We know nothing

From the beginning, Foe is an interesting concept as a novel because it focuses on the telling--or rather, retelling--of the fictional story of Robinson Cruso. Early in the book, it is immediately clear that the concept of a story within a story is central to the novel. Everything that we read is in the voice of another person. the first layer is the voice of Susan Barton, who is telling the story of of her time with Robinson Cruso on a desert island. At the end of Part 1, we understand that everything Susan is saying is in fact being told to us in the voice of the elusive Mr. Foe, who suspiciously never has a voice in the novel. Finally, the final layer is Coetzee telling us this story of a story within a story. The general structure of the novel ultimately embodies the very nature of storytelling and the relay of stories from person to person.

However, this structure poses an issue that the novel itself comments on. Susan contradicts herself at the end of Part 1 in saying "it was I who shared Cruso's bed and closed Cruso's eyes, as it is I who have disposal of all that Cruso leaves behind, which is the story of his island" (45), as if she were the only reliable source for the story. However, Cruso, the very man who knows the entire story and truth of the island, is dead. Therefore, the truth of Susan's retelling is non-existent, as is the truth in Foe's own retelling of Susan's story.

The nonexistence of truth within the story is expanded by perhaps a small yet important detail. Islands are a clear motif in this novel. In addition to Cruso's island, Susan also notes that Britain is an island and even suggests that Bahia could be an "island in the ocean of the Brazilian forest and my room a lonely island in Bahia" (51). The parallel inherent in the presence of multiple islands is made all the more devious by the power of the imagination which Susan herself describes as "the knack of seeing waves when there are fields before your eyes, and of feeling the tropic sun when it is cold" (52). She prescribes "the knack" of imagination to only Foe, yet as a storyteller, she too is equally subject to the whims of the imagination. Therefore, her story about Cruso could very well be the result of a day dream she carried out from her room in Bahia or even in Britain, a room her imagination transformed into an island, and a forest into an ocean.

Thus, no fact exists in the novel so far and no concrete truth arises. After all, the story is based on a fictional story from the beginning, so there was never any factual information from the start. So we must question why this is. Why do we literally know nothing?