In the world we live in, we place such a high emphasis on
communication, and the ability to express our feelings. We are taught how to
listen, talk, and write from almost the moment we are born. It is drilled into
us that we should always express our own feelings and thoughts, and listen to
and appreciate those of others. In high school we study foreign languages so
that we cannot only communicate with people who speak our own language, but
with people from other places as well. It is almost impossible for me to
imagine life without speech, or conversation.
Because of this, as I am reading Foe the thing that is really bothering me, is the emphasis on
Friday’s inability to communicate. I find it extremely frustrating that he can
neither talk nor understand most worlds. The majority of Part II deals with
Susan Barton’s attempts to create some sort of history and story for Friday.
She knows close to nothing about him, and as is expected, that makes her more
curious. Despite her many attempts to communicate with him, she ultimately learns
nothing new. As Susan tries to communicate, in vain, with Friday, I found
myself getting mad that he couldn’t understand her. I saw it as him ignoring
her: seeing her attempts to get close and shutting her down. While captivated
in the book I viewed his handicap as self-imposed, when clearly it is not his
fault at all. He didn’t choose to have his tongue cut out, and live on an
island with a man who only taught him a handful of words. He doesn’t even
realize what he is missing, and clearly isn’t even aware of what Susan Barton
wants from him.
After finding out in class that in the original novel, Robinson Crusoe, Friday is extremely
literate, I became even more frustrated. Why is Coetzee changing a character’s
story so much, just to place an emphasis on the inability to communicate?
Although I am not yet entirely sure of the answer to this, I think that it is
interesting the effect Friday’s illiteracy can have on the reader. You don’t
need to know why you are feeling something in order to feel it. The inability
to communicate on almost any level is infuriating to me. The fact that I am
aware of this and confused by it is clearly the response Coetzee is trying to create.
The idea that Susan tries to communicate with Friday on a daily basis, but learns nothing new is so crucial because it can be fixed. Susan could absolutely teach friday how to write in order to communicate, or at least teach him more words by using gestures and hand signals. When Susan tries to communicate with Friday, I actually felt the opposite. I felt myself getting frustrated with her because although she was talking to him, she was making no strides to get him to understand, rather than just hear. It seemed to me as if she was conscious of the fact he was able to learn, but Susan just wasn't willing to put in the effort to teach him. The only things we know about Friday are assumptions. It's frustrating to the readers because I think we assume Friday is capable of learning, but no one is willing to teach him. But then again, that too is just an assumption.
ReplyDeleteJillian, I felt the exact same way while reading, and wrote my blog post on a similar topic. Actually, I'm still kind of convinced that Friday is ignoring Susan, especially after the scene where he erases his "walking eyes" picture, effectively preventing her from gaining any insight into his thoughts. Ivanka, I definitely agree that Susan is being inconsiderate by not even attempting to teach Friday, but I kind of doubt that it's prevented him from learning. By being immersed in the language for so long, I'd be incredibly surprised if he didn't comprehend English by now. I always assumed that he was playing dumb so everyone would leave him alone.
ReplyDeleteIvanka, I also felt annoyed with Susan when she tries to interact with Friday, because I think she's so insincere about it. She constantly talks about how she wants to hear his story, but she never really tries to teach him to communicate. It apparently never even occurs to her to try to teach him to write until Foe suggests it, and even then she protests and wants to give it up immediately, thinking it's an impossible task. I think it's because she's selfish, and even if she says she wants to hear from Friday, she'd actually rather make up stories about him and keep him dependent on her. But that's assuming Friday is actually mute and doesn't understand much. Lindsey, I think you might be right that he knows exactly what's going on and just prefers to ignore Susan, but it makes me wonder why he doesn't just leave her.
ReplyDelete