EngL1401W - Spring 2007: Introduction to "Third World" Literature

Wow, what an interesting text. Coetzee is really a talented writer, within 20 pages there is already so much to think about and so much going on, your immersed in this story quickly. He is very poetic at times, I really like his style.
The info above helps me to understand this book a little better, I did notice these things about storytelling and accuracy of info and who tells it etc., I am still digesting this stuff.
One other thing I noticed is that susan is isolated even after getting off the island, her letters read like some desperate journal, as someone starved for conversation and contact. its wierd. maybe that relates to the "islands" theme in a symbolic way?

When reading about the petal sprinkling incident, I first thought that maybe Friday was worshipping some spirit like Barton explains, but then I thought that maybe that was were Cruso and Friday’s ship had wrecked. On page 54, I noticed Barton describes the place where the ship sunk to be below the cliffs on the north end of the island. This is the same place she witnessed Friday sprinkling petals. This made me wonder if Cruso had taught Friday to do this or if it was something Friday just did to show his thankfulness for being alive. I think that Coetzee either wanted the reader to infer that the ship really did sink there or wanted the reader to realize that by inferring we are making our own story just like Barton since she does not surely know the truth.

I also noticed how Barton refers to herself in a stereotypical way during her story. She is perpetuating the stereotypes of women being warm, caring, motherly, and incapable of fending for themselves-completely. For example, although Barton does make her own sandals she admits they are not as good as the ones Cruso would have made. She was not patient, which could be another stereotype. Barton also takes care of Cruso during his bouts of fever nestling him in her arms like a baby. Barton later takes the same motherly role in England with Friday. Maybe Barton is just this type of character, but maybe Coetzee is portraying her in such a way on purpose to address gender issues?

I think that the fact that DeFoe's Cruso kept a journal and the fact that Coetzee's Cruso does not is significant. Without a journal, there is a certain amount of uncertainty. The fact that Coetzee's Cruso did not keep a journal aids in the seemingly unsureness of Susan's story telling. In the first 70 pages, Susan seems almost hesitant at times to tell the story, because she does not know the whole story. The fact that she does not know exactly how Cruso and Friday got on the island, or how they survived, etc. leads to her hesitancy. Perhaps she is afraid of mistelling the story, and therefore would almost rather not tell it than tell is incorrectly. Susan, however, does ultimately want her story to be told. Susan cannot tell the whole story, because she does not know the whole story, she was physically not there. Cruso cannot tell the story because he died. Friday cannot tell the story because he cannot speak and he cannot write it down because he does not know English. These characters all struggle with the same thing, but in different ways. If, however, Susan finds a way to tell her story interesting enough for people to even read it, would anyone believe her? She is a woman, and has only two people who can back her story up. One is an African without a tongue, and one is dead.

I think Coetzee has Friday sprinkling petals on the ocean to create a mystery about him. Coetzee creates Friday not being able to speak, so he can not revel his thoughts very easily creating more of mystery about his personality. I think Coetzee does this to create more separation between Crusoe and Friday.
The difference created between the two Cruso(e)'s basically sets the tone of the story. It seems that Friday's character follows Cruso(e)'s character in each book. Defoe's characters are aggressive and go-getters while Coetzee's characters are passive- aggressive and are more laid back and independent from each other. I think the journal showed the mentality difference between each character, Defoe's Crusoe was into language and history so he kept records of life. On the other hand Coetzee's Cruso didn't care much about anything except some plants he was hoping to get some seeds out of.

The largest difference between the origianl Robinson Crusoe and Foe is the between the characters Friday and Robinson Crusoe and the new Friday and Cruso. In the original we see Friday as portrayed as a stupid, cannabalistic savage, who was eager to learn. We now see him as an independent thinker who scatters flowers on the ocean while floating on a log. This was quite obviously to create mystery about Friday and to make it known that these savages were not stupid people. The question now remaining is "Why did Friday so diligently obey Cruso?" or better yet "Why didn't he eat him if he was a cannibal?"

Secondly the new Cruso is wiped out, senile...not hero like whatsoever and definitly not motivated to escape the island. He seems content in his island, which is probably due to him being senile (or at least partially). We are swayed to feel sorry for this man. He has given up on life and something interesting is that he doesn't want anything more out of life; just Friday and the island. This is odd because it goes against the western idea of individualistic goals- putting yourself before others to get ahead, always making progress toward something. Basically, this new Cruso is the anti-western guy. He's content with his simple life that will probably not change until he dies.

I think that coetzee calls the writer of the story Foe because the author of the original Robinson Crusoe was obviously DeFoe. Foe was DeFoe's original last name but he combined names to be DeFoe which became his pen name. Yea, Foe is usually thought to be an enemy, and since I haven't read the entire book and don't know how it ends, maybe he fabricates what Susan says of her story, which would be a deceitful things, thus making him a foe. This also may foreshadow something deceitful that he does in the story. Just the idea of him changing his name from Foe to DeFoe could be thought to be a way for him to get a way with writing about untrue things, at least bias and untrue things according to Coetzee and a lot of the modern society.

In class today, it was questioned why the new Cruso doesn't have the E. I thought about it and I think that it may be to give him a more realistic preview to his characteristics. (This is just a crazy guess) The old crusoe was portrayed as a very hard working, refined man that was set in his European ways, the silent E phoenetically makes the emphasis on the "soe" and seems "classier"?? (I know this may be a stretch) Cruso is more laid back, and just does the bare minimum to survive. Cruso puts more emphasis on the "Cru" and is just harsher sounding, kind of like his demeanor.

I was also thinking about this Cruso not having an "e" at the end. Maybe Coetzee dropped the "e" because then the title and one of his characters would have names that seemed to similar? People would then possibly connect Foe and Crusoe because their names look and sound alike and maybe Coetzee wanted them to be distinct. Just an idea.

I think that when most people think slavery, they think of Africans. Maybe Coetzee had this in mind when he created the Sub-Saharan version of Friday. When I read the excerpt of Robinson Crusoe, I assumed that Friday was African... but later learned of his true Carib identity. Maybe that’s why he recreated Friday into an African…

Coetzeemay have used “Foe” as his author’s name as a sort of rebuttal against DeFoe, formerly known as Foe. I thought that it was really unique that he included this indirect criticism into his book. He could have very well been referring to Foe as “an enemy” of writing (literature), ideals and/or fairness. DeFoe was very biased in his text, so I think that Coetzee used the new Foe to represent his darkness or malevolence.

Well first off I have to say that I’m a little confused as to where this book is going but I’m intrigued and can’t wait to see what happens next.

I think this entire novel is kind of a reality slap regarding Crusoe’s novel. It seems all the differences between the two are graver, disappointing in Foe. I really think that Coetzee tried to say hey, not every story is happy, perfect, and wonderful. It seems he wanted to criticize Crusoe by creating an even better novel only with a more realistic mood and pace to it. I could be totally off but there are so many EXTREMELY related differences between the two novels I can’t help but think Coetzee tried to make some kind of statement to Crusoe.

The islands reference by Cruso is quite interesting to me. I completely agree that life is full of islands. For instance, Cruso and Friday are islands in Susan’s life. She only knows so much and can only tell so much about them, but there is that mysterious history she just can’t place; she can’t completely connect them in her life, in her story. Foe as well—Susan can’t really connect him to herself either. He is even more of a mystery to her. She doesn’t know if he is writing the story, or if he is even alive still. When I thought about islands, in my own life, I realized there are plenty of things I could call islands. This class is almost an island—I’m not completely sure why I ended up in this particular class with these particular people. How am I supposed to connect it to the rest of my life? How am I supposed to make this class significant to the people I want to tell my history to? Also, I think we create our own islands because we are all biased to our own experiences. This is the same reason Susan Barton struggles to tell her story—she is biased and assumes things that may or may not be true.

Where did Foe come from anways? How did Susan hear about him? Why does she know where he lives?

The story of Susan barton and Cruso is real in the fact that the things in it are believeable. Cruso has not built extreme things to make life on the island "fun" or more enjoyable. He does not go to extreme lengths to try and get off of the island. Rather he seems to have accepted and embraced his fate on the island. This does not make for very interesting reading. I personally found reading about the island was boring. Susan was able to describe how Friday and Cruso lived along with their habits, but there were no events that would keep a reader glued to the book in suspense.

relating to Yashkumarie's comment about Friday's physical appearance:
I thought it was very interesting how Coetzee describes Friday's physical appearance with great detail. From Coetzee the reader sees Friday more clearly. He describes him as black, slight, short and sub-saharan...this is in sharp contrast to the way Crusoe describes Friday (or doesn't describe him). Yashkumarie made a good point when she said that when reading Robinson Crusoe she assumed Friday was African, I think I did too, I really didn't know what to imagine about Friday because the details were lacking so much.

There are many untold stories in the book, and it seems as if there is only one story told, from Susan Barton's point of view. Cruso who was stranded on the island for 15 years? never reveals how he got on the island or why he never tried to escape. He built terraces for the next generation to plant seeds, but who did he think this generation would be? Friday has a untold story because he does not speak. We read that Friday lost his tongue, but according to Susan Barton, we do not know that for sure. Did Friday lose his tongue from Cruso, or from slave-traders? Susan is the only narrator that we hear from. The story of her living on the island is quite boring, and I would not want to read it. It is hard to know what she says is the truth, and i was confused on when she was writing to Foe and when she was talking to us, the readers?

I think Susan is more interested in the more slave-like Friday that doesnt speak. IT seems as though Susan is more interested to let Friday get back to his native land of Africa to be free, even though Friday doesnt know what free means. Friday acts in a helpless way, latching onto Susan, making her almost the new slave master.

Truthful is a hard topic in this story. We are told a story only through the eyes of a woman, and who knows if her story is true. We dont know the true story of Cruso's life on the island, the true story of how Friday lost his tongue, or the truth about Susan's daughter. It would have been more intriging to know the other side the story from Cruso before he died, or somehow from Friday.

I love the passage in which Susan says “The world is full of islands, Cruso once said” because it is so true to life. Whether we are on a literal island or not in essence we as humans are all on our own islands. Not physical islands but mental islands. Is essence an island is a place where you are isolated from others and don’t have communication. If the world is full of islands then this means that the world is in disjoint. We don’t have clear communication with each other. Each individual persons island is a mental structure that prevents you from communicating with others. I don’t know, it may be a little too out there, but I find the metaphor of the world being full of islands really interesting.

I think Coetzee is really trying to say that every story is biased. Friday's inability/unwillingness to talk is a more physical representation of this point. Cruso not keeping a journal also shows this in that he knew it would not really suffice to tell his tale. I think it also says that not every story is really worth telling. Sure, being stranded on an uninhabited island sounds like a grand and exotic tale, but the beginning of the book really seems to show how boring and redundant it would be. This seems to be a commentary of DeFoe's portrayl of Crusoe's island as being something special and incredible. Instead of it being the story of an successful white man conquering his environment and bettering his seemingly inferior partner, it is a story about a man and a possibly former cannibal making a hut and hauling rocks to keep themselves from going mad from isolation. I think the latter is far more realistic and depressing, which may have been Coetzee's point.

There is a lot of depth to this recreated story. There seems to be a hidden meaning or purpose behind each change Coetzee made from Defoe’s story. The exact message Coetzee was trying to get across in each instance is unknown to me, I can only make assumptions. It seems as though Coetzee is being satirical and poking fun at Defoe and pointing flaws out in a round about abstract manner. The fact that the new Cruso doesn’t keep a journal could be a contradiction to Defoe’s stereotypical description of his personality of Crusoe. Instead of being an egotistical European who feels that keeping a journal and teaching Friday everything he thinks is right and making great attempts at progression, through Coetzee’s description Cruso doesn’t care about progression, not to the same extreme at least. He teaches Friday the bare minimum for him to understand and serve him as his slave, he also refuses to write a journal and leave his mark only by what he builds on the island. This new version is more realistic or believable in the perception of Cruso in my opinion. Other things aren’t as realistic such as Susan also becoming a castaway. But Defoes version of Crusoe was a glorified depiction while Coetzee showed him as a white man who didn’t really care about getting off the island or about improving on different things on the island or feeling that it was his responsibility to “better” Friday.

The story of Susan Barton and Crusoe seems kind of bland. Besides the fact that they are cast away and thre is an ackward love/tension between Barton and Crusoe, there is nothing interesting about the story at all. No best selling novel could be wrote or the movie would be an awful indie flick. Not even the savage, cannabal Friday makes the story any better. He is still just subservant, placid, and unable to talk. He does his job and then remains quiet with little or no problem towards his life on the isle.

I think that Susan Barton's account of what happened on Cruso's island is "real-sounding" simply because it is a boring story without much action or drama. Although the situation she was in was not normal to her, it was considered so by Cruso, so it is unlikely that he would change his habits and become more adventuresome upon her arrival.

The differences between Friday and Cruso in Foe and Friday and Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe is an intentional jab from Coetzee at Defoe's portrayal of western and non-western people. I think that the Friday in Foe is sub-Saharan because Coetzee wanted the reader to know that people who don't look European can still be main characters in a book comprised of mostly white people. I also think that Cruso in Foe not keeping a journal shows that he is not some sort of Renaissance man who can do everything as Defoe portrayed him to be in Robinson Crusoe. The fact that Cruso only made terraces instead keeping a journal to be remembered by shows him to be a not very educated man.

I was and still am confused about many things in the book. I think it will have to be reread a few times to completely understand it and to get all that he is challenging us to think about as readers. There are so many twists and turns in the book that I often had to go back and read a page or so just to make sure I read it right and to understand it. I think this book is good for understanding that everyone has different perspectives of everything and that even if it really truly is one certain way, some can be in such denial that they actually believe false things. I know people that actually do that. They have denied certain truths for so long that they truly believe that they are right.

I think that Friday is not really given any credit. He seems like a hard worker but that’s about it. Coetzee doesn’t give him much credit or personality. I think they should write a book coming from his perspective of all that happened in his life from childhood till the day he dies.

There are many differences between Robinson Crusoe and Foe, how Cruso acts, the presence of Susan, and Friday. In the story Friday is not a tall and light skinned Carib, but a short African. I think this difference highlights more of where Coetzee came from, and more European people may be more apt to think of slavery as being African. He also may want to bring in African slavery as opposed slavery of other people. He wants to show the story of an African person and his journey through slavery and through his life in Europe.
One part of the story deals with how Susan attempts to bring Friday back to Africa. She feels this is what he wants, and believes he will be the most happy there. However she turns back because she does not trust the sailors not to turn around and sell him back into slavery. I think here Coetzee is trying to address slavery and the African people. He is trying to show the problems that they face and the difficulty they have to return to the lives they may have lived had they not been slaves.

On the surface, Susan wants her story told because she wants to gain fame and fortune. She also wants to find an easy way to reconnect with her daughther. By allowing an author to publish these accounts she had with Crusoe and Friday, she kill two birds with one stone. Also it seems like Foe wants Susan to fabricate her accounts on the island because it will be more interesting than telling the truth of what happened in the story. Susan continuously wants Foe to add in the novel the story behind how Friday loss his tongue. This is powerful because by adding the story of how Friday lost his tongue, it's allowing the subaltern to speak, which is a oxymoron because subaltern are never heard. I think that Friday's silence is very powerful in the novel because it draws so much curiosity from Susan and Foe. She spends a great amount of time trying to convince Friday of her warmth and geniuneness, but Friday doesn't give in to her.
There are differences between Robinson Crusoe and Cruesoe written by Coetzee. At first glance, it seems that the Cruesoe (from Coetzee) seems less sympathetic about Friday and doesn't care where his whereabouts are. On the other hand, Crueso is very intrigue in helping Friday in abandoning his savage ways.

Sorry I'm so late with this response. Time makes fools of us all! I think Coetzee would agree with me on this one!

I was frustrated with Susan because I wish she would have just wrote her own story. The letters she wrote suggest a self assured prose and understanding of language, yet she feels that she isn't capable. It's an odd juxtapostion to me : this portrait of Susan as both subserviant and self assured. Maybe she wanted her story told to solidify her existance. She pretty much disappears into isolation so maybe her story would keep her remembered. I don't really know where I'm going with this. While I really enjoyed the book, I always felt 2 steps behind. It was one of those books where I was constantly aware that the author knew he was much more clever than his readers. That's not a bad thing, I just could tell there was going to be significant meanings to every action that were never going to be illuminated clearly.

I also kept thinking of a Peabody and Sherman cartoon on Crusoe I used to watch as a kid. They had Crusoe's island being overrun by tourists. In this version Crusoe was furious. I kept thinking that in Coetzee's version, Crusoe would have just been like "meh." We're really presented with an unremarkable man for so much ballyhoo circling around his name. You gotta love Peabody's final pun though...after they divide the island, Friday gets left on the tourist side. However, it's revealed that it was fate as he wasn't actually the first Friday that Crusoe had. Actually, he was unlucky Friday the 13th. Rimshot please? Ah, the memories.

This story seems to be truthful except for some details like Susan's daughter's dissappearance. I thought it was interesting and could be made into a movie with the unnatural and confusing twist at the end and questions during the story. I think that Coetzee shows that by having less action doesn't mean it can't be catching and interesting.

I think that Coetzee very deliberately used Susan's somewhat contradictory style of storytelling-a style that gave us only what it wanted to. She has complete control over what the reader knows, a similar to how Daniel De Foe or Conrad had complete control over what their audience knew of the far off lands they wrote about. The danger in Susan's story and incidentally in Conrad and DeFoe's writing is that the places and people they write about are assumed to be real, however, the only way to experience this reality is through the lens of a single perspective. In this environment, elaboration is absolutely necessary. And as readers, if this warped account is all we are given, we have almost no choice but to take it, however uneasy it makes us.

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