Thinking activity: Dino Daan by Rabindranath Tagore

 Pre-independence Literature Dino Daan by Rabindranath Tagore

Hello Readers,

Here I'm going to write a blog on the poem Dino Daan by Rabindranath Tagore . So, let's begin…

 

Dino Daan by Rabindranath Tagore

There is no god in the temple….

Said the royal attendant, “Despite entreaties, king,

The finest hermit, best among men, refuses shelter

In your temple of gold, he is singing to god

Beneath a tree by the road. The devout surround him

In numbers large, their overflowing tears of joy

Rinse the dust off the earth. The temple, though,

Is all but deserted; just as bees abandon

The gilded honeypot when maddened by the fragrance

Of the flower to swiftly spread their wings

And fly to the petals unfurling in the bush

To quench their eager thirst, so too are people,

Sparing not a glance for the palace of gold,

Thronging to where a flower in a devout heart

Spreads heaven’s incense. On the bejewelled platform

The god sits alone in the empty temple.”

At this,

The fretful king dismounted from his throne to go

Where the hermit sat beneath the tree. Bowing, he said,

“My lord, why have you forsaken god’s mighty abode,

The royal construction of gold that pierces the sky,

To sing paeans to the divine here on the streets?’

“There is no god in that temple,” said the hermit.

Furious,

The king said, “No god! You speak like a godless man,

Hermit. A bejewelled idol on a bejewelled throne,

You say it’s empty?”

“Not empty, it holds royal arrogance,

You have consecrated yourself, not the god of the world.”

Frowning, said the king, “You say the temple I made

With twenty lakh gold coins, reaching to the sky,

That I dedicated to the deity after due rituals,

This impeccable edifice – it has no room for god!”

Said the tranquil hermit, “The year when the fires

Raged and rendered twenty thousand subjects

Homeless, destitute; when they came to your door

With futile pleas for help, and sheltered in the woods,

In caves, in the shade of trees, in dilapidated temples,

When you constructed your gold-encrusted building

With twenty lakh gold coins for a deity, god said,

‘My eternal home is lit with countless lamps

In the blue, infinite sky; its everlasting foundations

Are truth, peace, compassion, love. This feeble miser

Who could not give homes to his homeless subjects

Expects to give me one!’ At that moment god left

To join the poor in their shelter beneath the trees.

As hollow as the froth and foam in the deep wide ocean

Is your temple, just as bereft beneath the universe,

A bubble of gold and pride.”

Flaring up in rage

The king said, “You false deceiver, leave my kingdom

This instant.”

Serenely the hermit said to him,

“You have exiled the one who loves the devout.

Now send the devout into the same exile, king.”

The poem is about a sage who tells a king that the temple which has been built with "two million gold coins" does not have a God inside. Upon hearing this, the king gets angry, calls him an atheist, and asks if such a grand temple could be empty. The sage then reminds the king that it was wrong on his part to spend the riches in building a temple in the same year when the people of his kingdom were struck by a calamity and had nothing for themselves.

1) The poem was written 120 years (approx.). Can you find any resemblance between the poem and the pandemic time? 

we find the resemblance between the poem and the pandemic.The poem talks about the conversation between the king and the hermit. Now it talks about the relevance of Ram Mandir, when our Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid down the first bricks of the much-contested Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In the same manners of people are dying due to corona. Hospital has no bed, no oxygen cylinder and so many people meet death lack of doctors that time our kind was busy with making of that temple.Still others have questioned the need to perform such a ceremony at a time when the country is fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

2) Why do you think the King is angry with the Sage?

In the poem the King is angry with the sage because the sage is speaking about the harsh reality of the society and of the temple. 

3) Why do you think the Sage refuses to enter the temple?

The sage knew that when the people needed shelter, the king refused them to give shelter. At the same time the king thought that the sage would come to the temple because it is built with gold. No, God is not in any so-called golden temple. No God is in humanity, in compassion not in any temple. The sage is the true devotee of God. That’s why he refuses to enter the temple. 

Serenely the hermit said to him,

“You have exiled the one who loves the devout.

Now send the devout into the same exile, king.”

The sage said that by exiling people you also exiled God. Now I am a devotee of them and so exiled him also because God is not in the temple.

4) Can there be any connection between the text of the poem and the verdict of Ayodhya Ram Mandir?  

Yes , we can find the connection between them.In the poem, a saint reminds the king that he turned away from helping the suffering poor even as he built the temple at a cost of 2 million gold coins.In the course of the conversation, the saint reminds the king that the poor masses were left devastated without food or shelter in a recent drought. At the time, the king had turned them away when they sought help but he is now glad to spend his gold on the grand temple.

The English translation of a 120-year-old poem by Nobel laureate and freedom fighter Rabindranath Tagore is going viral on social media, a day after the groundbreaking ceremony for the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. While the event, which was led by PM Narendra Modi, has been celebrated by many, several others have expressed their grief at what this means for the secular fabric of the country. So this connection we find between the poem and Ayodhya Mandir.

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The Final Solutions : Movie Adaptation by Mahesh Dattani

 Thinking activity: 'The Final Solutions' movie adaptation by Mahesh Dattani

Hello readers,

Here I'm going to write a blog on 'The Final Solutions' by Mahesh Dattani in response to the answers to the question of this thinking activity. So, let's begin…

Final Solution by Mahesh Dattani

 

In the play Final Solutions, Dattani represents the three female characters – Hardika, Smita and Aruna. He adopts an innovative narrative technique and the major dramatic events float through the consciousness of Hardika, the grandmother in Gandhian family. The dramatic conflict springs and develops through the reflection of Hardika whose consciousness remains rooted in the horrible events of partition that took place forty years back. The dramatic narration shifts between the present to 31st March 1948 when Hardika, the grandmother was a young girl of 14, known as Daksha and in her reflections she concludes that nothing as has changed and prejudices of communalism are haunting their consciousness continuously. In her diary entry, she mentions: 

After forty years … I opened my diary again. And I wrote a dozen pages before. A dozen pages now. A young girl childish scribble. An oldman’s shaky scrawl, yes the things have not changed that much. (Act I)

In Final Solutions, Dattani represents the female characters like Hardika, Smita and Aruna. They make realization that women are not a shadow of male. Today woman is making her spaces. She has a better understanding of realization of identity both inside and outside the family. A woman of liberal ideology views the situation as an individual and constructs the image of life beyond the specified ideology of religious and community-based prejudices. She retains the power to change the conventional thinking and to make better realization of her hidden potentials. She wants to take decision for herself and if it is right she can protest against those agencies who are responsible for her sublimation.The post-modern ideology suggested the way of interpreting the life condition beyond the set patterns of ideologies. It accepts that human experiences are persistently in a state of flux and it’s set pattern of ideologies becomes a burden for the free growth of the individual. In this new method of literary investigation, the feminist ideologies have also undergone a drastic change. It is not confined only to defend the cause of female emancipation and the spaces for the economic and social security of woman. The post-feminist interrogations of the female identity and female roles aim at the deconstruction of the constructed patriarchal structure. It has provided a wider canvas to construct the voice of women in family, society, professional life and personal relationship.In post-feminists phase of feminism, female identity and female consciousness to assert their voice has been reflected in the diverse ways. Her individual strength helps her to express her potential in social, patriarchal and personal spaces.

Feminine consciousness focusing to restore a position in the process of social justice. According to Mahesh Dattani a woman has the equal sensibility and better realization of feelings.

In Final Solutions, beyond the contentions of traditional language, he constructs the language of wounded psyche sharing the burden of communal hatred. Alyque Padmasee as a director of the play tried to investigate the hidden motive of the play and comments:

As I see it, this is a play about transferred resentment. About looking for a scope goal to hit out when we feel let down humiliated. Taking your anger on your wife, children, or servants is an old Indian custom. This is above all a play about a family with its simmering undercurrents.” (Padmasee : 161)

In Daksha’s reflections and recollections of Diaries, Dattani exposes inner world of individuals encountering tensions and conflicts of personal relationships. She recollects the memories of her husband Hari and the friend Zarine. She also feels nostalgic for the melodious songs of Noor Jahan. In Final Solutions, Dattani uses two time spaces to indicate the construction of collective consciousness. Disrupting, Hardika’s flow of consciousness, Smita appears with the rumours of bombing the Muslim Hostel where her Muslim friend Tasneem live. The violence erupted after the sabotage of Hindu Rath Yatra. Curfew was clamped in the city. Ramnik, the father tries to divert the attention by a casual remark, “Wait a minute. That wasn’t a bomb.

Smita, Gandhi’s daughter talks to her friend Tasneem whose hostel was the centre of blast. Smita, a girl of liberal ideology views the whole situation as an individual and constructs an ideology beyond the ideology of religious and racial prejudices. She reveals her feeling to her mother:

It stifles me! yes! May be I am prejudiced because I do not belong. But not belonging makes things so clear. I can see so clearly how wrong you are. You accuse me running away from my religion. May be I am embraced, Mummy. (Act III, 57)

It signifies that feminine psyche is more sensitive to the issue of partition. In the second Act, Dattani within the texture of Final Solutions, constructs the psychology of prejudice, contempt, anger and rescue that is an integral aspect of community consciousness. Javed took revenge upon neighbours by dropping pieces of meat in his backyard. The incident robbed him of his own insecurity of life conditions. The individual anger becomes a part of the anger of community as a whole and its cumulative effects can become a burden to the solidarity of nation.

Dattani, through the confession of different characters, assert that they might sacrifice their communal identity. Ramnik fails to see Javed as a sensitive youth turned into a rioter by ill luck till Bobby gives him the truthful account of Javed. In his dramatic narration, Bobby unfolds the past of Javed. Besides of presenting the psychology of Javed and Bobby, Mahesh Dattani in expressing religious fanaticism constructs mob psychology also. Mob has its own cruel psychology and cannot discriminate right and wrong. So far mob psychology concerned, there is no difference between Hindu and Muslim mob. Finally, Bobby gets success in convincing Javed and ultimately to take shelter in the house of Ramnik. Even Aruna has a realization of her weakness and there is drastic change in her attitudes and ideologies. Aruna’s consciousness moves in the direction of the positive acceptance of religious differences. The rational arguments of Smita and Javed make her speechless. Smita, no longer cares for the group and community identity. 

1.What is the difference between the movie and the play?

At the very beginning of the play it is a diary which tells story of past and present of Daksha or Hardika.if we look at the movie there was the chair used instead of diary.And these both things symbolise as the medium of expression of Daksha.The play and the movie are parralel to the plot.But still if we look at the difference between original play "Final Solution" and the movie directed by Mahesh Dattani himself has slight differences.

2. How is the beginning and the end of the movie?

In the beginning of the movie , there is lots of  disturbance , As if Muslims and Hindus are enemies. So, even after we got independence, peace was not achieved. Muslims and Hindus were quarreling. Traitors were against Hindu Idol worship. Even Aruna was not accepting Muslim people or their touch and presence in their home or even in the filling of water or for worshipping God. She thinks they should not touch her holy things, it may make her God angry and may spoil her holiness.

In the end , the film seems to be solved. The husband of Aruna regrets burning the shop so as to buy it at a cheaper cost. there is calmness, we see the traitors in white dresses, while in the beginning they were shown in black dresses. In the movie, flashback and the present, when she is of 15 and and now of 50 years. She writes her thoughts in a diary. 

 The final Solutions by Mahesh Dattani:

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Thinking activity: The Home And The World

 Thinking Activity: The Home and the World

Hello readers, 

Here I'm going to write a blog as the activity of our understanding of the text , 'The Home and the World'. So let's begin …

The Home and the World :

The Home and the World is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, set against the political and logistical nightmares of India’s 20th century caste system. Although the story focuses on the dynamic of a marriage—which shifts when a shadowy outsider enters the lives of the couple—much of the novel reads like a philosophical treatise. There are shifting viewpoints between the characters Bimala, Nikhil, and Sandip, and much of the book comprises their internal and external dialogues as they consider serious issues such as tradition, the roles of men and women in Indian culture, the nature of political change, the occasional need for violence in political activism, and other rhetorical exercises such as the weighing of the public good.

As the part of summary:

As the novel begins, Bimala is happy with her life. She has married a good, kind man who is educated and generous. She is content to worship him and accept his support in all things. What she does not feel, however, is excitement. When the political firebrand Sandip begins making speeches in their village, she is infatuated by his words, but also stirred by some of his political ideas. She thinks of him constantly. Sandip, who is only interested in pursuing his own desires and climbing the social strata, does nothing to discourage her interest in him.

Her husband, Nikhil, sees what is happening, but is unwilling to intervene. Nikhil believes that, if one is committed to living morally and thoughtfully, one can accept whatever arises. He is sad that he feels like a burden to Bimala, but is determined to let her make her own choices.

Here is my ppt of the group task:

  https://1drv.ms/p/s!Au3isGmowxb0gQVw9I0uUGVH7bEs

Bimala’s choices lead her to steal from Nikhil to raise money for Sandip’s cause, money that he keeps for himself. Overcome with shame at how she has allowed a man who now disgusts her to cause such havoc in her life, Bimala must try to save her marriage, support her country, and recommit herself to living by her conscience, not her passions. As village unrest turns to outbursts of violence, the characters are all changed by the decisions they must make. 

Group task :

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XMKTSE0FPaHLe1-rRjcIrJJx6ChraArsAnQoY5KT82Y/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

Bimala is a rare portrayal of womanhood by Rabindranath Tagore because unlike the other female characters in Indian literature, there are two sides of Bimala. She is obligated to serve her husband and take care of the household. Yet, she is also willing to overstep these boundaries to speak out for her people. This fact is what makes her a positive representation of women in The Home and the World. Bimala in Tagore’s The Home and the World is perhaps the liveliest character of the story. She is the centre of action as well as attraction of the novel. She emblematizes love amid the fire and fury of politics, and her psychological intricacy contributes much in making Tagore's novel an interesting study. 

Rabindranath Tagore’s Bimala is not a flat character. As we witness that she changes with the transition of events and situations. Now the change in Bimala occurs with the arrival of Nikhil's friend, Sandip, in the wake of the swadeshi movement. He appears to her as a hero of the swadeshi and Bimala gets almost overwhelmed and hypnotized by Sandip’s personality at the very first sight. 

Sandip's spell seemed to stir her serene heart. His speech had a tremendous impact on her. She forgot her well sheltered aristocratic, conservative home, to which she belonged and started visualizing herself as the sole representative of Bengal's womanhood. Thus in the course of the novel Bimala transforms herself from a meek wife of the home to the inspired champion of the swadeshi in the wide world outside. However Bimala’s change, as portrayed by Tagore does not appear to be drastic. She had an intuitive attraction for the swadeshi. The storm of the swadeshi had effects on her even before she met Sandip. Earlier in the novel she proposed to burn her foreign clothes, but was prevented by her husband. She also wanted to get rid of her teacher Miss Gilby out of that intuition. Moreover, her husband Nikhil was also instrumental in bringing her out of her home of conjugal love to the world of the wild swadeshi fire. 

In fact, she had never loved Sandip truly, though she was fascinated by his external glamour and show. And when his tyranny and cupidity get exposed , Bimala’s retreat to her home and husband become all easy and inevitable. Her inner conflict, agony and tension pass away, and she returns to Nikhil who stands for Bimala’s true love, devotion and home. Thus after a through analysis of Bimala’s character we may conclude with the comments of Pradip Kumar Dutta, who in his book The Home and the World.

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Thinking activity: Wide Sargasso Sea

 Thinking activity: Wide Sargasso sea 

Hello readers , 

Here I'm going to write a blog on the comparison between the wide Sargasso sea and Jane Eyre and the character of Jane with Antoinette by applying Feminism and postcolonialism. So, let's begin…

Wide Sargasso sea:

 

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress.

Jane Eyre:

Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë, published under the pen name "Currer Bell", on 16 October 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York.

Feminism in the novels:

In the novel Jane Eyre, Brontë reveals a firm stance on feminism by critiquing the assumptions about social class and gender. She also places the context within the postcolonialism era during the Victorian society age. Throughout the novel, Jane is subjected to some kind of oppression, where she has no financial or social freedom. The challenges she faces existed during the Victorian era, whereby women were considered powerless and as objects to serve their families and society. Jane fights gender hierarchies and class to ensure a status .

Jane is the epitome of femininity, the first instance where Jane starts to reveal feminism is when she fights with her cousin, blamed even if she was not the one at fault, and locked up for a night. She says to Mrs. Reed, “I’m not deceitful. If I were, I should say I loved you, but I declare, I don’t love you (Brontë, 2016).” Jane’s words seem mean; nonetheless, they are true. It is only fair to precisely tell others what one feels, instead of pretending as Mrs. Reed did even though she did not like Jane. The words are also ironic. In some way, Jane is trying to tell Mrs. Reed that she is deceitful as she had always acted as if she loved Jane and therefore being unfair.

Postcolonialism in the novels:

in the postcolonialism era, men considered women to be their appendages  Men would work, own business, and remain in public. However, only family life and marriage belonged to women. They had to depend on men spiritually, financially, and physically. For example, Adele and her mother demonstrate this idea, whereby they depend on Mr. Rochester for everything. Their dependence is further despised by the British people like Jane and Mr. Rochester consider them sensual and materialistic, characteristics associated with foreign women at the time.

Brontë’s work also demonstrates postcolonialism whereby Western culture is considered Eurocentric. This means that European values are universal and natural compared to Eastern ideas that are inferior . For instance, Bertha, a foreign woman, reflects the Eurocentric and dominant ideologies of England in the 19th century concerning race. Bertha is the racial other and colonized madwoman who threatens British men and women as embodied in Mr. Rochester and Jane. Jane presents Bertha Mason as Vampiric, who sucks away from Mr. Rochester’s innocence. According to Mr. Rochester, he was innocent until the savage woman took his goodness. Also, Jane, a British, cannot get married because Bertha has occupied the wife’s position, denying Jane’s identity. The situation shows how British people characterized and feared women and foreigners during postcolonialism. The fear was not because they thought the subjects were powerful, but because they considered them inferior and evil. The “blood-red” moon reflected in Bertha’s eyes represents her sexual potency, whereby Bertha refuses to be controlled. Her stature is almost equal to her husband’s. According to postcolonialism, Bertha’s death is meant as a sacrifice to restore British people’s superiority, whereby Mr. Rochester acquires freedom to marry Jane while Jane achieves her self-identity.

The Wide Sargasso Sea novel also portrays irony as the author tries to describe the idea of postcolonialism. Rhys wants readers to realize that being a casted woman is demanding. Therefore, with Antoinette’s Creole character, individuals have to understand that they cannot change their inevitable, and thus they should accept events as they turn out.

aspects of feminism and postcolonialism contributed a lot to the works of the 19th century. Rhys and Brontë reveal this as they reveal the representation of women in the Victorian era. The authors also utilize irony to develop feminism further and postcolonialism ideas. 

Comparison of the characters of Antoinette and Jane:

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys focuses on developing a narrative history for Brontë’s character Bertha, one of few characters who are not given the opportunity to speak for themselves in Jane Eyre. Rhys’s text appears to function as a companion to Jane Eyre, rather than a rewriting of it, preserving key plot points, lines of text, and descriptions from Brontë’s text as she maps the skeletal fragments of Bertha’s recorded history onto the fleshed-out examination provided in Wide Sargasso Sea. Although Jane and Bertha have admittedly disparate lives and upbringings Rhys rather surprisingly seems to pull threads of Jane’s personal narrative into Bertha’s early life. 

Much as Jane ultimately finds a semblance of personal peace once she fully immerses herself in the routines of Lowood, so too does Bertha find comfort while shilded within the walls of the convent. How can this imposition of childhood similarity between Jean and Bertha be read when one considers the stark distinctions in most other aspects of their lives? That is to say, although the trajectories of Jean and Bertha seem to momentarily meet in this shared junction, they quickly resume their polarization. Does Rhys mean for us to read Bertha’s eventual slip into psychosis as a result of or as an occurrence in spite of the specificity of her geographic location, familial history. 

Similarly of interest regarding identity in Wide Sargasso Sea is the renaming of Bertha in the text. Although she begins the text as Antoinetta, a decision on Rhys’s behalf that seems to delay the synching of the texts, as insanity sets in, so too does the overwhelming use of the name Bertha as a means of referring to the character. Although both Bertha and Antoinetta are “given names”, they seem to represent two entirely distinct people. How does this process of renaming work in regards to Bertha’s character? What is the relationship between this bifurcation of identity and the many other identity divisions experienced by Bertha ? 

Although Jane certainly enjoys nature, evoking it both in her artwork and during periods of change in her life, it appears to take a more limited role in the overall text of Jane Eyre than the descriptions of and immersion of characters in the tropical natural spaces of Wide Sargasso Sea. Though this is surely primarily a means of centering the text in Jamaica and Dominica, the lush landscape is considered in depth both by Antoinetta and the Mr. Rochester figure of Rhys’s text. Is Rhys utilizing nature to ends distinct from those of Brontë in Jane Eyre? 

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Thinking activity : J M Coetzee - Foe

 Thinking activity: Foe - J M Coetzee

Hello readers,

Here I'm going to write a blog in response to some questions of the  Foe by J M Coetzee. So, let's start…

First let's have a look at the summary of the text…

Foe - J M Coetzee

 

Foe is a 1986 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who landed on the same island inhabited by "Cruso" and Friday as their adventures were already underway. 

At the opening of Foe, Susan Barton washes up on the shore of a small rocky island, somewhere in the South Seas, sometime in the early eighteenth century. She is found by Friday, a black man with bare feet. Friday brings her to Cruso, a weather-beaten white man with a peaked straw hat. Susan remarks on the race of both men. Because he’s white, she considers Cruso to be Friday’s master. Friday doesn’t speak. Susan tells Cruso her story: she was born of an English mother and a French father. She has a daughter was abducted by an Englishman and taken to the New World. Susan followed her to Bahia in Brazil. She hunted for her high and low, but couldn’t find her. She stayed in Bahia for two years, until she finally caught a ship to Lisbon. She reveals to the reader, but not to Cruso, that she was the the captain's lover. But during the voyage, the sailors mutinied and killed the captain. They set Susan adrift in a small boat. This is how she landed on the island with Cruso.

Cruso is stubborn and irrational. He has no idea how long he’s been on the island because he’s kept no record. It could be months; it could be decades. He has also lost track of everything that happened to him and Friday before being on the island. Susan is appalled that he has never tried to keep any record. He mixes up all his stories. She has no idea what’s true or not. He reveals however that Friday doesn’t speak because he has no tongue. He gets Friday to open his mouth and show Susan. His tongue was cut out either by slavers or by Cruso himself. Cruso blames the slavers. Susan doesn’t know how to look at Friday after learning this. She gets nervous around him.

Susan spends a year on the island with Cruso and Friday. She sleeps with Cruso once. He falls into bouts of fever. He spends his days leveling useless terraces all over the island. There is nothing to plant on the terraces and they have no purpose, but he labors over them as though they are the greatest necessity. Friday catches fish. They don’t go hungry. They live in a small shack. The winds get terrible.

Finally, an English ship comes by and they are rescued – or at least, Susan is rescued. Cruso is experiencing a fever at the time and is carried on board against his will. Friday tries to run and hide, but Susan insists that they must get him; she believes it’s the humanitarian thing to do. They travel back to England but en route Cruso dies and Friday becomes Susan’s charge.

She brings Friday back to London and they find Foe. He has been too busy to write her book; but mostly he wants to know about what happened to her in Bahia. She and Foe argue over what the real story is. Foe feeds her and Friday and they debate the true story. She believes that the story that needs to be told is on the island and it has to do with Friday. It has to do with his tongue. The story that Friday isn’t able to tell is the story they must tell. Foe resists this, and pushes Susan to tell her scandalous affairs. She refuses. She tells him about Friday’s castration. They discuss how Friday thinks. Foe wants to teach Friday to write. He gives him a slate and Friday draws o’s all over it. Friday sleeps in the alcove of Foe’s room and Susan gets in Foe’s bed. They sleep together. His motion reminds her too much of Cruso, so she gets on top of him, frightening him at first. Then she tells him to think of her as his Muse. They lie in bed talking about Friday.

A dream-like sequence ensues in which Susan returns to the beginning of the story, where she swims toward the island. Buts instead of going ashore, she goes under the water to a wreck of a ship. She finds Friday chained up, sinking into the sand. She meditates on his body being his story. His voice is like the water that moves through his body, out his mouth, reaching every shoreline.

Let's have a look at the questions…

1. How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?

Cruso in Foe has not put any effort towards building tools, as he only has a bed when Susan arrives at the island, and from the quote, it seems like he may not have the mental capacity to build these tools. Although Cruso does builds many terraces, he exclaims that they are for the future generations and not himself. But Robinson Crusoe fills his multiple homes with various types of pots, tables, chairs, fences, and even a canoe. All of these items Crusoe builds are to improve and aide in his growth on the island, and he must be mentally sharp in order to build these items.This Robinson Crusoe is much more in tune with his own reality and interested in his own accomplishments than Foe’s Cruso. 

Robinson Crusoe is much less passive and senile in regards to his own development on the island. Crusoe kept a painfully detailed account of every action he does on the island in a journal he updates daily. Also Robinson Crusoe felt that this island is not at all good for forever , and the other character Cruso felt that this island is a very good place and he wants to live forever here.

2. Friday’s characteristics and persona in Foe and in Robinson Crusoe.

Daniel Defoe used Friday to explore themes of religion, slavery and subjugation, all of which were supposed to a natural state of being at that time in history, and Coetzee uses him to explore more strongly themes of slavery, black identity, and the voice of the oppressed.

Also Friday in Foe’s work, in standing for the victims of apartheid and slavery, is a black African character ‘he was black, negro, with a head of fuzzy wool’ (Coetzee’s Foe), whereas Crusoe’s Friday, not standing for those causes, is portrayed as being an anglicised version of a Caribbean man, who ‘had all the sweetness and softness of a European in his countenance’. The representation of Friday in these two texts is vastly different, and one could hardly believe that the two were in fact the same character.  

3. Who is Protagonist? (Foe – Susan – Friday – Unnamed narrator)

Susan, Susan is the protagonist of the story. She is a British woman who went searching for her lost daughter. After searching for two years, she gives up and tries to return to England, only to be caught in the middle of a mutiny and marooned by the crew of the ship she is riding home. 

Throughout the novel, Susan is obsessed with the idea of telling her story and the power of words. Although she lacks the talent to write, she is convinced that her story will find her fame. Despite her aging and impoverishment throughout the novel, she relentlessly pushes Foe to write an account of her time on the island. She can be seen throughout the novel attempting to control the narrative, in particular in the third section when she becomes Foe's lover in an attempt to inspire him to write the story in the way she wishes. In the last few sections, she appears to lose her mind as her speeches become longer and more erratic and she convinces herself that Foe and the others in the room are not real. 

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