with the problems of finding a voice, how to tell a story, and with the preoccupation of how a story will be understood (or misunderstood) by generations to come. I find that Foe more than any of the other novels reaches into the depths of creation, and what it is to create a narrative and give life to not one, but many different voices. Coetzee in this novel touches on the idea of voice in peculiar way because he gives voice to a woman, Susan Barton, and to a black slave, Friday, during the late 17th century. These people who during this time would have not had much say in their own lives become the center of the story as the patriarchal narrative dies off when Cruso dies on the ship. The death of Cruso can seen as the metaphorical death of old narratives, that were male centered, and colonial, dying off, to give way to the narrative of this woman and slave.
Despite the fact that Friday is unable to speak because he has no tongue his silence speaks for him, and it is his eerie silence that lingers and jabs at us at every turn of a page. In the novel while Foe and Susan argue about Friday's inability to tell his story Foe states, “We must make Friday's silence speak, as well as the silence surrounding Friday.” (Foe, pg. 142) Susan becomes obsessed over Friday's loss of his tongue not simply because it is a physical mutilation that is hard to look at, but because it hinders Friday from all communication or because she believes it to. Throughout the novel Susan mourns the fact that Friday cannot engage in storytelling but she does not understand that much like she decides to keep the story of Bahia to herself, Friday too decides to keep to himself, of his own desire. Speech comes in many forms in the novel, it appears in writing, in dialogue, music, gesturing, and even dancing. However, it must be noted that every one of these vehicles for language have their own lexicon and unless one has familiarity with it, it can seem foreign or nonsensical. Susan ignores both Friday's silences and his attempts at expression as simple dullness, while ignoring the fact that she could have been learning about Friday from these expressions. This speaks to the fact that people tend to ignore what they do not immediately recognize and what is not familiar is meaningless. Therefore it can be said that because slaves like Friday represent the “other”, to the “self” their narratives are trivial and senseless. There were times in the book where I felt that Friday did indeed still have a tongue but only chose not to use it because he knew his speech would be misconstrued, and bastardized much like Susan feared would happen to her own words.
This quote from William Shakespeare's Macbeth seemed relevant to me because I felt that Coetzee in this novel not only touched on what it is to create and weave a story, but what it is to create our own narratives and our own worry that we do not hold that control, and more importantly that our substantial being will perish without a meaning or trace:
Despite the fact that Friday is unable to speak because he has no tongue his silence speaks for him, and it is his eerie silence that lingers and jabs at us at every turn of a page. In the novel while Foe and Susan argue about Friday's inability to tell his story Foe states, “We must make Friday's silence speak, as well as the silence surrounding Friday.” (Foe, pg. 142) Susan becomes obsessed over Friday's loss of his tongue not simply because it is a physical mutilation that is hard to look at, but because it hinders Friday from all communication or because she believes it to. Throughout the novel Susan mourns the fact that Friday cannot engage in storytelling but she does not understand that much like she decides to keep the story of Bahia to herself, Friday too decides to keep to himself, of his own desire. Speech comes in many forms in the novel, it appears in writing, in dialogue, music, gesturing, and even dancing. However, it must be noted that every one of these vehicles for language have their own lexicon and unless one has familiarity with it, it can seem foreign or nonsensical. Susan ignores both Friday's silences and his attempts at expression as simple dullness, while ignoring the fact that she could have been learning about Friday from these expressions. This speaks to the fact that people tend to ignore what they do not immediately recognize and what is not familiar is meaningless. Therefore it can be said that because slaves like Friday represent the “other”, to the “self” their narratives are trivial and senseless. There were times in the book where I felt that Friday did indeed still have a tongue but only chose not to use it because he knew his speech would be misconstrued, and bastardized much like Susan feared would happen to her own words.
Susan is always very much concerned with the truth and having her narrative told exactly as she wishes it so that it will be truthful, and not as fantastical lies that she has no control over. In the beginning of the novel Susan tells of the story of her last name and states that her father's last name “was properly Berton, but, as happens, it became corrupted in the mouths of strangers.” (Foe, pg. 10) This idea of the truth being corrupted in the lips of a strange becomes more and more relevant to Susan as she becomes desperate to have her story written down. Susan worries through out the novel about her independence and concreteness, and allowing for a stranger, in this case Foe, to control her narrative would be to lose control over her self-prescribed identity. Susan sees herself as objectified by Foe and reproaches him by saying that “(she is) not a story...(she is) a free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire.” (Foe, pg. 131) When Susan proclaims that she is not a story but rather a woman, she is trying to claim substance into her being, because she wishes to separate herself from what she calls ghosts, or phantoms. This constant appeal to be seen as a substantial being also speaks to Susan's fear of being but a character in novel, simply a puppet in Foe's text, and even in the text that Coetzee himself has created. In the end whether Susan is substantial or not becomes irrelevant, because her underlying concern is real. This concern is that her story will be trivialized and that it will lose meaning. That she will too suffer Friday's voiceless faith, helplessly trying to gesture a truth that will never be understood.
This quote from William Shakespeare's Macbeth seemed relevant to me because I felt that Coetzee in this novel not only touched on what it is to create and weave a story, but what it is to create our own narratives and our own worry that we do not hold that control, and more importantly that our substantial being will perish without a meaning or trace:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth, 5.5.25–27)
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth, 5.5.25–27)
