Cabin in the Woods

I hate scary movies, but I let my friends bully me into watching Cabin in the Woods (although I spent almost the entire thing under the blanket).  However, after watching I noticed several connections to what we have discussed in class.

The film is about a group of teenagers who think they are going on a fun weekend camping trip, but little do they know they are being trapped into an alternate, programmed, evil world controlled by other humans as a sacrifice to satisfy evil gods.  There are people who construct this world and control it for the sacrifice, but also for their own entertainment (they watch it as a movie).  They can control everything from creatures that come up, to the actions of the teenagers, to their very personalities.  This concept reminded me of our discussions of storytelling.  The people running the show are manipulating every detail.  These details all seem very real to the characters and audience, and in a way they are “real.”  They just aren’t authentic or natural—they are completely constructed by the filmmakers in the movie, and by extension the moviemakers in actuality.

            (**spoiler alert if you care:) Furthermore, the last lines of the movie are:

DANA: Nahh, you were right.  Humanity… (blows out smoke in a cynical ‘Pfft’)  It’s time to give someone else a chance.

MARTY: Giant evil gods.

DANA: Wish I coulda seen ‘em.

MARTY: I know!  That would be a fun weekend.

When Dana says “It’s time to give someone else a chance” I thought of Cat’s Cradle—a story of human stupidity.  Additionally, there is a metatextual component in the sense that we were watching a movie being made within a film, with the characters referring indirectly referring to the movie they are in.

God Complex

A popular saying goes “God created all mankind in his image.” By this, people have rationalized (for their own peace of mind) that God resembles the human form rather than that of a great beast. In class on Thursday, we began to toss around the idea that Coetzee possibly wished to present himself as a sort of god in the novel, and I believe that there is in fact at least a playful credence to this idea. I believe that a more concrete argument can be made however that Coetzee presents Foe as the god-figure in the novel. Foe brings up the idea that God is likely an author which is an interesting idea for Mr. Foe (an author) to entertain lest he is thinking of himself as he postulates. From a very literal viewpoint, Mr. Foe does in fact act as God for the other characters in Foe if we take for fact his definition of a god as someone who “writes the world, the world and all that is in it” (pg. 143). As the author of the story of Susan, Cruso, and Friday, Foe becomes a God to them for he writes their world into substance, but he does not allow them to read the story as “we cannot read it…since we are that which he writes” (pg. 143). This quote is spoken by Foe, and, although he speaks of God as a separate entity in the passage, I believe that this is good evidence to his acting as God for the statement was proclaimed much less for Foe’s own satisfaction than to subtly explain to Susan why she cannot read the story which Foe is writing: because the story created her, and she cannot read a book which is actually she.

What do you see?

Friday and Philomela

One thing I found quite interesting in Part III was how honorably Foe treated Friday, especially compared to Susan. When Foe asked Susan to stay the night, she asks for Friday to stay as well. Foe offers that he has numerous beds but Susan suggests he just sleep in an alcove with a mat and a cushion and that would "be enough," (pg 137). Foe realizes Friday has potential and suggests "we must make Friday's silence speak," but Susan explains that everything she tries fails. Foe asks Susan to teach him to write because "he has fingers, and those fingers shall be his means (of speech). Even if he had no fingers, even if the slavers had lopped them all off, he can hold a stick of charcoal between his toes, or between his teeth," (pg 143). Foe urges Susan to educate Friday because Foe knows Friday is capable.
This particular passage was very interesting to me not only because Foe was desperately vouching for Friday, but also because it was so similar to the myth about Philomela. Foe expressed that Friday could write, and if he didn't have hands, he could write by holding a stick in his toes. The myth about Philomela also references cannibalism and "super natural powers" which are parallels to the novel. At the end of the myth, Philomela is turned into a bird in order to escape, which makes me wonder about the "ghosts" in Foe and what purpose they serve. Will something odd happen to Friday in order to help his "escape?"

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.

Sometimes the Details Don't Matter

Both O'Brien and Coetzee like to the focus on the details of storytelling and the way they relate to storytelling, but they take different approaches. O'Brien is concerned with the essence of the story - the deeper truth about war and love. The details can be manipulated in order to make the reader feel something, and O'Brien takes a lot of liberties with the truth. He makes up almost all of the details, but somehow it doesn't matter. The Things They Carried doesn't suffer because most of it is manipulated details, but instead gets better than the simple truth of O'Brien's boring life as a foot soldier.


Coetzee, or rather his narrator of Susan Barton, is really set on the idea that her story has to be completely true. She wants it to sell well, to make her lots of money, but she doesn't want to compromise the truth by inventing things that never happened, no matter how exciting they might be. And unlike O'Brien, she thinks the truth is in the details, that those are things that should never be manipulated. Early on in her story, she tells Foe, "the truth that makes your story yours alone, that sets you apart from the old mariner by the fireside spinning yarns of sea-monsters and mermaids, resides in a thousand touches which today may seem of no importance..." (18). In this way, she's very different from O'Brien. She doesn't understand that the everyday details are unimportant, what matters is the heart of the story. She could make her story exciting, with cannibals and an ambitious life on the island, and it would still be the truth if the reader learned some deeper truth, her main point.

Friday's Untold Story

            Of all of the strange story lines weaving their way throughout part III of Foe, I have found Friday’s to be most interesting. Susan finds him to be an absolute enigma from the moment she meets him, and she is constantly making assumptions about him, even before she knows that he cannot speak. When Friday first finds her on the beach, she assumes he is a cannibal, thinking that he “is trying my flesh” (6). Friday has no story to tell, so she makes one up for him. This is best exemplified in her dialogues with him at the end of part II. She sits next to him and questions, “where are you to meet a woman of your own people?” (80). Susan thus names Friday’s desires for him, and takes on an unwanted role as his mistress and keeper.

            Foe, on the other hand, sees Friday as a real human being. While Susan constantly babies him and takes on his burdens, Foe attempts to teach him to write so that he can express things for himself. Even when Friday finally shows some kind of communication skill by drawing on the tablet, Susan only mocks it and tries to take it from him. However, Foe points out, “Though you say you are the ass and Friday the rider, you may be sure that if Friday had his tongue back he would claim the contrary” (148). He is adamant that Friday has his own, unknown thoughts and feelings, while Susan claims that his “desires are not dark to me” (148). Susan once again demonstrates that she has falsely interwoven her own desires with Friday’s. By the end of part III, she is a sort of prisoner in her own fairytale.

Tongue-Tied

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.