Truth and Fancy

Among the things I found most interesting within Foe is Susan’s earliest presentation of Cruso and his story, especially with its potential impact on how we consider Susan as a narrator. According to Susan, on some level Cruso’s history is not discernable, which she articulates as she says, “I would gladly now recount you the history of this singular Cruso, as I heard it from his own lips. But the stories he told me were so various, and so hard to reconcile one with another, that I was more and more driven to conclude age and isolation had taken their toll on his memory, and he no longer knew for sure what was truth, what fancy” (12). As Susan presents Cruso’s story as fanciful and misremembered, she articulates cause for the questioning of her own background. Even within the first 12 pages of the novel, Susan has created a circle in her story telling, articulating both her arrival on the island and her recounting of her arrival for Cruso (how clearly reminiscent of The Things They Carried...), suggesting that time has led Susan to reimagine her past, to some extent, so it may at least appear to fit together. Furthermore, Susan’s history appears questionable even as she gives it to Cruso. Although not necessarily unbelievable, the idea that Susan has chased a kidnapped daughter across oceans seemingly alone seems far fetched, if not impossible. Even from the beginning of her story both of herself and of life on the island, Susan seems unreliable, but she remains insistent that her story should be believed and retold. As Susan discusses the unbelievability of the stories told by Cruso, we must wonder if that with which she charges Cruso equally plagues her, even very early within Foe.