From Hole to Whole: Rethinking Friday’s Tonguelessness in Coetzee’s Foe

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In J. M. Coetzee’s Foe, Friday’s tonguelessness has been interpreted as a symptom of a victim/subaltern. As a victim/subaltern, Friday is often thought to symbolize a lack, which cannot be filled or represented through language. Thus, Friday’s tonguelessness has been considered to be a “hole” of the text, not only by Susan Barton but also by many postcolonial critics. However, what Friday’s tongueless mouth signifies is, this essay argues, by no means simple; instead, analyzing its significances presents a wholly different reading of Daniel Defoe’s canonical work as well as Coetzee’s text. According to this rereading, Friday’s tonguelessness, symbolized as the sunken ship the unnamed narrator of the final part dives into, reveals the hidden, painful, history of slavery and the Middle Passage. What Friday’s silence “speaks” disrupts the seemingly solid groundwork upon which Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and the western colonization and canonization have relied. This unburied truth of slave trade and colonization revises the sugar-coated stories of adventure and exploration, whether in literary canons or orthodox histories.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 MacLeod, Lewis, "‘Do We of Necessity Become Puppets in a Story?’ or Narrating the World: On Speech, Silence, and Discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe" 52 (52): 1-18, 2006

2 Bethlehem, Louise, "‘A Primary Need as Strong as Hunger’: The Rhetoric of Urgency in South African Literary Culture under Apartheid" 22 (22): 365-389, 2001

3 Parry, Benita, "Writing South Africa" Cambridge University Press 149-165, 1998

4 Chapman, Michael, "The Writing of Politics and the Politics of Writing: On Reading Dovey on Reading Lacan on Reading Coetzee on Reading . . . (?)" 4 (4): 327-341, 1988

5 Ashcroft, Bill, "The Empire Writes Back" Routledge 1989

6 JanMohamed, Abdul R., "The Economy of Manichean Allegory: The Function of Racial Difference in Colonialist Literature" 12 : 59-87, 1985

7 Rickel, Jennifer, "Speaking of Human Rights: Narrative Voice and the Paradox of the Unspeakable in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and Disgrace" 43 : 160-185, 2013

8 Defoe, Daniel, "Robinson Crusoe" Norton 1975

9 Macaskill, Brian, "Reading History, Writing Heresy:The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe" 33 : 432-457, 1992

10 Silvani, Roman, "Political Bodies and the Body Politic in J. M. Coetzee’s Novels" LIT 2012

11 Vaughan, Michael, "Literature and Politics: Currents in South African Writing in the Seventies" 9 : 118-138, 1982

12 Attwell, David, "J. M. Coetzee’s Austerities" Ashgate 163-176, 2010

13 Marais, Michael, "From the Standpoint of Redemption: Aesthetic Autonomy and Social Engagement in J. M. Coetzee’s Fiction and the Late Apartheid Period" 38 : 229-248, 2008

14 Coetzee, John Maxwell, "Foe" Penguin 1986

15 Coetzee, John Maxwell, "Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews" Harvard University Press 1992

16 Rich, Adrienne, "Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972" Norton 1972

17 Dovey, Teresa, "Critical Essays on J. M. Coetzee" G. K. Hall and Co 18-28, 1998

18 Korang, Kwaku Larbi, "Critical Essays on J. M. Coetzee" G. K. Hall and Co 180-197, 1998

19 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, "Consequences of Theory, edited by Jonathan Arac and Barbara Johnson" Johns Hopkins University Press 154-180, 1991

20 Rich, Paul, "Apartheid and the Decline of the Civilization Idea: An Essay on Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People and J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians" 15 : 365-393, 1984