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GSerpi - 1st CLASS TEST 1st TERM
[author: Gianluca Serpi - postdate: 2007-10-02]

 

The novel Foe by Coetzee is a rewriting of the classical version of Robinon Crusoe, but there are a lot of differences that distinguish the two novels.
Starting from the title, we can notice that in the classical version we have the name of the protagonist as a title, instead of Coetzee’s novel, that chooses “Foe” as the title. But why did he choose this title? First of all we have to focus our attention on the meaning of the word. Foe literary means enemy, adversary, antagonist. Probably we immediately notice that Foe reminds Daniel Defoe’s book and so Coetzee uses a sort of joke. Only when we start the second chapter of the novel we understand that Foe is the author and that Susan ask him to publish the story of Crusoe and her. From looking at the two books we immediately notice that the novel Foe is shorter than Defoe’s. We can make a connection between such difference and our period. Nowadays people have no time and the perception of time is fragmented. As a matter of fact a person is more attracted by a short book with a mysterious title. In addition to this the title that an author chooses is also important to sell the book. An other difference between the two novels in the number of chapters. In Coetzee’s novel it has only 4 chapter against the 46 chapters of Defoe’s novel. But we have also a difference in the story told by novelists. The novel by Defoe starts with the story of the life of Crusoe before the shipwreck, but both have the protagonist as the narrative voice. Coetzee’s post-modern has got an ideal reader, that can recognize the true meaning of the novel. It deals with the problem of the past, and what makes the past happen. Coetzee wants to demonstrate that there are no novels that are subsequently rewritten but that rewriting is part of the parcel of the act of writing itself.