ENG3705
Assignment 2
DUE 14 July 2025
, ENG3705
Assignment 2
DUE 14 July 2025
2 Response Provided
Response 1:
Questioning Narrative Authority and the Politics of Silence
Introduction: Disrupting Canonical Narratives
J.M. Coetzee’s Foe offers more than a postmodern rewriting of Robinson Crusoe; it
functions as a decolonial literary intervention that dismantles the authority of dominant
Eurocentric narratives. By foregrounding the marginalised voices of Susan Barton and
Friday, Coetzee interrogates authorship, representation, and the ethics of storytelling.
Challenging the Master Narrative
The notion of "grand narratives" (Lyotard, 1984) is essential to understanding Foe.
Coetzee resists the Enlightenment ideal embedded in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe—a text
that valorises the civilising mission of the colonial subject. In Foe, Cruso is
disempowered and disinterested in knowledge production, which subverts the image of
the rational, heroic European man. This subversion reflects what Said (1993) identifies
as the "cracks" in imperial discourse, where the power of the coloniser begins to falter.
Susan Barton and the Ethics of Mediation
Susan’s inability to fully articulate Friday’s story foregrounds the limits of empathetic
representation. Her struggle reflects Spivak’s (1988) question: “Can the subaltern
speak?” Even when Susan attempts to restore Friday’s narrative agency, she
unwittingly reinforces a hierarchy of voice. Her failure becomes a metaphor for the
complicity of well-meaning liberalism in maintaining structures of silence and
misrepresentation.
Assignment 2
DUE 14 July 2025
, ENG3705
Assignment 2
DUE 14 July 2025
2 Response Provided
Response 1:
Questioning Narrative Authority and the Politics of Silence
Introduction: Disrupting Canonical Narratives
J.M. Coetzee’s Foe offers more than a postmodern rewriting of Robinson Crusoe; it
functions as a decolonial literary intervention that dismantles the authority of dominant
Eurocentric narratives. By foregrounding the marginalised voices of Susan Barton and
Friday, Coetzee interrogates authorship, representation, and the ethics of storytelling.
Challenging the Master Narrative
The notion of "grand narratives" (Lyotard, 1984) is essential to understanding Foe.
Coetzee resists the Enlightenment ideal embedded in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe—a text
that valorises the civilising mission of the colonial subject. In Foe, Cruso is
disempowered and disinterested in knowledge production, which subverts the image of
the rational, heroic European man. This subversion reflects what Said (1993) identifies
as the "cracks" in imperial discourse, where the power of the coloniser begins to falter.
Susan Barton and the Ethics of Mediation
Susan’s inability to fully articulate Friday’s story foregrounds the limits of empathetic
representation. Her struggle reflects Spivak’s (1988) question: “Can the subaltern
speak?” Even when Susan attempts to restore Friday’s narrative agency, she
unwittingly reinforces a hierarchy of voice. Her failure becomes a metaphor for the
complicity of well-meaning liberalism in maintaining structures of silence and
misrepresentation.
