While reading Coetzee's "Slow Man," I noticed a reference to a story that sounded all to fimiliar. The story mentioned was The Adventures of Sinbad (of Persia). It took me a second to realize that this story was also mentioned in "Foe." The story entails Sinbad feeling sorry for an old man waiting at the riverside and offering to carry the old man on his shoulder across. Having made it across, Sinbad finds himself in trouble when the old man refuses to get off his shoulders. The old man tightens his legs around Sinbad instead. This got me thinking about the roles the characters in Coetzee's novel(s) play in this plot. In "Foe," Susan beleives Foe suggests that Susan is the old man and Friday is Sinbad. Susan disagrees and argues that she is the one drowning and Friday is the burden on her shoulders. This same situation occurs in "Slow Man" where Elizabeth seems to argue she is Sinbad and Paul is the old mand and Paul sees it the other way around. I'm just going to throw two questions out there. Who do you think takes on the role of Sinbad and who plays the old man? Why? Personally, I'd say that Elizabeth is the burden on Paul's shoulders. Everytimes he thinks he is free of her, so reappears and tightens her grasp on him.
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