Dreams

The last few pages of Foe seems more like a dream-like blur than any sort of conclusive end to a novel. In my opinion, this is exactly what the book is about. Instead of tying up loose ends or revealing the 'true story' or 'true author', we are given a pretty accurate representation of what it feels like to read Foe from beginning to end. As readers, we question all along who is telling what story and who can claim authorship for it. In this last section, the narrator is not unlike the confused reader.  The ambiguity of the text parallels our attempts to solve the "whodunnit" nature of the entire book. Each character is mentioned in the chapter, which eliminates them as the 'new' author of the section, "Susan Barton and her dead captain . . ." (Coetzee, 157), "Friday, in his alcove, has turned to the wall"(Coetzee, 155). As readers of this novel, we feel just as we would in a dream. We are trying to assign meaning and make sense of the events presented to us, but in reality we are just fumbling through without much direction. The most obvious missing piece that the reader craves is Friday's story. This chapter finally addresses that search and provides an answer that we might not understand, but shows that we (like Susan Barton) have been looking in the wrong place. "From his mouth, without a breath, issue the sounds of the island" (Coetzee, 154). Friday is not able to speak, but his communication is finally given, in one form or another. What is interesting about this inclusion is that we can only absorb this type of information in the trancelike style of the chapter. As a narrator, Susan Barton would not have expressed Friday's communication in such a way, and neither would a writer like Foe. Each reader however, could potentially be more open such a surreal explanation.