ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY SAMPLE:
JOURNAL ARTICLES ON COETZEE'S FOE
Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran. "Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee's Foe." Contemporary Literature 33 (1992): 432-57.
This article is predominantly a poststructural writing but is also in line with the literary theories of Derrida, Lacan and feminism. Brian and Colleran site such authors as Derrida, Foucault, Barthes and Spivak whose ideas are developed and expanded on throughout the article as they relate to Coetzee's Foe. There are seven major issues or parts addressed in the article. Topography of Confession focuses on Coetzee's confession or self-referent responses in his texts. Internal Foes: Feminist Deconstruction discusses the deferred placement of meaning in Coetzee's female characters. Obstacles, Doubt and the Truth of Confession show how obstacles either were or were not overcome in the texts and the doubt found within and without the characters. Friday's Art is an analysis of the art we see from Friday that is not explained, and the meaning it offers. Resistance and Complicity discusses the power struggles inherent within the text. Resolution: Parodic, Political, Aesthetic, Actual focuses on how the resolutions bring closure, solutions and answers to the text or how they fail to do so. Finally, A Coda: In Collaboration identifies unifying factors throughout the text and several discourses found within.
Bishop, G. Scott. "J. M. Coetzee's Foe" A Culmination and a Solution to a Problem of White Identity." World Literature Today 64.1 (1990): 54-6. Online. EBSCO. 15 Jan 1999. 1-5.
In this article, Bishop discusses several of the political situations that influence Coetzee's writing, especially in Foe. The article adopts a postcolonial way of looking at the work and the political and moral entanglements found throughout Foe. Bishop also focuses on the main use of language as a political tool. Throughout this article we are shown similarities within three of Coetzee's novels. They are "Life and Times of Michael K," "In the Heart of the Country" and "Foe." As with several other article on Foe, Derrida's ideas of deconstruction are applied to Bishop's analysis of the text. He also illustrates the development of "others" in the novel and how this relates to the relationship of privileged and unprivileged worlds. This relationship is then related to individuals of a society and how they in turn read the text. Bishop also highlights Coetzee's wonderful use of doubt in Foe and how that also effects the reading of the text.
Moore, John Rees. "J. M. Coetzee and Foe." Sewanee Review 98.1 (1990): 52-9. Online. EBSCO. 15 Jan 1999. 1-6.
Moore's article is essentially a major review of Coetzee's Foe. He offers quite a bit of summary of the novel throughout. Within this close analysis Foe itself, Moore compares several aspects of the text to that of other novels as well. One example of this is how the struggle of Foe's protagonist compares to the struggles of others of Coetzee's characters. Coetzee is also praised for many things in the article such as his creation of fictional worlds and the unique way in which he develops them. He uses other examples of Coetzee's fiction to illustrate the ways in which the South African dilemma is discussed or omitted from them. These examples also demonstrate how Coetzee has shown and acute awareness of the powers and limitations of language within various discourse of society.
Gitzen, Julian. "The Voice of History in the Novels of J. M. Coetzee." Critique 35.1 (1993): 3-15. Online. EBSCO. 19 Jan 1999. 1-10.
Gitzen's article relies mainly on Coetzee's various texts, however does include sources from other scholars such as Martin and Post. He uses examples from Coetzee's novels to illustrate how language is used as a way in which to record history of human consciousness. In this way language can not be separated from the characters of a text, nor can the characters be separate from the text. Gitzen also focuses on the role language plays as it comes between the characters and the fictional world in which they live and the external world of the reader. Much of Gitzen's article is centered on the basic functions of language and how they are applied or challenged in Coetzee's text. He also compares Coetzee's novels, as with the protagonists Jacobus Coetzee and Magda.
Clowes, Edith W. "The Robinson Myth Reread in Postcolonial and Postcommunist Modes." Critique 36.2 (1995): 145-60. Online. EBSCO. 19 Jan 1999. 1-11.
Clowes examines postcolonial and postcommunist ideas present in both Coetzee's Foe and Luidimila Petrushovskaia's "The New Robinsons: A Chronicle of the End of the 20th Century." The theories themselves are discussed in detail and then applied to the two texts as evidence of these merging modes of expression. The discussion of the two is divided into three main areas: "the voice of the female narrator and the question of gender roles, the nature of the island or isolation chronotope, and the refraining of the robinsonian narrative that occurs in both works." Clowes then turns his focus to the myth of economic individualism. He examines the cultural context of the myth in general and its historical impact on specifically the Robinson Cruso myth. Clowes also stresses the function of myth and the importance of understanding the historical background in understanding the meaning of its fiction.
Post, Robert M. "The Noise of Freedom: J. M. Coetzee's Foe." Critique 30 (1989): 143-54.
The main focus of Post's article is how the slave-master relationship plays into literature about South Africa. Freedom and the character's struggle for that freedom are central issues to the discussion of Coetzee's Foe. Post argues that Coetzee has been himself compared to Daniel de Foe and that may be a source of meaning in the text. The article turns discussion toward the specific deferences between de Foe's Robinson Cruso and Coetzee's Foe. The Cruso myth has been adapted into a predominately South African culture with symbolism identifying with the cultures specific political, economic and literal discourses. The status of women is also addresses as found in both Coetzee's novels and in South Africa. Post argues that these women are oppressed and living under a male chauvinistic government which can not be ignored in the reading of the texts.
Gauthier, Marni. "The Intersection of the Postmodern and the Postcolonial in J. M. Coetzee's Foe." English Language Notes June (1997): 52-69.
Gauthier's article provides similarities of history and fiction both as narrative discourses representing a "real" world through language and literature. Gauthier demonstrates throughout the article Coetzee's development of post-colonial texts with Foe as the primary example. He further compares and contrast postmodernism and postcolonialism and their influences on literature, especially that of Coetzee. Gauthier also address the process of "othering" in society and the use of that process in text. Another underlining these of this article is how Coetzee attempts to get at the "Truth" though his novels. Gauthier brings in the article by Macaskill and Colleran as evidence of this as seen in Foe. In addition, the use of the signifier and signified are argued to outline the meaning of Foe from an almost deconstructional view. Finally, Gauthier stresses the importance of the issue of trying to discover or recover meaning from silence and illustrated with Friday in Foe.
Morgan, Peter E. "Foe's DeFoe and La Jeune Nee: Establishing a Metaphorical Referent for the Elided Female Voice." Critique 35.2 (1994): 81-85.
Morgan offers a view of Foe as a "radical rethinking" of DeFoe's Robinson Cruso myth. There are different struggles that exist as well as different exploitations in Foe that result in a story that is in many ways opposite or at least in radical contrast with the original myth. This, of course, if believed by Morgan to be very much intentional and a very effective look and the areas previously untouched and unmentioned. Morgan also brings in feminist views by Cixous in this analysis of Susan Barton. He argues that Coetzee is in many ways simply rewriting the myth from a strictly feminine perspective and viewpoint. This is a dramatic contrast to the male dominated voice of DeFoe's novel in which no women exist. Morgan argues that this rewriting of a popular myth challenges the patriarchal society in which we all live. It ulitlizes and challenges this patriarchy found in political, economic and social discourses as well as in language and literature.
Begam, Richard. "Silence and Mut(e)ilation: White Writing in J. M. Coetzee's Foe." South Atlantic Quarterly 93.1 (1994): 111-27.
Begam stresses issues of postmoderninsm and postcolonialsim found in Coetzee's novels. He uses examples of Coetzee's fiction to show the preference toward deconstruction rather than reconstruction. Begam discusses the dichotomy created between speech and writing and emphasizes the underlining hierarchy that places speech above writing as seen by Derrida. Begam argues that this hierarchical binary is the central focus of Coetzee's Foe and Waiting for the Barbarians. We can not then find meaning in these texts without first understanding this relationship. The article also illustrates Foe's use of ecriture. This text is essentially writing about itself as a piece of writing. Begam analyzes this metafictional style and its value. Central to the article is also the discussion of Friday's mut(e)ilation and his inability to tell his "true" story with his own voice. This "truth" can not be heard, but only written, thus reversing the speech/writing hierarchy.
Bongie, Chris. " ' Lost in the Maze of Doubting': J. M. Coetzee's Foe and the Politics of (Un)likeness." Modern Fiction Studies 39.2 (1993): 261-81.
In this article, Bongie warns the reader against taking any passage from a novel and identifying it with the author's views, but and the same time he admits that Coetzee encourages such a reading. Reflection of colonialism in the article again brings up the discussion of postmodern and postcolonialism views as they relate to Foe. Bongie discusses the four major parts of Foe and their significance as four distinct writing styles and uses of language. Bongie also identifies the obvious similarities between the novel and the original Robinson Cruso, but acknowledges the remarkable differences at the same time. This is explained with the lack of voice from Friday given over to the voice of an entirely new female character that always has plenty to say. This, as Bongie points out, is a struggle then of a women trying to tell her story amidst an oppressive patriarchal society, and her equal wish to "dispose" of her story. In Coetzee's novel, the entire Robinson Cruso myth is but tiny piece of the far greater story as argued by Bongie. It is the story of the struggle, journey and coming of age of a single woman.
SUMMARY OF JOURNAL ARTICLES ON COETZEE
In doing research on Coetzee and specifically his novel Foe, I found that there are hundreds of articles available on this subject. The majority of the articles available are from the 1980s and the 1990s. Coetzee is a recent author and is still writing. For these reasons, he is still being studied with great force. When conducting research on this topic, however, it will be necessary to narrow the focus down to specific themes found in the text because of the abundant sources and material. I have also discovered many of the articles' subject matters and discussions overlap. Many of these studies incorporate the main schools of criticism and literal theory. The majority of articles have a main focus on postcolonialism, postmodernism, decontruction and feminism, and their importance in analysis of Coetzee and Foe. Ideas are taken from Derrida most often as with his view of the speech/writing dichotomy and how it is developed within the text. Other main areas of focus include the relations of the text to the issues facing South Africa in its many years of Apartheid and political struggle.