Robinson Crusoe

After reading Daniel Defoe's famous work Robinson Crusoe alongside South African novelist J.M. Coetzee's interpretation of it, Foe, I have started thinking about how language's empowerment (in terms of self-expression) translates into the relation of power between/among individuals. Defoe's Crusoe teaches Friday to speak a few words of English in order to find a bit of companionship - though Friday is never considered equal, but rather a servant. Despite the fact that Friday could speak his own native language and that this language (not English) would be spoken on the nearby island(s), Crusoe doesn't bother to reciprocate by learning it. Instead, he views himself as bestowing gifts; providing language, religion, and bits of his own cultural background as replacements for Friday's. Of course, Friday is a cannibal and therefore Crusoe (and the reader) might be tempted to regard Friday's language (the language of the cannibals) as tainted; the language and the sinful diet are joined through the tongue.

Friday's tongue becomes an important point in Coetzee's version of the tale: it had been cut out and, therefore, Friday is unable to speak. Indeed, Coetzee writes that "many stories can be told of Friday's tongue, but the true story is buried within Friday, who is mute" (118). Cruso (Coetzee's spelling) himself is a man of few words, and what he does speak seems to be the ramblings of a madman and liar. Coetzee's Cruso is a mixture of Prospero and Caliban from Shakespeare's Tempest, less magician than attempted rapist who is controlled by his language. Yet, the language is ultimately not even his own, as the ability to narrate his tale is relegated (as is Friday's) to Susan Barton, the narrator in Coeztee's book. In turn, Ms. Barton's narrating power is turned over to Mr. Foe (Daniel DeFoe), and we all know how his versionof the tale turns out - Barton's power is diminished and Cruso (as a further comparison to The Tempest) becomes a version of Stephano.

The transformation of Crusoe and Susan Barton occurs outside the "text", or rather between the Defoe and Coetzee versions of the tale. Within Coetzee's story, however, we see Barton as a more powerful figure. That is, while she is at the mercy of others (pirates, Cruso, Foe), she retains the ability to narrate her own story to the reader. Coetzee lets Defoe enact further injury to Barton's power via his powerful (Prospero-like) Crusoe. The tale is no longer Barton's, but is Defoe's (or rather Foe's) appropriation of it.

An interesting contrast to Foe's twist to the tale is Aphra Behn's story of the slave Oroonoko. In Behn's tale, the prince turned slave, Oroonoko, while retaining his self-respect, is led through a series of ever-increasing tragedies. The female narrator - unlike Barton and Coetzee's Cruso, but like Defoe's Crusoe - is wholesome and powerful. In many ways, Behn's narrator is Crusoe. While she isn't shipwrecked, nor must she build an infrastructure for daily living, Behn's narrator (like Crusoe and even Prospero) is empowered and absolved - perhaps even deified - through the language of her narration. In these stories (Crusoe, Oroonoko, and even Tempest), the tale provides an idealized version of the history, more a product of the imagination than the body and therefore, an anticipation of Romanticism.