When I first read part 4 of Foe, my reaction was that of
pure confusion. Even though I am still just as confused as I was after reading
it 2 more times, I am able to now pin point and formulate question that target
areas that are specifically misleading, strange or just completely confounding.
My first obvious question was “who is speaking?” Up until
this point, the first person ‘I’ was Susan and the occasions when Foe was
speaking. We are introduced to this new ‘I’ and I am not sure if we have
already met this person previously in the book, or if this is a brand new
character. This mysterious person has interacted with Susan and Friday before
and knows of the island which makes me question whether it could be someone we
already read about or were introduced to.
Another thing that struck me was the constant repetition and
cycling that occurs throughout the entire book, but becomes very prominent in
part 4. In the second sentence on page 153, the mysterious character says, “On
the landing, I stumble over a body (…) I
make out a woman or a girl.” This is repeated again on page 155 when he/she
says, “ On the landing I stumble over the body, light as straw, of a woman or a
girl.” I wonder why Coetzee uses this parallel. Is he trying to indicate that
the body being stumbled over is the same body, or if there is a connection
between the bodies? Again, on page 153, the mysterious character says, “ the
skin, dry as paper, is stretched tight over their bones,” as he/she refers to
the couple. My initial thoughts were that this couple was Susan and either Foe
or Cruso. Again, on page 157, the narrator describes Friday when he says, “ The
skin is tight across his bones (..).” This clear comparison again forced me to
make a connection. I assumed that this meant that Friday and the other people
on this ‘boat’ (if it even is a boat) were ‘equal’ – or at least those living
in close proximity of him.
This constant repetition also makes me feel like events keep
happening over and over with little details changing every time. I get confused
with the sequence of events. For example, on page 155 the unknown character
says, “ With a sigh, making barely a splash, I slip overboard.” A few lines
further down the page he/she says, “With a sigh, with barely a splash, I duck
my head under (..).” Not only has he done the same thing as before, but he has
moved to a new location and finds Friday again. We ‘find’ Friday, I think,
about three times in part four in different locations on this ‘boat.’
One other thing that I noticed, was the stairway mentioned
on page 156. We spoke in class about what the purpose of the stairway was, and
some people suggested that is was to separate the lower class from the higher
class, slaves from owners etc. This makes sense because our mysterious
character has to leave Friday, and go up the stairway in order to find “Susan
Barton and her dead captain.” (157).
One final thing that I considered was the very end of part
four. Prof. Schwartz had suggested that the story only existed and could only
be ‘real’ with Friday’s silence, and if he were able to speak then this story
would end. (Something along those lines.) This could be very far fetched, but
at the end of part four when Friday opens his mouth, we are exposed to what
seems to be a destructive and overwhelming reaction. “(…)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 (..).” This came across, sort of like the end
of a world and I thought that this might be the end of Susan’s story and the beginning
of Friday’s story as we spoke about in class.
All so confusing.
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