Assignment 203: The Post- Colonial Studies

 Metafiction in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe

Name – Jheel Barad

Roll No.: 12

Enrollment No.: 4069206420210003

Paper no: 203

Paper code: 22408

Paper name: The Post- Colonial Studies

Sem.: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

E-mail- jheelbarad@gmail.com

Introduction to Metafiction:

Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasizes its own contractedness in a way that continually reminds the audience to be aware they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story-telling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art.

Metafiction occurs in fictional stories when the story examines the elements of fiction itself. For example, a story that explores how stories are made by commenting on character types, how plots are formed, or other aspects of storytelling is engaged in an example of metafiction. Metafiction can be playful or dramatic, but it always forces the reader to think about the nature of storytelling itself and how fictional stories are made.

Metafiction is a type of fiction which self-consciously addresses the device of fiction. It is the term given to fictional writing which self- consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. It usually involves irony and is self reflective.

Metafiction is primarily associated with modernist and postmodernist literature but can be found at least as far back as Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’ and even Chaucer's 14th century ``Canterbury Tales’. It came to prominence in the early 1960 through such authors as John Barth, Robert Coover and William H. Gass.

Some common metafictive devices include:

• A novel about a person writing a novel.

• A novel about a person reading a novel.

• A story that addresses the specific conventions of the story, such as title, paragraphing or plots.

• A non- linear novel, which can be read in some order other than beginning to end.

• Narrative footnotes, which continue the story will comment on it.

• A novel in which the author is a character.

• A story that anticipates the reader’s reaction to the story.

• Characters who do things because of those actions and what they would expect from characters in a story.

• Characters who Express awareness that they are in a work of fiction (also known as Breaking the fourth wall)

• A work of fiction within a fiction. 

The term 'metafiction' was coined in 1970 by William H. Gass in his book Fiction and the Figures of Life. Gass describes the increasing use of metafiction at the time as a result of authors developing a better understanding of the medium.

Differentiated metafiction:

According to Werner Wolf, metafiction can be differentiated into four pairs of forms that can be combined with each other.

Explicit/ Implicit metafiction

Explicit metafiction is identifiable through its use of clear metafictional elements on the surface of a text. It comments on its own artificiality and is quotable. Explicit metafiction is described as a mode of telling. An example would be a narrator explaining the process of creating the story they are telling.

Rather than commenting on the text, implicit metafiction foregrounds the medium or its status as an artifact through various, for example disruptive, techniques such as metalepsis. It relies more than other forms of metafiction on the reader's ability to recognize these devices in order to evoke a metafictional reading. Implicit metafiction is described as a mode of showing.

Direct/ Indirect metafiction

Direct metafiction establishes a reference within the text one is just reading. In contrast to this, indirect metafiction consists in metareferences external to this text, such as reflections on other specific literary works or genres (as in parodies) and general discussions of aesthetic issues. Since there is always a relationship between the text in which indirect metafiction occurs and the referenced external texts or issues, indirect metafiction always impacts the text one is reading, albeit in an indirect way.

Critical/ non- Critical Metafiction

Critical metafiction aims to find the artificiality or fictionality of a text in some critical way, which is frequently done in postmodernist fiction. Non-critical metafiction does not criticize or undermine the artificiality or fictionality of a text and can, for example, be used to "suggest that the story one is reading is authentic".

Generally media-centered/truth- or fiction-centered metafiction

While all metafiction somehow deals with the medial quality of fiction or narrative and is thus generally media-centered, in some cases there is an additional focus on the truthfulness or inventiveness (fictionality) of a text, which merits mention as a specific form. The suggestion of a story being authentic (a device frequently used in realistic fiction) would be an example of (non-critical) truth-centered metafiction.

J.M. Coetzee

John Maxwell Coetzee (born 9 February 1940) is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in theEnglish Language. He has won the Booker Prize (twice), the CNA Prize (thrice), the Jerusalem Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger , and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and holds a number of other awards and Honorary Doctorates 

Coetzee moved to Australia in 2002 and became an Australian citizen in 2006. He lives in Adelaide.

Metafiction in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe

Postmodernism challenges the idea of the author as source and center of the text, author figures, paradoxically, have become pervasive in postmodern fiction where they often function as a means to articulate a text’s metafictional reflection. J. M. Coetzee is seen by critics as “a self conscious postmodernist,” “a writer’s writer” whose central preoccupation is the nature of authorship, the writer’s authority over his subject, as well as the broader issue of the cultural authority to which fiction written within the Western tradition can lay claim. 

In the novel Foe, Coetzee has revisited authors of the past: Foe features Daniel Defoe and rewrites Robinson Crusoe (1719) from the female castaway’s point of view. In Foe Coetzee revisits and subverts the source text by inserting into the original plot the character of Susan Barton, a female castaway on Cruso’s [sic] island. Rescued by an English ship, Susan and Friday finally return to London, yet Cruso dies on the voyage back to England. Out of the four sections of the novel only the first (and the shortest) one - Susan’s account of the island episode - offers a narrative which can claim to be a version of the Robinson Crusoe story. The remainder of the novel dramatizes Susan’s efforts to tell the island story first through and then over and against the writer Daniel Foe. 

Foe is both a metafictional and political allegory questioning the assumptions of race, class and gender underlying the works of the Western literary canon; it has been described by Dominic Head  as a “textual decolonization.” In particular, Coetzee’s novel narrativized the exclusion practices which operate in the construction of a literary canon and reveals that “storytellers can certainly silence, exclude, and absent certain past events - and people”

In Coetzee’s novel, there is a continuing debate as to who determines the boundaries of the story and, as a result, controls and owns the narrative. Susan shared the island experience with Cruso and Friday, can she claim the island story as her own? Or is she only telling Cruso’s story in his absence? And what are Friday’s rights in this regard? While Susan wants to recount the island episode, she realizes that she is not equipped to do it and needs Foe’s experience and established reputation as a professional writer. Yet, Susan’s views as to where her story begins and ends are very different from those of Foe. This differing point of view about the limits of the story and especially about who has the right to set those limits, contains elements of a power-struggle. The metafictional discourse here closely parallels the novel’s exploration of power relationships.

Coetzee further problematizes the question of the ownership of stories by highlighting the polysemantic nature of the author’s name. In other words, just as the author generates texts, texts generate the author. Revealed to be a discursive construct, the author is dispossessed of his work; the authoritative and controlling role of the author is called into question and the author’s exclusive right over his own texts is problematized. 

In the final section of the novel Susan’s first-person narration is replaced by that of an unidentified first-person narrator, destabilizing the narrative further both in temporal and fictional terms. This new unnamed and unidentified narrator enters a London property and finds Susan and Foe, presumably dead, in a bed and Friday bricked up alive in an alcove. Pressing his ear close to the door, the narrator hears some strange noises flowing from behind it: “From his mouth, without a breath, issue the sounds of the island”. On the other hand, the whole metafictional reflection which this part of the novel articulates may be understood as being aimed at disrupting the traditional power relations implicit in the dichotomy author-reader and rejecting a linear epistemology according to which the left-hand term is seen as superior and dominant. 

Works Cited

Frank, Joseph. “Uncanny authors, ambiguous tales: metafictional discourse in J. M. Coetzee's Novels Foe and The Master of Petersburg.” CORE, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/288120322.pdf. Accessed 5 November 2022.

Head, Dominic. The Cambridge Introduction to J. M. Coetzee. Cambridge University Press, 2009. Accessed 5 November 2022.

Schörkhuber, Verena. Metafiction in J.M. Coetzee's 'Foe'. GRIN Verlag, 2007.

Sonderegger, Melba. “Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction.” Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/3626028/Metafiction_The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Self_Conscious_Fiction. Accessed 5 November 2022.

Wolf, Werner, et al., editors. Metareference Across Media: Theory and Case Studies. Rodopi, 2009. Accessed 5 November 2022.

Foe- J.M. Coetzee

This blog is written in response to a blog task assigned by Yesha Bhatt Ma’am based on J. M. Coetzee’s Foe which is a retelling of Danial Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. It deals with several assigned questions as a task.

How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?

The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau applauded Crusoe’s do-it-yourself independence, and in his book on education, Crusoe is never interested in portraying himself as a hero in his own narration. He does not boast of his courage in quelling the mutiny, and he is always ready to admit unheroic feelings of fear or panic, as when he finds the footprint on the beach. Crusoe prefers to depict himself as an ordinary sensible man, never as an exceptional hero. Crusoe seems incapable of deep feelings, as shown by his cold account of leaving his family—he worries about the religious consequences of disobeying his father, but never displays any emotion about leaving. As an individual personality, Crusoe is rather dull. His precise and deadpan style of narration works well for recounting the process of canoe building, but it tends to drain the excitement from events that should be thrilling.Crusoe is nonetheless very interested in possessions, power, and prestige. When he first calls himself king of the island it seems jocund, but when he describes the Spaniard as his subject we must take his royal delusion seriously, since it seems he really does consider himself king. His teaching Friday to call him “Master,” even before teaching him the words for “yes” or “no,” seems obnoxious even under the racist standards of the day, as if Crusoe needs to hear the ego-boosting word spoken as soon as possible.

Cruso, a parody of Daniel Defoe's character Robinson Crusoe, is first seen living on the island that Susan washes up on. He is shown to have made a life for himself on the island, but Susan notes his lack of enthusiasm to be "rescued" and he is portrayed as somewhat stubborn by her. Cruso tries to exert his dominance over all things on his island, whether it's the monkeys that share the island with him, or the new addition of Susan. He is shown to be an aging man and takes ill a number of times in the first part before dying on board the ship that saves them. He also enjoys telling stories about how he ended up on the island and how he found Friday, all which contradict each other and vary greatly, suggesting to the reader either forgetfulness due to old age or that Cruso repeatedly tells lies to suit his needs and in this case, the story. Both cause Cruso to be portrayed as a highly unreliable character.

This table brings out the major difference between both, Cruso and Crusoe.

Coetzee’s Cruso	Defoe’s Crusoe
Change in spelling- exclusion of e	Cruso’e’
Finds no need of documentation- “Nothing I have forgotten is worth remembering”	Keeps written document/ habit of documentation
Cruso in Foe has not put any effort towards building tools, as he only has a bed when Susan arrives at the island, and from the quote, it seems like he may not have the mental capacity to build these tools.	Crusoe builds are to improve and aid in his growth on the island, and he must be mentally sharp in order to build these items.
For Cruso, the island did not lead him to make any significant changes in his character or ideals.	This newfound lifestyle gave significant meaning to Crusoe’s daily actions as they represented growth in his faith, and a positive change in character.

Friday’s characteristics and persona in Foe and Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe names the man Friday, with whom he cannot at first communicate, because they first meet on that day. The character is the source of the expression "Man Friday", used to describe a male personal assistant or servant, especially one who is particularly competent or loyal.

If Crusoe represents the first colonial mind in fiction, then Friday represents not just a Caribbean tribesman, but all the natives of America, Asia, and Africa who would later be oppressed in the age of European imperialism.

The first and most obvious point about Friday's relationship with Crusoe is that Friday is Crusoe's subordinate. Friday always calls Crusoe "master," for example. Crusoe also mentions that their relationship is much like that of "a Child to a Father". Foe deconstructs Robin Crusoe and gives its postcolonial reading. We find the change in the center point of both the novels. Foe has Susan Barton, the interloper character and female narrator. But we find Friday, the only similar character across both books.

Defoe’s Friday is exploring the themes of religion, slavery and subjugation. While Coetzee’s Friday is used to explore more strong themes like of slavery, black identity and the voice of oppressed or subaltern.

In Coetzee’s Foe Friday is without voice and he has left the disturbing question of who has cut Friday’s tongue or mutilated it open. This question is never answered and the attempts to communicate with Friday leaves us wondering whether the slaves that capture Friday remove his tongue or was done by the colonist Cruso, who felt no need of a great stock of words.

We also find that Defoe’s Cruso gave a lot more care and interest to language than Coetzee’s Cruso. Defoe’s Cruso, appreciated documentation in his own language and also took pleasure in teaching Friday to speak.

Defoe’s Crusoe was certainly concerned with language, but never investigated the language that was Friday’s own, erasing Friday’s history by naming him, and teaching him English. In this way, he could only voice the thoughts that Crusoe had given him language to speak. This was challenged by the voiceless Friday in Coetzee’s work, a character who literally couldn’t speak. In this, it could be argued that Coetzee was asserting that it was not his right to give voice to an oppressed black character, and let Friday stand for the victims of apartheid and slavery, where Defoe (due to the beliefs of society at his time) believed that it was right and natural for Crusoe to claim the position of Master to Friday, and to speak for him.

Friday was somehow better than the average Caribbean tribesman As Friday in Foe stood for the victims and slavery whereas Crusoe’s Friday was not doing all that and is portrayed as being a anglicized version of Caribbean man.

In Coetzee’s work, Friday is allowed to be sullen and unpleasant, easy to see, but hard to like, he is created to be the embodiment of all the oppression experienced by a racial group, to only be able to take in, never to give out ideas or understanding, to be central to a story he can have no part in. The silence of Coetzee’s Friday could also be said to reflect the reader, who, like Friday, can only react and respond to situations.

The representation of Friday in these two texts is vastly different, and one could hardly believe that the two were in fact the same character. With different histories, and different personalities, in fact all both have in common is playing the role of the non-white slave in the text, to serve a literary purpose, in both reflecting the views of wider society towards non-white people, and in showing the development of other characters.

Is Susan reflecting the white mentality of Crusoe (Robinson Crusoe)?

I lie against Cruso; with the tip of my tongue I follow the hairy whorl of his ear. I rub my cheeks against his harsh whiskers, I spread myself over him, I stoke his body with my thighs. “I am swimming in you, my Cruso.” (44)

Major difference between two novels Robinson Crusoe and Foe is inclusion of women’s voce in Foe. This female voice is presented by Male author J.M. Coetzee. She is a female castaway but fails to award her a voice of strength Crusoe dominates not only the island they are both on but also the whole story itself.

“I presented myself to Cruso, in the days when he still ruled over the island, and became his second subject, the first being his manservant Friday” (Coetzee 11)

Throughout the novel, she describes the island as “Cruso’s island.” She finds herself as the mere female companion to the king and his manservant, Friday. Coetzee makes Barton the woman behind the man, defining her as a “free and autonomous being like all human creatures that finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other” (Dragunoiu 15). Barton is quick to assume the submissive role on the island as the assertive character of Robinson Cruso takes the lead on the island and in her story.

Susan is a sensual woman, and as the only female character in both Defoe’s novel as well as Coetzee’s novel, she is represented through her sexuality. She also views her sexuality as therapy for Cruso at the end of his life when he suffers from a raging fever. She spends many nights with him while they are on board the ship that rescued them, holding him and using her body to cure him.

Susan Barton’s voice is projected through the words of the male author who created her. Using the text as evidence, it seems as though Coetzee purposefully creates a female character of weakness. She goes through a myriad of roles throughout the novel—each of which clearly point to her as a minor character in a book that is supposed to be about “the female castaway” (67). Although Susan Barton is the voice of the novel, she is not the main character because she is most concerned with telling the story of “Cruso’s island.” J.M. Coetzee is a male author who uses the voice of Barton to convey a deeper understanding of Defoe’s male character, Robinson Crusoe. Coetzee uses her as merely a device to relay the stories of Cruso and Friday. Hence, she doesn't reflect the white mentality of Crusoe.

I hope this blog is useful. Thanks for visiting.