Writing the Unwritten

Whenever we, as a society, have something to say, often times instead of just coming out and saying it, we simply try to talk around it. We feel as if, by not explicitly saying the obvious, we are not talking about it. We use small strings of other topics to talk around the point, however, by doing this, we are addressing just the thing we wanted to avoid.

            After revisiting part IV of Foe in class, there was one line that really stuck with me: “From his mouth, without a breath, issue the sounds of the island” (154 Coetzee). As the narrator (whomever that may be) observes Friday and listens to him, they hear the sounds of the island. The only problem is, Friday makes these ‘sounds’ without taking a breath, which indicates that all the narrator is hearing is silence. Silence is the sound of the island. In this novel, silence connects everything. The novel addresses silence, without making it speak. By talking around the silence, the reader recognizes its presence, and that is what is so empowering: knowing that you can write the unwritten by not writing it down.

Throughout the novel we see Susan Barton instructing Foe on how to write her story. She writes him her version of the events on the island, a number of letters, and she even tells him explicitly what she thinks is important to the story. By making the whole novel Susan’s attempt’s to get Foe to write the story she wants, she is thus writing the story herself. It is ironic that by trying to write around the story and create a frame for it, she is instead giving shape to it.