Life under Apartheid

My Thoughts On The Last Chapter of Foe

After re-reading the last chapter in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, I believe the narrator in this section is none other than Daniel Foe. Being that chapter III and IV begin with the same line, “the staircase was dark and mean,” leads me to believe that chapter III was all imagined by Susan and she never reunited with Foe. But, in reality chapter IV can be interpreted as the only truth in this book, which is why the book is titled Foe. Daniel Foe is the only character that knows the truth about Susan and the island.

The chapter begins with Foe walking through a dark staircase and he stumbles over a body. He describes, “it does not stir, it makes no sound,” the body is lifeless, which leads me to believe that a lot of time has passed (153). For example, he informs the reader about the woman wrapped in a grey scarf to “weigh no more than a sack of straw” (153). The remains of a deceased body can compare to a sack of straw, again tying to time that has passed. It takes time for a body to perish. Also he describes skin, dry as paper and receded lips that uncover teeth. It seems that he is trying to find Susan’s remains. For Daniel to take the time to unwrap a dead person’s endless scarf goes to show that he is looking for Susan. The way he walks around the room is as if he is trying to find truth about Susan’s whereabouts. His search continues when he draws back the covers on page 153, “holding my breath, expecting disturbance, dust, decay; but they are quietly composed, he in a nightshirt, she in her shift”. Before the unveiling of these two bodies the reader gets the sense of dust surrounding his nose. Dust can be interpreted as an old and unpleasing smell. However the second he discovers the dead woman, which I assume is Susan, he gets a faint smell of lilac. Typically when one thinks of someone special usually one can smell him or her, which leads me to believe that it was Susan’s remains. He didn’t just say that he smelled something sweet, or flowers, he made sure the reader knew he smelled lilac, which is a very specific smell.

Next, Foe revealed to the readers that he is familiar with the island and the people on it. For example he states: “I find the man Friday…” the only way for Foe to know Friday is by the letters Susan sent to him. Also Friday seems to be the only one who has survived the longest. His body is warm; however his heartbeat is weak. Going back to the Susan’s letters on page 1 she writes, “…a Negro with a head of fuzzy wool”. Foe goes to tug on Friday’s hair and states: “it is indeed like lambswool” (154). For Foe to remark indeed, refers to him knowing that Susan had compared his hair’s texture to wool and makes it evident that Susan did communicate with Foe; once more leading me to believe that the narrator in the last chapter is Daniel Foe.

Lastly Foe stumbles upon one of Susan’s letters which again begin with, “at last I can row no further” (157). This is where it gets tricky and I presume that she didn’t know how she came to the island. By here repeating through the novel that she could not row any further, leads me to believe that she did not know how she wanted her story to begin. The comparisons in the letter that Foe found are the same descriptions he states to the readers which are odd. But I still stand strong and say that Foe is the narrator in the last chapter.

I guess Coetzee is the only one who really knows what is going on.

Sembene Ousmane's God's Bits of Wood

To better understand Fa Keita’s questioning of God, on page 236 he is being mistreated by a guard named, Bernadini. The guard orders Fa Keita to pray near the barbed wired fence and as he kneels Bernadini kicks him in the kidney and plunges him head first into strands of barbed wire. As Fa Keita frees his hands from the wires again he is commanded to pray and is pushed back into the barbered wired. Bernadini shoves his foot into Fa Keita’s neck and mocks his faith. Finally the guard loses interest and leaves to torture others.

Fa Keita’s breath came out in a sigh. ‘God knows I was not for this strike, for I do not like violence in any form, but if God is just, how can He let men be treated so? In all my life, and in the lives of my parents, we have done no wrong to anyone – why then should we be treated so? I do not know if the strike should go on, I do not know what must be done, but I know that something must be done so that we are treated with respect as men…’ page 237.

This passage introduces the questioning faith during a period where evil is dominating the people. Ousmane does an incredible job luring the readers in with his themes and the characters are easily relatable that they connect to the readers. Fa Keita’s statement: “… if God is so just, how can he let men be treated so,” reminds me of a video I saw at an Austrian Nazi camp called Mauthausen. Before you enter the camp they place everyone in a room and play a video. They show interviews of survivors, actual footage of the torment, and at the end there is a slide show of pictures. And they showed this clip of a cell where they kept a woman there to die. She had engraved on the cement wall: if there really was a God then none of this would happen. It was a very moving statement and after the survivors agreed that they too felt that same way. It just goes to show how real Ousmane’s characters are and the choice of words he uses is very effective and believable. It was a very moving part in the novel because anyone who has had tragedy in their life can relate to Fa Keita’s questioning of God. It is a question that has been asked for several years through several tragic events.

Then Fa Keita states that he and his family has never done any wrong to anyone and just can’t understand why this oppression is happening to them. In this world it really doesn’t matter how well you live your life or how well you treat others. There is always going to be evil in this world which is past down generation to generation. From what I understood is the one must keep faith alive although it is hard to do under Keita’s circumstance. For example, if Fa Keita loses his faith at a time of despair the oppressors are not only talking his freedom away, but he is also letting them rob him of his faith. In any situation Ousmane is trying to help the reader better understand that it takes an even stronger person to hold onto their beliefs in a time of chaos.
This expressiveness opens the doors of connecting to all. Although there are numerous ethnicities in this world and some might think that we are different because of our backgrounds, bottom line is that we all feel. We all cry the same way and bleed out the same color and it is important to stand strong. Ousmane ends Keita on a strong note of knowing. Although Keita can’t answer his questions of ‘why’ he does in fact know that everyone man deserves to be treated with respect and that is what needs to be taught to future generations.