The Novel as Ethical Command: J.M. Coetzee’s Foe

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that, in Foe (1986), Coetzee depicts the island setting as a site that transcends history and that this depiction self-reflexively points to the possibility of an autonomous mode of writing – that is, a form of writing which posits the other rather than history as an a priori. The depiction conceives of the novel as the event of the writing subject’s assumption of responsibility for the other; a performance of the ethical command through which the subject substitutes itself for the other. I maintain that it is through this alignment with the other that Foe, in a seeming paradox, posits the ability of literary writing to affect relations within history.

Opsomming

In hierdie artikel voer ek aan dat Coetzee in Foe (1986) die eilandagtergrond uitbeeld as ‘n terrein wat geskiedenis transendeer en dat hierdie uitbeelding selfrefleksief dui op ‘n outonome skryfwyse – dit is, ‘n skryfwyse wat die ander, eerder as ‘n geskiede­nis, as ‘n a priori postuleer. Dit stel die roman voor as die skryfsubjek se aanvaarding van verantwoordelikheid vir die ander; ‘n vervulling van die etiese opdrag waardeur die subjek sigself met die ander vervang. Ek voer aan dat Foe, in ‘n oënskynlike paradoks, deur hierdie gelykstelling met die ander, postuleer dat literêre skryf relasies binne die geskiedenis kan affekteer.