Silence: Ethic Responsibility and the Power of the Other in Coetzee’s “Foe” and “The Life and Times of Michael K”:Part 4

IV. Conclusion: Assuming Responsibility for the Other
        Friday and Michael both suggest that the silence of the other has a power that demands the responsibility of those around them. Furthermore, the power of silence derives from ethical responsibility and the authority of resistance. As Marais suggests, “by assuming responsibility for the other, the subject gives him/her the right to command” (Marais 136). By assuming responsibility of the other, the subject is no longer allowed to be independent and care only for their well-being. Instead the subject is forced to place the well-being of the other before their own. Such is the case with the allusions to Sinbad and the old man, and the albatross. Both these “burden metaphor connotes ethical authority rather than political power” (Marais 146). Neither the old man nor the albatross have political power and originally appear inferior to those who later are forced to bear their burden. Their obligation to carry the burden of the other arises from sympathy and morals. The subjects find themselves drawn to help the other because of “his/her weakness” (Marais 135). 
        Both Susan and the medical officer become obsessed with this burden and wish to remove the burden by giving the silent others a voice. By hearing the truth, Susan and the medical officer hope to gain the knowledge necessary to eliminate the moral obligation they feel to Friday and Michael because “to know is to justify” (Levinas 82). However, Friday and Michael both remain silent and Susan and the medical officer are not able to place the “alien entity to a system of a prior concepts and ideas” (Marais 132). Their silence resists verifying or denying any speculations the subject has of them.
        Ir is not a coincidence that both Friday and Michael K suffer from a verbal disability that causes those around them to feel responsible for them. Coetzee uses deformations of the mouth in both characters to emphasize the helpless in their silence, while also foiling the effect that silence has to the verbal and able characters who care for them. Their silence is seen as a form of weakness in the eyes of Susan and the medical officer. However, it is this exact weakness that makes these character's pity and feel morally obligated to care for these speechless characters. Furthermore, they wish to know the stories that are capsulated deep within the minds of these characters. Friday and Michael remain mysteries and their stories remain untold. 
        Therefore, it doesn't matter whether Friday and Michael choose to be silent or if they are unable to speak. Either way their silence has a power over Susan and the medical officer. Ironically, the power of their silence comes from viewing these others are weak and powerless. However, it is a codependent relationship. By accepting ethical responsibility for Friday and Michael, Susan and the medical officer agree to do whateever is needed help them. In return, Friday and Michael are under their political power and benifit from their care. This relationship is unsatisfying for both Susan and Michael as they never get what they want from the other: truth and knowledge. Michael also does not approve of this relationship as he wishes to live in solitude and off the food of the land. As Friday and Michael never break their silences and tell their stories, both novels end without relieving the caretakers of the responsibility and obsession with the truth.

Silence: Ethic Responsibility and the Power of the Other in Coetzee’s “Foe” and “The Life and Times of Michael K”: Part 5

Bibliography

Chesney, Duncan Mcoll. “Toward an Ethics of Silence: Michael K.” Criticism:

           A Quarterly for Literature  and the Arts 49.3 (2007): 307-325.

           MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Nov. 2011.

Coetzee, J.M. Foe. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1986. Print.

Coetzee, J.M. Life & Times of Michael K. New York: The Viking Press,

           1983. Print.

Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority.

           Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Marais, Mike. "Disarming Silence: Ethical Resistance in J. M. Coetzee's Foe."

           Apartheid Narratives. Ed. Nahem Yousaf. Amsterdam, Netherlands:

           Rodopi, 2001. 131-41. DQR: Studies in Literature 31. MLA
          
           International Bibliography. Web. 7 Oct. 2011.

Said, Edward W. "Introduction." Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books,

           1979. 1-30. Rpt. in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

           Ed. Vincent B. Leitch, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2001.  
       
           1991-2011. Print.

Post Essay Relief :) Coetzee Interview

I came across this video while looking for visuals to add to my paper. It doesn't have to do with my paper, but I really wanted to share it as a way of ending the class. I feel the interview really captures the Coetzee we have come to "know." Thanks for a wonderful and memorable class. Enjoy :)

Role Playing with Sinbad: "Slow Man" and "Foe"

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.

"The Lives of Animals" and "Elizabeth Costello"

Hey everyone,

I came across a promo for a book (Thanking the Monkey by Karen Dawn) that Coetzee was supposedly endorsing. The book isn't new, I just never personally heard about it before. He isn't in the video itself but if you go to the website for the book (http://www.thankingthemonkey.com/), you will come across a qoute from him which reads:"'Treads that fine line between the provocative and the counterproductively undiplomatic assuredly.' - JM Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace."

Just thought it was interesting and wanted to share. One comment I found interesting was Emily Deschanel statement that we need to protect animals because they do not have a voice of there own. This goes with the theme of silence, power and the other we found in book such as "Foe," "Michael K," etc.  Also, with "Lives of Animals" and Elizabeth Costello" in mind, one can argue "who says they don't have 'a voice'" and that this statement is yet another one that subcategorizes animals. I knew that, thats not what she meant by, "a voice," but I'm just trying to be difficult and take a Elizabeth Costello stance haha.

Enjoy :)

The Role of Silence in Coetzee's "Foe"

Since I will be doing a presentation on Foe this week and the use of silence (mainly with the character of Friday), I wanted to talk about it in a post. My favorite article I came across was Mike Marais’s “Disarming Silence.” In this article, Marais starts by stating the two opposing views of Coetzee’s use of silence in the novel. Silence can be seen as either an “ancient language of defeat” (as Rushdie refers to it in Shame) or something that enables and empowers the other. Both arguments are compelling are equally arguable. One could argue that Friday didn’t choose to have his tongue cut out and therefore he was forced to silence. However, I side with Marais and the idea that silence is empowering and asserts Friday’s freedom. I say this because, although Friday didn’t choose to have his tongue cut out (if that is what really happened), he does choose to not speak or participate in Susan Barton’s attempts to get him to tell his story. Yes, one can suggest he simply doesn’t understand and can not participate in Barton’s attempts to get him to “speak.” However, there is just as much evidence suggesting otherwise. I will give examples of two scenes to keep this post from running on too long.

First I’d like to look at the scene where Barton tries to teach Friday language and get him to tell his story. It also a scene Marais analyzes in his essay.
         “I reached out and took him by the chin and turned his face toward me. His eyelids opened.  
           Somewhere in the deepest recesses of those black pupils was there a spark of mockery?
           I could not see it. But if it were there, would it not be an African spark, dark to my English 
           eye” (147).
Here Barton questions whether Friday is too clueless learn or if he is just playing dumb. It is also after this encounter, as Marais points out, that Susan exclaims “Mr. Foe I must have my freedom!” (147). Here, Barton’s interaction with Friday and his ‘refusal’ to speak seems to challenge her freedom, and not his.

Another example comes from an earlier scene, when Barton comments on how her silence symbolizes power (because she chooses what to say and what to keep silent) while Friday’s silence symbolizes powerlessness because “no matter what he is to himself…what he is to the world is what I make of him (122). Except he isn’t what she makes of him. He seems to have control over her. Barton’s says it easy for her to make up Friday’s story and pass it as fact, but yet she is unable to do so. She is obsessed with Friday’s silence and continual yearns to have him tell his story. Through their relationship and Barton’s obsession to have Friday tell his story portray Friday as the one in control of the situation.

I hope you find this as interesting as I did and, as always, I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on the matter J

Going Beyond Race: "Life and Times of Michael K"

While reading Life and Times of Michael K I found myself taking note of the levels of racism and discrimination taking place and the allusions the novel made to South Africa. However, I later realized, upon reflection, that although race is hinted in the novel, it is never directly referred to. Therefore, the reader is never really told Michael's race and there are no racial slurs provided in the narration that directly point to a race. Furthermore, in terms of politics, declaration of race is left out. Throughout the book the race Michael “belongs” to is always referred to as a vague whole (such as the plural “you,” “we, ” and your people). I don't think there is any doubt that Michael is black man in South Africa during apartheid, but I do find it interesting how Coetzee gets this message across. And aside from the reference to “Cape Town,” which you wouldn’t know unless you were familiar with South Africa, and the mention of rusks, Coetzee manages to once again avoid pin pointing location. Seeing that this is a pattern in all the other novels I have read so far, I was not surprised to see it in this novel. Coetzee’s great talent and skills as a writer is apparent in the way he is easily able to get information across without flat out telling it. Also, the avoidance of specifics adds to the bigger picture. Coetzee novels focus on the treatment of people, norms, and morality. The location, race, etc are all secondary. This is seen in the way the view of Michael and his treatment goes beyond race, as his deformity plays a bigger part. His own mother saw him a little less than human because of his cliff lip and “slowness.” She even sends him away until she finds that she need him. Therefore something beyond race is going on. Furthermore, like Coetzee would say, his stories are just stories, therefore the specific location, race and correct representation of facts doesn’t matter. I hope this idea of the absences of race is as interesting to others as it was to me.


Side note: I didn’t want to mention this in my main post since it is a completely different subject, but I wanted to provide the information to those who might find it useful: Michael K may be a reference to Josef K. in The Trial by Franz Kafka. There are also other references to the author and book if anyone is interested in doing further research in this are.