O priči i nepričanju: Kucijev roman Fo

Abstract

This paper analyzes the consequences of one of the most important intertextual interventions that J. M. Coetzeе made in his novel Foe in comparison to its prototext, the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The matter in question is that the character Friday of Defoe’s novel has inexplicably lost his tongue. This is the reason why Coetzeе and the novel’s narrator Susan Barton are unable to “speak for” Friday, and his story, therefore, stays untold in a sense. However, through various types of nonverbal expression (dance, playing instruments, and drawing), Friday manages to pass on parts of his “story” and to imply its semantic and aesthetic potency which are realized outside of the logocentric frame. The novel thus shows that cultural otherness is not necessarily subordinate in value to the dominant cultural systems but can, on the contrary, be seen as superior in regard to them.