Cruso's Island vs. Foe's England Anonymous 12th Grade

J.M. Coetzee’s 1986 novel Foe recounts the adventures and aspirations of Susan Barton, a fictional young woman who finds herself cast away on a most unusual island with the stolid Cruso and his tongueless slave Friday. The novel’s beginning takes place on the island, where Susan falls into a slow but steady rhythm of life with her new cohabitants, all the while developing a great deal of experiences and philosophies which she grows eager to share. The novel’s latter then details her rescue and return to England--a place quite immediately established as a sort of locational foil to the island. It is here that she turns her attentions to writing--or rather to convincing distinguished author Daniel (De)Foe to write for her--and in the process drives herself mad. Caught up in the throes of language, Susan ironically enough seems to lose hold of her story itself. Coetzee here adopts a somewhat unconventional perspective for an author: through the oppositional forces symbolized by the island and by England, he presents the idea that reality and occupational storytelling are perhaps destined to clash heads, that authorship might in fact rob one of his (or her) most real and substantial identity.

Cruso and his secluded home, in short,...