Foe

by

J. M. Coetzee

Foe Study Guide

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on J. M. Coetzee's Foe. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Brief Biography of J. M. Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee was born in South Africa, where he grew up during the height of racial apartheid; though his parents were Dutch and part of the larger Afrikaner community, Coetzee spoke English at home. After graduating from the University of Cape Town, Coetzee moved to the UK, where he supported himself as a computer programmer while writing an English master’s thesis. Coetzee then traveled to America for additional graduate study, eventually getting a professorship in upstate New York in 1968. Coetzee began writing around this time, publishing his first novel in 1974 and rising to international prominence in 1980 with Waiting for the Barbarians, a novel about the evils of colonialism. While teaching literature in Cape Town and across the U.S., Coetzee continued to write prolifically, publishing novels like The Life and Times of Michael K and Disgrace as well as several lightly fictionalized memoirs. In 2002, Coetzee moved to Australia, where he currently resides. He was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.
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Historical Context of Foe

Much of Coetzee’s work deals explicitly with anti-colonialism and exploitation, which is no surprise given the shaping force of apartheid on his life. “Apartheid” refers to a series of segregationist laws in South Africa that were in place from 1948 to 1994; under apartheid, Black people were forcibly removed from their homes, barred from voting, and restricted from use of most public spaces. One of the major ways in which white South Africans maintained their rule was by enforcing the use of Afrikaans as an official language, even though many Black South Africans did not know it. Friday’s racialized silence thus has extra layers of meanings in this apartheid context, especially since Coetzee was always a vocal advocate against his government’s violence and segregation. Foe was published in 1986, at the height of national uprisings against apartheid; some critics hailed it as an important work of protest, while others were frustrated that it was not explicit enough in its critique.

Other Books Related to Foe

Though Foe rewrites the narrative of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 book Robinson Crusoe—widely considered to be the first real novel ever written—there are several major plot differences in the two narratives. While Susan Barton is the narrator and protagonist of Coetzee’s work, no such character ever appears in Defoe’s novel. Though the island in Robinson Crusoe is full of cannibals and mutinies, the island Susan describes is empty and monotonous. And while author Daniel Defoe is not present in his 1719 novel, “Mr. Foe” is the titular character of Foe, which is focused primarily on who gets to claim ownership of what stories. Foe also stands alongside other postmodern, postcolonial revisions of classic texts, namely Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Maryse Condé’s I, Tituba.
Key Facts about Foe
  • Full Title: Foe
  • When Written: 1980s
  • Where Written: Cape Town, South Africa
  • When Published: 1986
  • Literary Period: Post-modernism
  • Genre: Novel
  • Setting: A deserted island in the Atlantic; the various London residencies of author Daniel Defoe
  • Climax: Against Susan Barton’s wishes to be the sole narrator of her time as a castaway, Mr. Foe tries to teach Susan’s servant Friday to write. 
  • Antagonist: Daniel Defoe
  • Point of View: Susan Barton is the novel’s first-person narrator until the final section, which breaks with the straightforward narrative to hover more ambiguously between Susan’s and Friday’s perspectives.

Extra Credit for Foe

Bonkers for Bookers. Coetzee was awarded England’s prestigious Booker Prize twice, first in 1983 for The Life and Times of Michael K and then again in 1999 for Disgrace. The win for Disgrace made Coetzee the first writer in history to have two Booker prizes (and to top it all off, he was shortlisted for the prize again in 2009 for his fictionalized memoir Summertime).

Coetzee and Costello. A character named Elizabeth Costello appears in three Coetzee novels (including the 2003 book Elizabeth Costello). Interestingly, just like Coetzee rewrites Robinson Crusoe from a woman’s perspective, the fictional Costello is famous for rewriting classics from the point of view of female characters. This similarity, along with the fact that both Coetzee and Costello live in Australia and are celebrated academics, has led many critics to believe that Elizabeth Costello is a fictional, literary alter-ego for Coetzee.