Foe

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1986

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Themes

Stories and Agency

Foe explores the relationship between stories and agency. The novel is presented as a story within a story, as Susan’s experiences are written up in a manuscript, which is then sent to Foe. The debate about how to write this story becomes a question of agency, in which Susan argues for her right to tell her story in her own way. She tells Foe that she is “a free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire” (131), and in a society that disenfranchises her because she is a woman, she wants to retain some control over her story and thus her life. Through her letters to Foe, Susan expresses concern that he is trying to manipulate her story to become more appealing to mass audiences. By Part 3, she is accusing him of inventing a daughter so that her broader story can have a happy ending. Susan rejects Foe’s attempts to rewrite her story. She does not believe that he should have the right to alter the facts about her life. The truth of what happened to her on the island and the truth about herself, Cruso, and Friday are fundamental explorations of human nature, she believes. To alter these would be to deny these people’s existences. Susan wants to tell her story in her way as a means of asserting agency in a world that—as Foe demonstrates—constantly attempts to deprive her of any control over her life.

By the end of Part 3, however, Susan has made the ultimate editorial decision about her story. She no longer believes herself to be the subject of a story worth telling. As she explains to Foe, the real story about the island is one that tells the tale of Friday’s tongue, as it is a way to describe the true nature of the world. If Susan is denied agency because of her gender, then Friday is a living example of the brutal ways in which British colonial violence denies agency to non-white peoples. Friday’s tongue has been torn out, which Susan believes is a metaphor for an even more “atrocious mutilation” (119). Ironically, Susan’s decision to surrender her status as the story’s protagonist is an act of agency, in which she deliberately cedes the spotlight to someone who has suffered more than her. She strives to give a voice to the voiceless, empathizing with Friday’s brutal disenfranchisement because she has suffered in a similar fashion. She does not just want Friday’s story to be told, but she wants Friday to be the person to tell it. This process may be difficult, but Susan has come to believe that the telling of stories is the only way in which to assert agency in a society that seeks to deny agency to minorities and those deemed to be on the periphery.

Foe is also an example of metafiction, a story that consciously draws attention to its own status as a story. By intertwining the narrative with the famous novel Robinson Cruso, Foe creates a deliberate juxtaposition between which stories are being told, and why, as a way to illustrate who has agency. In the original novel, the white British Robinson Cruso is the protagonist. His equivalent in Foe, Cruso, dies in Part 1, while Friday is given greater prominence, and Susan is invented wholesale to provide a different perspective on Crusoe himself. The novel explores the relationship between stories and agencies by showing the reader the power gained from the right to tell one’s story. As Susan gains authority as a narrator, she gains agency in the real world. Her desire to tell her story becomes the story itself, as she then extends this desire for agency to Friday, too.

Different Perspectives

Foe presents a world of competing perspectives. The foremost perspective among these is that of Susan Barton, whose narration alters significantly between the first three parts of the novel. In Part 1, she is writing a rough manuscript to tell her story to Foe. She hopes that her perspective as a female castaway will be popular enough to make her rich and famous. In Part 2, she writes a series of letters to the seemingly absent Foe as she sinks into desperate financial straits and wrangles with her newfound desire to tell stories. In Part 3, Susan’s narration switches to a more traditional style. It is literary narration, no longer conditioned on a specific format. This is Susan’s authorial perspective, revealing her to be a true writer and teller of stories. In Part 4, the perspective switches dramatically. An unnamed narrator observes Susan lying in bed beside Foe. The formerly traditional narration is set aside in favor of a more abstract, symbolic exploration of Friday’s relationship to stories and suffering. This evolution of narrative style illustrates Susan’s changing perspective. At first, she lays herself bare for someone else to tell her story. Then, she realizes that this person may abandon her and that she must take control of her own narrative. In Part 3, she does exactly that before ceding the perspective of the story to Friday in Part 4.

Since Foe is a metafictional reworking of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the change in perspective creates an immediate juxtaposition between the two works. Crusoe, the protagonist in Defoe’s novel, is portrayed from Susan’s perspective. From her point of view, Cruso is not heroic or admirable. He is a strange and lonely man, a bleak figure whose deep inner turmoil eventually causes her to pity him. The brutality of his actions and his hidden regrets are entirely absent from Defoe’s narrative; Susan and Defoe/Foe differ on their views of how to portray Crusoe/Cruso, as their fundamentally contrasting perspectives on the world cause them to relate differently to the castaway. Susan’s pity for Cruso contrasts with Defoe’s veneration of him. Susan’s experiences as a woman and her knowledge of the pain suffered by Friday mean that she can never view Cruso as Defoe viewed him; her different lived experiences grant her a different perspective that means that the story she will tell can never align with the original story. Cruso and Crusoe are the same character, seen from different perspectives.

While Susan wants to limit the scope of her story to events on the island, Foe wants to expand the narrative to include the search for her child. Susan rejects Foe’s desire to reframe her story, as she believes that her other experiences are irrelevant. At the same time, however, Cruso’s own perspective is lost. He never kept a journal nor told Susan about his experiences. The only person who witnessed what happened to Cruso on the island is the one character who cannot speak. Friday’s perspective becomes important, not only because of his experiences and memories but also because his ability to relate his perspective has been forcibly removed. The removal of his tongue only convinces Susan that Friday’s perspective should be shared with the world. More than anyone, Friday has the right to tell Cruso’s story. Foe’s manipulation of the story is cast aside, while Susan’s limited experiences with Cruso pale in comparison to whatever Friday has suffered at Cruso’s hand. In this sense, Friday’s perspective becomes an important allegory for the millions of people who were taken from Africa in violent circumstances and enslaved. Susan has to fight to justify why her perspective as a woman and as a storyteller is justified and then why Friday’s perspective as an enslaved person, a Black man, and a victim is worth telling.

Legacies and Parenthood

Susan does not share many details about her search for her daughter. She believes that her daughter was kidnapped and taken to the Americas. After a fruitless search in Brazil, Susan accepts that she may never be reunited with her daughter. In this state of grief, she returns to England and—at this point and in this emotional state—is set adrift in a boat and forced to become a castaway. After arriving on the island and meeting Cruso and Friday, Susan cannot help but think about her future. She believes that they will be rescued somehow, even if Cruso’s years on the island make him believe that this is unlikely. Susan thinks about the future, and her plans for her return to England speak to the way in which she hopes to fill the huge emotional void left in her life by the absence of her daughter. Susan’s daughter was her legacy, a way of continuing herself beyond the end of her own life. Her daughter was the latest chapter in a story that has been told across generations. Since Susan has lost her daughter, her feelings as a mother fixate on the idea of stories themselves. Her story effectively replaces her missing child; she devotes herself to the telling of the story, driving herself into desperate poverty in her attempt to petition Foe to help her write the novel rather than continuing with her life in some fashion. Just as Susan crossed an ocean to find her daughter, she sinks into poverty to find her story and, by association, a meaningful legacy she can leave behind. Additionally, Susan takes on some of Cruso’s legacy through her possession of Friday, whom she hopes to see freed. While Friday is an adult, he is, in slave-trading 18th-century Britain, at greater risk without her. As such, Friday becomes her purpose in the way that her daughter had also been.

Cruso’s view of legacy sharply contrasts with Susan. While Susan seeks a way to fill a void left in her life by a missing child, Cruso seeks to punish himself. He does not view himself worthy of a literary legacy; a journal would only extend his suffering and open him up to the judgment of history. As such, he accepts his fate and his confinement to the island. His isolation is his legacy, and all he seeks to leave behind is the set of stone terraces. Cruso lugs thousands of stones into place, but not for himself. The terraces are intended for the people who come after, supposedly long after Cruso is dead. They will have seeds, he says, as they will be better prepared. Their preparation is not just administrative but moral. They will be more deserving of the terraces and the potential bounty of the island. Cruso, whose many sins may include the cutting out of Friday’s tongue in his career as an enslaver, actively seeks to erase himself from history. He leaves behind a better world, he believes, in the form of the terraces, but he does not want to be remembered.

Friday represents a very different relationship with parenthood. Susan alludes to the way in which the violent removal of Friday’s tongue hints at a much more brutal castration that has taken place. In this way, Friday’s potential as a parent has been forcibly taken from him in an act of brutal colonial violence. Friday is denied agency in the ultimate fashion, robbed of the ability to procreate so that he will be a more amenable enslaved person. The same racist, imperialist, colonialist attitudes that deny him humanity and agency mean that there is no punishment for the mutilation or castration of enslaved people. These attitudes deny Friday a legacy and place an end point on thousands of generations in the name of profit. Susan, understanding what it means to lose a child, wants to give Friday the opportunity to make a future, even if it is only in story form. When she announces her desire to tell the story of Friday’s tongue, she is blending together her desire and Friday’s suffering. Friday’s story becomes Susan’s legacy and Cruso’s condemnation. The legacy they will leave behind will be a critique of colonial violence in the starkest terms. None of the characters will have a child, but the future generations of children will benefit from the story that has been told.