Did Susan Barton’s adventures actually happen? Part IV of Foe makes me question the story’s validity because it strongly resembles the short story of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Peyton Farquhar elaborately explains a fantasy of his life if he were to escape his death, but the reader only becomes aware that this is not reality at the very end of the story. Coetzee may be constructing a fantasy as well, although it is unclear whether or not this adventure truly happened. Barton says, “With a sigh, making barely a splash, I slip overboard…I duck my head under the water,” (155-156). Barton goes on to describe the depths of the sea in great detail, the same way Farquahr describes the miniscule details of his surroundings in his fantasy of escape.
It seems plausible that Friday was simply a representation of the silence of the ocean and the silence of dying. He embodies Barton’s suffering at end of the novel and Barton says, “But this is not a place of words. Each syllable, as it comes out, is caught and filled with water and diffused. This is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday,” (157). We read Foe as Barton’s true adventure, but realize that it might have actually been Barton’s vision of what could have happened had she made it to shore and that her adventure may not have actually happened at all. Barton seems to create this character Friday to represent a place where words cannot be spoken and only one’s silent body is a means of communication. Part IV leaves the reader questioning everything they read up until that point, yet it also sheds light on Friday’s role in the novel. By giving silence a body, Barton is able to convey to pain that she felt when she was unable to speak.
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