The Construction Of The Characters’ Identity From The Perspective Of Narratologies In Coetzee’s Foe

Foe, the postmodern novel, is the fifth novel of J. M. Coetzee, a South African writer, who was honored with the Nobel Prize for literature in2003. In a sense, Foe overturns and reconstructs Daniel Defoe’s classic masterpiece Robinson Crusoe. In the novel, Coetzee takes the opposite approach, the female first-person narration, to reproduce a postmodern island story from the female point of view. What’s more, Coetzee does not only change Crusoe’s inherent image in Robinson Crusoe, rewrites Defoe’s first name, describes his strait living condition, but also reestablishes Friday into a person who struggles against the cultural colonization of the Empire in his voiceless performance. However, as an anonymous "I" sneaks into the text, the female voice is silenced.Based on the theory of narratologies, the thesis analyzes the characters from both perspectives:the story and the discourse with the consideration of gender and race to explore author’s intention. The thesis is made up of three parts:the first part is the introduction which briefly introduces Coetzee, his works and the literature review; the second part is the main body of the thesis, including the theory of narratology which especially emphasizes on the feminist narratology, the explanation of identity construction from the perspective of the story and the discourse; the third part is the conclusion, which provides a precise summery of the thesis.Chapter one constructs theoretical framework:narratology. The western structuralist narratology, started from the1960s to the early1980s, has been defined as the classic narratology, which focuses itself on the text and separates the relation between the text and history, society and culture. Its research mainly involves two perspectives:story and discourse. The former one referring to the expressing objects studies on the events and characters; the latter one referring to the forms of expression emphasizes on diverse ways of expression. Since the late1980s, a new kind of disciplinary school has immerged, which is the school of post-classic narratology. It broadens narratology scope with concerning application analysis, thus encourages and stimulates the feminist narratology to come into being.Chapter two aims to establish and construct the identity of the marginal and peripheral from the perspective of the story. What Defoe’s Robinson does on that desert island is a miniature of the colonial expansion of the capitalism, but Coetzee in the novel Foe not only revises Crusoe’s original image in Robinson Crusoe, but also rewrites Daniel Defoe’s surname to its original one as Foe, the purpose of which, of course, is self-evident. In Coetzee’s Foe, Cruso is a self-opinionated, willful old man who idles and loiters away his life on the island, producing nothing to maintain his life on that island, but his dead terrace shows and testifies that there have at least been some traces of human’s existence. Meanwhile, Coetzee seems to revise not only the contented and comfortable living condition created by Crusoe himself to a seemingly authentic harsh, gloomy and barren island, but also the only daily food for the inhabitants have to be depended on Friday’ primitive way of fishing, hence providing readers a keen contrast between Defoe’s desert island life and that of Coetzee’s. Besides, Coetzee also rewrites Friday as the one who loses his tongue and adds a female narrator in the story to confront the traditional situation that female and the black people are speechless in front of the white male, subverting the patriarchy society.Chapter three tempts to analyze the whole structure of the text and the dialogues between characters embedded in the novel to expound and elaborate the author’s intention from the level of the discourse. It analyzes the narrative strategies Coetzee adopted in the novel Foe to reveal the author’s intention that it is difficult for the marginal to voice themselves under the domination of patriarchy. Apart from Susan’s narration marked by single quotation marks, there exist a lot of dialogues, which helps develop characters and reflects their unique ideas. In addition to that, Friday expresses his consciousness with his body language. In some degree, it is sure to dispel the power of the patriarchy society.In a word, analyzing and deconstructing the center from the marginal reveals that Coetzee is full of humanistic concern about the marginal. However, he does not utilize the female version to replace the male one because it is impossible to dissolve the confrontation between the male and female, the white and black. The novel Foe disinters the phenomenon of the female voice being pressed by the patriarchy and its process of being silenced. Meanwhile, Friday’s resistance vanishes with his body sinking in the bottom of the sea. Both aspects highlight the authority of the unbreakable patriarchy, revealing the difficulty of voicing the marginal. Even though what it is, the endeavor that Coetzee did in the Novel Foe by constructing characters, Susan and Friday, to struggle against patriarchy is also impressive.