Who is little Susan?

The previous discussion about little Susan is one that Coetzee never really addresses. It seems like she is just an accessory in the story, but her true role and representation is left up to the reader to decipher and interpret as they will. One individual posted that little Susan may represent those things that we do not accept as our own. Normally, we look at our children as reflections of ourselves, but big Susan is appalled by the thought of little Susan being hers. We don’t ever truly learn who little Susan is but it begs the question, who is the little girl’s father? Does she have a father? Why would Coetzee fail to mention the father in the telling of this story when so much of the story has masculine-dominated undertones? Is the father important to the story or, like so many other aspects of the story, lost within the web of Susan’s reality?

Quotations

The last discussion board on Foe was so interesting…everyone found such insightful quotations from the book.  There are so many more quotes in Foe that are rich in context and meaning, they just didn’t have to do with the topic we were discussing, so I wanted to add another one:

In this part of the book, Susan seeks out Mr. Foe and says,

“‘If I may have a moment of your time: I am seeking a new situation.’ ‘So we are all seeking a new situation,’ [Mr. Foe] replied.”

I found this quote particularly interesting because throughout the book, it seems that Susan constantly finds herself in a “new situation”.  She moves to Brazil in search of her daughter, she is cast away on an island with two men, she finds Mr. Foe and becomes his lover.  It seems as if Susan really is seeking out these situations, even though she seems she is not asking to be put in them.  Mr. Foe cleverly responds that we are all seeking a new situation, which makes me think that even though Susan did not ask to be placed in the situations she was, maybe it was her true desire to escape from the boring, mundane life … maybe I am reaching too far out there, but there are always people that claim to not want things, but things always happen to them anyways.  They are just that type of person.  Maybe Susan was that type of person.

Some more thoughts on Foe…

One thing I found very interesting about Foe was that Coetzee decided to make the main character a woman.  If anyone has already read Robinson Crusoe, they will recall that there were no women present in the book at all.  Some could say that, in fact, the woman was the island – the way that Robinson Crusoe loved it, and almost worshipped it.  When Susan Barton came to the island in the book Foe, Cruso pretty much did nothing but scorn her.  He treated her as a burden and a nuisance.  Now, if any man had been stuck on an island for years and years with only another man to keep him company, wouldn’t you say that the man would be fairly pleased to see a woman, and try nothing else but to (For lack of a better word) “woo” her?  I would think that would be how nature takes place, but not in Coetzee’s island.

Susan Barton: Independent Woman or Slave to Men?

Susan Barton is an enigmatic character in Foe. On the one hand, she appears as a strong, independent woman, while at the same time, she allows herself to be used by Cruso. In the book, she relays her reasoning for submitting to Cruso’s advances in bed:
“I pushed his hand away and made to rise, but he held me. No doubt I might have freed myself, for I was stronger than he. But I thought, He has not known a woman for fifteen years, why should he not have his desire? So I resisted no more but let him do as he wished” (p. 30). In this regard, she seems to value his feelings more than her own.

The Idea of Perception

An interesting quotation from Foe that I found is said by Susan in one of the letters she writes to Foe. She writes, “Does it surprise you as much as it does me, this correspondence between things as they are and
the pictures we have of them in our minds?”(p. 65). I think this quotation is pertinent to our discussions in class. The idea of deception and not truly knowing both play a role in dominance. How do individuals in power keep their power? By keeping the rest of the population ignorant or concealed from the truth. Perhaps Coetzee was trying to make the population less ignorant by posing these elements of dominance in a story format. Really, if you think about it, he could have written this book as an essay in far less time. I am thinking that there was a reason he chose to write it as a story and not as an essay on society.

Friday and Computer-Mediated Learning

We have had much discussion on the board about whether Friday was capable of learning or not. As I was pondering this idea, I wondered what would happen to Friday’s character, if the plot of Foe were to occur in the present day–Would Friday still prove to be unteachable? The reason why I’m willing to speculate that he would be able to and would desire to learn is, because computer-mediated learning has opened up avenues that reluctant learners and communicators can access and participate in without the additional social pressures imposed by face-to-face learning environments. It has become commonplace to take online courses and discourse is possible with people from all over the world, whether through email, blogs, discussion boards, webcams, etc. The pathways through which people can communicate with each other abound with computer facilitation. I find it hard to conceive that Friday would not have been able to find some motivating prospect that this technology could not offer him. As a result of further learning, Friday’s character may have been able to develop into a stronger character and gain the courage and/or knowledge of how to express how he came to have no tongue.

Some Thoughts on Foe…

I am still hung up on this book Foe…

Cruso spends his days building terraces for a civilization that he believes some day will come, but yet, he puts no stock in developing Friday’s communication skills. It is as if Cruso is taking the power of language off the words that we use to express ourselves and rather looking at language as merely a physical demonstration. I too question who cut off Friday’s tongue. I don’t believe it was Friday, not because I have any real proof from the story, but rather, that I choose to hope someone would not be pushed to such measures in order to “preserve” themselves and their culture.

I thought the presentation of the two Susan Bartons was very interesting. The two Susan Bartons I felt were used by Coetzee to show the reader the power of labels. That girl very well could be just some girl from the street. Yet, you give her the name Susan Barton and all of a sudden she “becomes” Susan Barton. At one point in the book, Susan even says, “Friday has no command of words and therefore no defence against being re-shaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others. I say he is a cannibal and he becomes a cannibal; I say he is a laundryman and he becomes a laundryman”(p. 121). I feel Susan has a bit of an obsession with expressing herself in words. She is desperate to have her story told as SHE wishes it to be told; she has an obsession with Friday’s inability to speak and, in her eyes, defend himself against the labels others would wish to attach to him.

I also noticed several times in the book the idea of “holes” were mentioned. Susan felt there was a hole in her narrative about her time on the island. She had a beginning and an end, but she feels that there are a lot of holes in the middle of the story of her time on the island. Susan and Foe also have a discussion towards the end of the book where they discuss whether the holes that Susan sees in Friday’s word knowledge are indeed holes or whether they are merely her view of Friday as someone who should be held in subjection. If you think about it, we could all say that there are certain holes in the stories that occur in our lives and also in our own word knowledge. Yet, this point does not mean that one person should be held in higher regard than the next.

Discussion Boards as a Teaching Tool

I have been very surprised and excited to learn about all the different ways that online applications can help individuals in the second language classroom. In this post, I am going to focus on discussion boards and their relevance to our teaching in the classroom. When I first began taking online courses, I was not sure what I was supposed to gain from posting on a discussion board. I understood that it was supposed to “take the place” of in-person dialogues but I did not recognize the unseen benefits of having to write down my comments. By writing down my comments, it really caused me to have to reflect on other people’s posts and how my response related to the discussion that was developing. Writing on a discussion board also gives me the ability to go back and re-read others’ posts and thereby drawing multi-layered connections amongst the dialogues created within the class. Thus, as a learner, the discussion board allowed me the opportunity to reflect on my learning and my own knowledge as well as draw connections between my thoughts and those of others in the class. I feel discussion boards would be an excellent scaffolding tool to allow students acquiring a second language to reflect on their own thoughts, how to express them, and a resource to help guide their discussions by using the previous posts of other people in the class.

Comprehension in a Second Language

Comprehending:  Comprehending in a second language is an interesting topic.  At a recent high school observation of a French class, I found that for many language teachers, there is a fine line between having meaningful, authentic (accent and speed of speech) conversation and being understood by your students.  The particular teacher I was observing had a perfect, near native French accent and spoke rapidly, much like you would find people in Paris speaking.  For the students, this can be a good and a bad thing – they will move ahead in listening comprehension quickly because the teacher challenges them so much.  But, there were several times during each class period when a student would say, “Can you repeat that, please?” It was not because they don’t understand French.  I have studied French for almost 11 years, and I know he was speaking much too quickly for a second level French class.  But where do teachers draw that line?  They must find a good middle ground…where they can say phrases that are very common more quickly, because the students are familiar with them, and speak slowly when talking about more complex topics with new vocabulary.  Teachers must be mindful of this.

Stories within Stories

Did anyone else notice how there seemed to be stories told within other stories in the book Foe? We had the story of Cruso and Friday being abandoned on the island, then enters Susan with her story about how she ends up on the island. Next, we have the possible stories of how Friday may have lost his tongue. Furthermore, there is the story of Foe and his having to leave his house and the various stories Susan and Foe exchange with each other (e.g. “the old man of the river”) in an attempt to have themselves better understood. Now, this is nothing out of the ordinary. We all have our own stories in life and we manage to come in contact with other individuals without too much trouble. What I seemed to notice, however, is that in Foe there is never any real acknowledgement of each other’s story. Foe never really acknowledges Susan’s story (he instead wants to change and alter it into a different story). Cruso and Susan’s stories never really intertwine themselves, because Cruso keeps such a distance between himself and Susan. Friday’s story never intertwines with anyone’s because he cannot communicate it and/or no one is listening. It just seemed to me that despite everyone having their own individual story to be told, no one actually was able to tell it because of the great divides between them.