A REWRITING OF DANIEL DEFOE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE THROUGH COETZEE’S FOE: A SUBALTERN STUDY

Abstract

This article critically assesses power relations as well as political aspects of representation in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe. Using postcolonial approaches, the investigation seeks to highlight the colonial narrative form of the text as well as the marginalization within such narratives. In his reworking of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee exposes the invisibility of subalterns, in particular Friday, as that trait denoting barbarism, which has relegated the people colonialized to Fourth-world status in historiography. The narrator Susan Barton’s self-fought struggle with the other authorities expands the concept of authorship from mere artistry in creativity to ethical involvement in representation. The article attempts to address the complexity in her struggle fictions while keeping Friday’s mute presence as the background whose absence was meant to be filled with action, therefore – story. Finally, Foe is positioned as a tragic story about language, truth and power over representation of the contemporary, affected by colonialism’s history and its realisms. This analysis is valuable in extending the discussion around literature and its politics of resistance against dominant ways of knowing.