Foe: Robinson Crusoe contrasting perspectives

Feminist Re-Vision

• Introducing new narratives that were previously unseen or suppressed
• Examining how gender and sexuality can introduce novel perspectives in storytelling
• Re-vision, Re-presents, Representation: This is not natural, neutral, or without effort; it requires struggle, versions, and choices
• Absence is a component of representation
• Grounded in reality while also pushing back against it
• "Robinson Crusoe" starts with ancestry, naming, and national identity, but lacks something
• Cruso's narratives function as closed systems, with the belief that he knows everything about the world
• Cruso's narratives are considered unreliable by Susan
• Cruso is thought to be unable to accurately represent himself
• "Re-vision" involves rewriting, improving accuracy, and revising ideas
• Representation relies on looking back and not accepting the given version as the only truth
• Giving voice to the silenced and making the invisible visible
• Challenging depictions that lack or misrepresent women
• Individuality, posterity, and specificity are crucial for Susan's self-representation, as women have historically lacked these
• It poses the question of finding a woman where there wasn't one before, or a woman who doesn't fit typical representative models
• She is represented as a problematic and confusing figure, presenting challenges of representation, particularly towards the end of the novel

Language

• One character expresses a longing for human speech after being accustomed to the island's sounds
• Susan desires language, while Cruso does not
• Susan sees language as the key to truth, memory, and posterity
• Susan wishes to document their experiences in writing, while Cruso builds terraces in silence, reflecting a sense of manifest destiny to inhabit/expand the island for future travelers
• Language is not universal and communication gaps exist, leading to differences in speaking and/or seeing
• Differing interpretations reflect different psychologies, and a character wishes to start their story with their arrival on the island, intertwining it with others
• Themes of wind, sound, and silence are present
• Cruso teaches Friday only the necessary words for interaction
• Cruso claims that Friday's tongue is cut out and cannot achieve speech, but Susan questions this account and suspects a hidden story
• The possibility of Friday still possessing his tongue is raised
• Susan feels uneasy around Friday due to the lack of language, treating him as less than human until she becomes deaf like Friday

Gender Roles

• Gender power dynamics are explored in the interactions between Susan and Cruso, alluding to domesticity, marriage roles, intercourse, and desire
• Cruso is portrayed as the "King" of the island, with his hut as his "castle"
• Susan subordinates herself, apologizing for various things and downplaying her contributions to Cruso's well-being
• A mock marriage scenario is presented, where Susan withholds retorts, remembering her vow
• After years of unquestioned mastery, Cruso's realm is invaded by a woman who sets tasks for him, leading him to keep a tighter rein on his tongue
• Gender stereotypes of male needs are accepted

Sex and Storytelling

• "I do not wish to hear of your desire,” said Cruso
• Acquiescing to Cruso's advances when he is ill on island involves pity, possible coercion/rape
• A philosophy of embracing chance, quick changes, and new voices is introduced
• Sex and storytelling are intertwined when they are on the rescue ship
• Possible stories and futures are offered to titillate a character, with offerings of her body
• Erotics of narrative, “This is our coupling: this swimming, this clambering, this whispering."

Susan's Story

• Susan insists on the importance of truth in her tale saying “If I cannot come forward, as an author, and swear to the truth of my tale, what will bet the worth of it?"
• Susan claims she is not an artists, has no “art”
• Authoring her own story is paramount to Susan
• Susan insists on her story telling truth, not lies
• Themes of fact, fiction, and lies
• "Their trade is in books, not in truth"
• There is a need for a man to grant rights to publish her work, with a plea for art in her letter recitation
• Susan expresses artistic expression in her imaginings, despite claiming to lack art

The Body of the Story

• "Return to me the substance I have lost, Mr. Foe: that is my entreaty/ For though my story gives the truth, it does not give the substance of the truth."
• Lacking "existence" and "substance," she describes herself as a "ghost"
• By having no story, she must write and invent herself
• Allusion to not having a body
• "Truth" is related to the body
• Body Part of authorship
• "How I wish it were in my power to help, Mr. Foe! Closing my eyes, I gather my strength and send out a vision of the island to hang before you like a substantial body, with birds and fleas and fish of all hue and lizards basking in the sun, flicking out their black tongues, and rock covered in barnacles, and rain drumming on the rooffronds, and wind, unceasing wind; so that it will there for you to draw on whenever you need it.”
• Susan feels unsubstantial without Foe's contribution, yet she offers a substantial narrative vision
• The human body and the ‘body' of a narrative are examined
• How is the body substantial
• Childbirth gives substance
• Male authors/Cruso have many strengths, but”invention” is not one, allusion to birth/procreation

Human Connection Versus Human Unintelligibility

• The narrative explores the complexities of human connection and the limitations of understanding, questioning the true motives behind attempts to educate or control others
• "I tell myself I talk to Friday to educate him out of darkness and silence. But is that the truth? There are times when benevolence deserts me and I use words only as the shortest way to subject him to my will."
• Friday's Music and Dance Scene
• Is Susan's attempt to 'educate' Friday benevolent, selfish, oppressive, or desperate?
• Susan Barton “And who is this child he sends us, this mad child? Does he send her as a sign? What is she a sign of?”
• Daughter/Doppelganger enters as writing accelerates
• Susan denies "girl” Susan is her daughter
• Susan writes and watches a girl from the window; Is she a stimulus or hindrance to artistry?
• Parallel names/identities
• Actual daughters share their mother’s identity through their DNA; have literally shared a body
• Daughter searching for mother is the “unwritten story”
• Susan redirects parentage to Cruso, declaring, “She is more your daughter than she ever was mine.”
• Disconnects creativity and procreativity
• Writes herself instead