Foe

 Q. 1 – How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?.

Robinson is the protagonist and the narrator of the novel. He is individualistic, self-reliant, and adventurous. He continually discounts the good advice and warnings of his parents and others, and boldly seeks to make his own life by going to sea. He is at times overly ambitious and is unable to remain content with a comfortable life . Trapped on his island, he learns to survive all alone and also ends up becoming a devout Christian, repenting for his past sins and gaining a newfound confidence in God and his divine plan of providence. Robinson's extreme individualism is at times heroic, but also leads him to disregard others. While he values the loyal friends he finds over the course of his journeys , he sells Xury into a kind of slavery or indentured servitude and treats Friday as an inferior servant. His self-reliance can also shade into narcissism, reflected in his narration's focus on himself and disregard for others: most of the other characters in the novel don't even get a name. But in spite of any of these faults, Defoe presents Robinson as the novel's intrepid hero, who draws on reserves of ingenuity and bravery to survive incredibly against the whims of nature and fate.

While Friday retains the same name in Foe as in Robinson Crusoe, Robinson Crusoe’s name is changed to “Cruso” which marks the first in a series of differences between the character of Cruso(e) in Foe and Robinson Crusoe. The Cruso that Susan describes in the quote is one who is completely disconnected from reality and confused about his own past. When Susan questions Cruso about his history on the island the details in his stories vary wildly each time they are told. When asked if Friday was a child when he came to the island Cruso would sometimes exclaim, “Aye, a child, a mere child”, but other times Cruso would say, “Friday was a cannibal whom he had saved from being roasted” . This uncertainty about events could stem from the fact that in Foe, Cruso is very against keeping written documentation of his days on the island; proclaiming, “Nothing I have forgotten is worth remembering” .

Cruso’s lack of journaling is a stark contrast to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe is much less passive and senile in regards to his own development on the island. Crusoe kept a painfully detailed account of every action he does on the island in a journal he updates daily. In this journal, Crusoe meticulously records every step for all of the tools he crafts, and he writes about his own progress with his newly acquitted relationship with religion. This Robinson Crusoe is much more in tune with his own reality and interested in his own accomplishments than Foe’s Cruso. This is also evident in the number of tools and objects that Robinson Crusoe makes in comparison to Cruso. Robinson Crusoe fills his multiple homes with various types of pots, tables, chairs, fences, and even a canoe. All of these items Crusoe builds are to improve and aide in his growth on the island, and he must be mentally sharp in order to build these items. 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. Although Cruso does builds many terraces, he exclaims that they are for the future generations and not himself.

One explanation for the difference in mindset and mental stability in the two Robinson Crusoe’s may be that in Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe felt that his island life had more value than Cruso did. Before becoming stranded on the island, religion wasn’t a focus in Robinson Crusoe’s life, and he frequently sinned; such as when he disobeyed his father. After becoming stranded on the island, Crusoe began to read the bible and incorporate God into his daily thoughts and actions. Crusoe expressed deep regret for his sinful past, and often attributed hardships to a lesson from God. This newfound life style gave significant meaning to Crusoe’s daily actions as they represented growth in his faith, and a positive change in character. For Cruso, the island did not lead him to make any significant changes in his character or ideals. Therefore, his daily actions had less significance to him, and when his reality and sense of self began to slip away from him he was not concerned.

Q.2 Friday’s characteristics and persona in Foe and in Robinson Crusoe.

 Foe and Robinson Crusoe is important, but so is acknowledging their different racial identities. Friday in Foe’s work, in standing for the victims of apartheid and slavery, is a black African character ‘he was black, negro, with a head of fuzzy wool’ , whereas Crusoe’s Friday, not standing for those causes, is portrayed as being an anglicised version of a Caribbean man, who ‘had all the sweetness and softness of a European in his countenance’. This implies that Friday was somehow better than the ‘average’ Caribbean tribesman by dint of looking somewhat European, but at the same time, the first language Crusoe taught him was that he was his master. He was an improvement on the average savage, since his appearance was somewhat European, but still his race left him to be the natural servant of Crusoe. This Friday is very much a dramatic device used to portray Crusoe’s development as a religious man; ‘began to instruct him  in the knowledge of the true God’. This allowed Defoe to expand on Crusoe’s earlier mentions of religion, in his conversion, and in the hegemony of the time, caused Crusoe to be seen as a good and moral character, who treated his slave well, and brought him up to be religious . 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. Katherine Wagner however argues against this, saying that ‘criticism and silence are mutually exclusive terms’. Coetzee’s Friday can only be silenced, but Defoe’s Friday has no room to criticise, and no part in making decisions for Crusoe, because in that time, a slave wouldn’t have that option at all, Coetzee’s Friday can take no part, being unable to speak. His isolation and treatment as second class is made far more visible by his disability, a device Coetzee used to avoid speaking the black voice, as a privileged white man, whilst still drawing attention to the plight of slaves.

Crusoe, Cruso and Barton were all seen to treat Friday very differently, but all see him as a possession in their own way. Crusoe did this most blatantly, in claiming, naming Friday and instructing him to call him ‘Master’, with Defoe’s Friday being portrayed as making signs of ‘subjection, servitude, and submission’ to Crusoe without even any bidding. This added to the moral message of Robinson Crusoe, because it showed the savage being tamed, and later taught religion. This contrasts strongly with the Cruso created by Coetzee, who was ‘sullen’ in his service, who obeyed Cruso, but did not have the childish excitement or ‘comically expressed pidgin’ portrayed in places by Defoe. Barton also claimed him, despite trying to treat him as an individual ‘if Friday is not mine to set free, whose is he’, and on some level saw him clearly as her property, forgetting that maybe it was not her right to set him free either. 

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. This is not to say that either Friday was one-dimensional, in particular Coetzee’s Friday was multi-dimensional and complex, but more that despite the character complexity, despite his being ‘resistant to being interpreted’ , and how central they were, both were created to serve only a purpose.

Q. 3 Who is Protagonist?

Susan, the protagonist of the story, is a British woman who went searching for her lost daughter. After searching for two years, she gives up and tries to return to England, only to be caught in the middle of a mutiny and marooned by the crew of the ship she riding home.