Rupert Deese HSA 10-2 February 25, 2012

A monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master: Has a dog Buddha-nature or not? Joshu answered: Mu. The offering of this koan, arguably the most famous piece of the Zen canon, is not an answer. Rather, the koan is a reminder that some answers cannot be articulated. Perhaps Zen Buddhism and postmodern literature make for strange bedfellows, but J. M. Coetzees novel Foe has a very koan-like central message. In Foe, Coetzee combines the struggle of writers to understand their own authorship, and the collective struggle of society to both comprehend and redress black slavery. Coetzee draws attention to the natural occurrence of koan-like illogic, incompleteness, and inconsistency in Foe to dismiss the importance of a truthful and complete narrative, with regard to both authorship and enslavement. The main conflict in Foe is Susans confrontation of the challenges of authorship. Susan struggles to produce a truthful account of her life as a castaway. Her motives provide a classical argument for the importance of factual narration that Foe deconstructs. Coetzee must articulate this argument in order to pick it apart, but even his explanation of Susans motives begins to explore the difficulties of crafting an objective narrative. Susan has two requirements for her ac-

Deese 2 count. Coetzee uses these to illuminate why she wants an account of her adventures to exist, but also why her designs to have the story written ultimately fail. Susans first requirement is that the account be written by someone else. She does not believe that she can write the account herself. She entreats the character Foe, an author, to take her own rudimentary account that she believes to be lacking, and return to me the substance I have lost (51). Susan is convinced that only he can tell the truth in all its substance (51). When Foe disappears Susan is deprived of the means to put her story to words, despite being perfectly able to write. She believes that real, substantive truth requires the right words with which to capture the vision (42). Foes skill in writing enables him to write the true story, while Susan cannot. Secondly, Susan requires that her story remain exactly as she imagines it. When Foe expresses interest in writing her account, she refuses to be complicit in any of his designs on the story itself. Foe asks how it was that Cruso did not save a single musket from the wreck and why a man so fearful of cannibals should have neglected to arm himself (53). Susan regards these questions as attempts to change her story and the underlying reality of her experience. Her defensive response to his questions support this argument. At one point she writes tersely: All I say is: What I saw, I wrote. I saw no cannibals (54), as if Foes mention of cannibals suggests a desire to invent them, subverting her account of the story. Ironically, Susan retaliates against Foes perceived interference with her own inventions. In response to a question from Foe about whether Cruso had a musket, Susan provides an entirely fanciful description of the day that Cruso leapt overboard with the youthful Friday at his side, but they two alone were saved, by

Deese 3 a great wave that caught them up (54). Susan refuses all of Foes attempts to put his own ideas into the work, even rejecting his suggestion to expand the story to her life beyond the island. Indeed, the proposal causes her to feel as though all the joy fled me (117). Susan cares deeply about protecting her story from idea and inventions that are not her own. Susans joint requirements that her story remain unmodified, and that it be written by someone else, prevent it from being written. Yet she singularly pursues the goal of having Foe write it. She suffers much hardship for the sake of persuading Foe to write for her, including a multi-day journey on foot to Bristol, barefoot and in breeches (99). Susan tells Friday that the published story will make us famous throughout the land, and rich too (58), yet fame and fortune would just as easily be gained from a fabricated story. This motive does not explain Susans obsessive control of the storys details. Her true motive and desire is to preserve the truth. On the island, Susan asks Cruso if he wants to ensure that what you have passed through shall not die from memory (17). She equates writing with the preservation of truth, and cannot fathom that Cruso does not wish to eternalize his memories through paper and ink (17). Susans belief that words can faithfully preserve truth explains her driving desire to have the story of the island written down, and also explains the importance of her two inconvenient requirements. Susan expounds the virtues of language as the communicator of truth. She tries to explain the magic of words (58) to Friday, who she presumes to be ignorant. This magic is no less than the communication of truth without experience. Words and language allow people to understand the truth of things that they have not experienced. Susan explains: Mr Foe has not met you, but

Deese 4 he knows of you, from what I have told him, using words (58). This is a simple point, but one which is implicit in all of Susans behavior. It is the foundation of her faith that, having set down the history of our time on the island in writing for Foe, he will be able to set it right (47). It also explains her belief that she can set Friday free by means of a deed hung on a cord (99) around his neck. In Susans eyes, language stands on equal footing with actions and events. Susans conviction of the importance of language is also the foundation of her opinions about Friday. Because Friday lacks the use of words, he must be a poor simpleton (39). Her observation that the very notion of speech may be lost to him (57), causes her to treat him as though he has no intelligence at all. In one instance, Susan stands before Friday holding a spoon, intoning Spoon, Friday! (57) Susan already knows that Friday does not understand language, yet she continues to try to measure Fridays intelligence through his recognition of words. This condescending action indicates that she cannot conceive of any method of understanding that does not involve language. Susans belief that language precedes understanding again shows that she believes words and truth are one and the same. Coetzee liberally uses Susan as a foil, pitting her initial confidence in the universal, explicatory powers of language against illogic, incompleteness, and inconsistency. The failure of her philosophy in every case increases her confusion about how language relates to truth. Each failure highlights another disparity between truth and language. Together, like any good koan, they show that words and truth are unrelated; that the authors reliance on words makes him (or her) a foe of truth.

Deese 5 Coetzee first shows that words can represent fiction as easily as they do fact. In the beginning of Part II, Susan describes her position as close servant to Foe, and his dusty writing room and window view of pasture and ploughed land (50). Yet when Susan actually visits Foes house, and finds him to be in hiding, she notes that the window overlooks not woods and pastures (65) but a garden, and a dozen other differences from her earlier description. Susan tells Foe that it is not as I imagined it would be (65), revealing that her prior narrative of life as Foes close servant was an invention, an utter lie. Susan presents two accounts, which stand on equal footing but contradict each other. It is illogical to accept both, but to choose between the two requires a recognition that words are an imperfect description of reality. Susan firmly believes that writing down the truth will preserve it, but her own writing shows that there is no way to distinguish worded truths from worded falsehoods. Coetzee takes this disparity between words and truth to an extreme in the characters of Amy and the child Susan Barton, who epitomize the contradictions that language makes possible. They carry long stories of a past in which they will claim [Susan] was an actor too (130), but Susan denies ever having known them. To her dismay she finds that in the realm of language she cannot distinguish her account from theirs in terms of importance. She compares herself to a bottle bobbing on the waves (130): the worded message she contains is no better or worse than any other--it could as well be a message from an idle child as from a mariner (130). Susan believes that Foe is responsible for Amy and the child Susans existence, that they are actors (130), whose characters are father-born (91) from Foes mind. In this interpretation, the author

Deese 6 Foe has used the craft of language to create substantial ghosts (132) that occupy reality. Yet there is no way to distinguish between the real and the ghosts; through language Foe creates lies that stand on equal footing with the truth. Since Susan believes that the refuge of truth is in words, these contradictions and their illogic cause her to question her identity. She despairs that all my life grows to be a story, and there is nothing of my own left to me (133). As a result, she can no longer distinguish to what order she belongs; she is unsure if she is real or fictional. Thus Susans struggle with authorship concludes in chaos. She is unable to convert her life experience into a story, and is increasingly unable to distinguish the story of her life from the stories that Foe creates. All narratives, those invented and those inspired by reality, are of the same substance. Foe asks, may it not be that [God] wrote a Word so long we have yet to come to the end of it? (143) Foe suggests that God is writing the world, and concludes from the paradox of authorship that language and objective truth are not related. Foe equates writing with new creation of new truth, rather than the representation of an existing reality. This process of creation entraps and defines all of the characters in Foe that rely on language. Yet it has very different implications for the one who does not. Friday does not use language and does not understand it; he has no relation to it. Throughout Foe, Susan and Foe struggle to understand Friday. Susan attempts to rationalize his character by giving him language, and tries to teach him to speak, or at least comprehend spoken words. She alternately tries applying language to him, either giving him a written deed to make

Deese 7 him free, or inventing stories to explain his past. Yet these attempts fail, and even at the end of Part III, Susan and Foe know nothing of Friday. The stories they invent for him are new truths they have created, no closer to his real past than the silence which they serve to fill. Within the world of language, Friday is incomprehensible. In the Epilogue, Coetzee condemns Susans attempts to fit language to Fridays reality. He walks through the oneiric landscape of the story he has just written. He discovers that Fridays deed to freedom has harmed him, observing that about his neck is a scar like a necklace (155). This symbolism implies that language has done more hurt to Friday than it has done good. Coetzee ultimately says outright that the home of Friday is a place where bodies are their own signs (157). Coetzee draws from his koan-like demonstration that language cannot always be used to express truth the same conclusion that Edward Said comes to in his Politics of Knowledge. Namely, that naming and the use of words will not rationalize or redress the harms of slavery, only add to the oppression another layer of white inventions. As a testament that this is the case, Friday speaks. The answer that he gives is not a traditional one. He opens his mouth and from inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interruption (157). Fridays answer is wordless; it is nothing; it is the same as Joshus. In both the famous koan and Foe, the final resolution is a truth that lies beyond the grasp of language. In reality, there is a truth, just as Friday is as substantial as Susan, although he lacks speech. In language, there is only a void. The Chinese character has been translated as not, nothing, or without. It is often anglicized as mu.

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