Appreciation of Fu's Works

In Fu, the protagonist is a woman as a narrator (you know, women can't be found in Robinson Crusoe, a British novel boasting a successful man18th century). Coetzee explains this "conflict" with the words of the protagonist "Susan Barton": "But where can there be no women?" Even if it is an island, Coetzee means that a world without women is a world without human beings, humanity and humanity. Such a world is hard to survive, even if it is difficult to breathe.

The traditional view of history in the west holds that history is the product of rationality, and the development of the whole history is carried out in an evolutionary mode, that is, progress replaces backwardness and civilization overcomes barbarism. Modern linguistics shows that language is uncertain, the relationship between signifier and signified of language is arbitrary, and its meaning depends on the context between contexts. Therefore, language is no longer like a transparent window as traditionally said, and can objectively and truly reproduce reality; Naturally, the historical expression with this language as the medium is also objective and unfair. This just shows that the colonists' enslavement of the colonial people was achieved through hegemonic discourse, thus exposing the fiction of the colonial version as an official authority. In Fu, Coetzee used this function of language to re-plan history in order to resist the authoritative mechanism of history. In the post-colonial context, with the subversion of tradition, the deconstruction of the center and the questioning of logos and other enlightenment views, everything is no longer given a unique meaning, on the contrary, they have various possibilities of interpretation. Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe tells how Crusoe, a white man, fled to a desert island on the coast of America, overcame the difficulties through his own efforts, and finally survived on the island, and established the corresponding colonial system. Said takes Robinson Crusoe as the prototype of contemporary realistic novels, and thinks: "This novel is not an accidental story, it tells the story of a European establishing his own fief on a distant, non-European island." "The protagonist of that novel is the founder of the new world. He ruled and owned this land for Christianity and England. Indeed, it was an obvious overseas expansion ideology that made Robinson do what he did-this ideology was directly related to the exploration and navigation narrative that laid the foundation for the style and form of the huge colonial empire in the 16 and 17 centuries. The main novels after Defoe, even Defoe's own later novels, seem to be written for the exciting prospect of overseas expansion. " The novel preaches colonialism through Crusoe's hard struggle and ultimate success. In this sense, it is also a work reflecting European colonial thought.

In Fu's view, post-colonialism is more integrated with the West. While publicly exposing colonialism, Fu also paid attention to imperialism and the spirit of enlightenment. As far as Susan and Friday are concerned, one is a descendant of the colonists, a white woman, and the other is a descendant of the colonized, a black man. The relationship between Susan and Friday can also be said to be a relationship between self and others. They are actually another one. Susan represents the western civilization and the white world, and her self does not allow the existence of the other-she represents the pure primitive civilization in Africa, the civilization closest to nature and ancestors. So Susan tried her best to assimilate Friday and let him accept European civilization and become a civilized person like her. Susan taught Friday to read and recognize English in an enlightened way, trying to get him to speak and express his views. However, when she saw the African scenery described by Susan on Friday, his eyes were empty, dim and strange, and he couldn't see the excitement of being familiar with the scenery at all. Maybe Friday's view of Africa is completely different from Susan's, but Susan imposed her own view on Friday, and Friday just made a dilemma whether to be assimilated by silence.

On Fu, Susan and Friday can't communicate, which is reflected in my inability to communicate with others. The impossibility of communication will soon become unpopular. In Coetzee's Fu, the relationship between self and others is suspicious, and Susan's attitude towards Friday is contradictory. Susan was disappointed with Friday's understanding and regretted his ignorance of modern civilization. But at the same time, Susan found Friday's body language, dance and music very mysterious. She wanted to explore the secrets that Friday was not known to the white world. When Susan refused Friday, she felt like Friday and even tried to seduce him. This is how Susan jumps between rejection and appreciation. In Fu, the boundary between self and others is sometimes blurred.

The traditional western way of thinking is subject-centered dichotomy. In this mode of thinking, the material world is divided into a series of binary opposites, such as self and the other, white and black, man and woman. During the period of colonialism, the West always occupied a self-centered position. They were rational, civilized and advanced, while the opposite-the colonized-was irrational, barbaric and inferior. This consciousness of binary opposition of colonialism permeates all kinds of colonial narratives, which makes people believe that the West is always in the center and the East is always in the position of attachment and obedience. In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Robinson is a rational, intelligent, energetic and indomitable pioneer in the face of difficulties. Friday is his loyal and obedient slave. Friday only exists as the opposite of Robinson and serves Robinson. However, in Fu, Robinson described by Coetzee is a decadent person, depressed, easily bored and without spiritual motivation. This means that the imperialist colonial rule represented by Robinson is threatened and tends to weaken. This deconstructs the binary opposition model centered on western whites from the inside.

In addition, Coetzee arranged the ending of Fu in a magical and surreal way. He arranged a scene of death: the bodies of Fu and Susan and Defoe's works were found in Fu's home. This ending deconstructs the ownership and truth of the work and also disintegrates the enlightenment thought. Coetzee may be suggesting that the whole civilization in South Africa has come to a standstill. White leaders in South Africa have been emphasizing their ideology and values, defending this ideology and imposing it on blacks. "Under this enlightenment and enlightenment ideology, blacks and whites in South Africa are very embarrassed. As a result of enlightenment, just as the instinctive voice was eradicated from his mouth on Friday, everything was destroyed with his tongue. " In fact, in the process of influencing and assimilating the other, the self is also influenced by the other; In reality, in such a social environment, blacks and whites should be interdependent. Coetzee's novel Fu is full of mystery and there are many places worth discussing. Like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, it uses the first person, but tells the stories of Robinson Crusoe, Friday and Susan from the perspective of a female narrator. But in the last part of the story, the ending full of postmodernism, the narrator jumps out of the frame (the ending is not described in quotation marks, so Susan didn't tell Fu) and enters the world of Susan, Friday and Fu as an unknown "I", breaking the fantasy of all narrative subjects. There is a silent stream flowing in Friday's mouth, which is his self-criticism and self-liberation. "Fu" disappeared in the "hole" it described, and disappeared in the tongue-less mouth on Friday.

Coetzee's works have always been concerned about South African society, black and white skin color, colonial history, apartheid, political violence and other themes. Although Fu didn't touch on the existing problems in South Africa, it implied the inner anxiety. His choice to rewrite Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is actually the uncertainty of white male narrative and imperial narrative. Coetzee believes that people of other genders, races and colors may have different views on the established narrative, and they may deconstruct this narrative mode centered on white men. Coetzee expressed the anxiety and anxiety of white South Africans in a postmodern way. title

As Coetzee said, the essence and creative process of novels can also be called "Who is writing". The title of the novel "Fu" was obtained by Defoe removing the prefix "De". Literally, the original meaning of "Foe" means "enemy" and "enemy". The word Defoe can be understood as "deconstructing the enemy" or "stripping the enemy of his disguise". At the same time, in Murmansi's view, "virtue" is a symbol of dignity before the surname. According to historical records, Defoe's real name was "Fu". Later, in order to show his dignity, he added "De" before his name and changed his surname to "Defoe". In Fu, Coetzee asked Defoe to restore his real surname foe, which made readers have many questions: If the author's creative intention in Robinson Crusoe is to praise colonialism, what is the author's real intention in Fu? By restoring the subtle changes of authenticity for the author, I really realize that the author is also "deconstructing and questioning Defoe's creative intention" and questioning the so-called protagonist Robinson, so that readers can participate in the work with their own thinking and get to know Coetzee.

Fu's rewriting of Robinson Crusoe

However, by rewriting Robinson Crusoe, Fu questioned the ideology of colonial imperialism embodied in the text. On the basis of Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee added a white woman, Susan Barton, to retell this classic. The novel tells the story of Susan Barton who was killed on the way to find her daughter who was sold to Brazil by British slave traders. She drifted to a desert island and met Crusoe and Friday. Later, they were rescued by a passing boat, but Crusoe died of exhaustion on the boat. After returning to England, Susan hoped to tell a story about a desert island with the help of writer Fu, but in order to please publishers and readers and make the story sell at a good price, writer Fu tampered with Susan's story and completely canceled Susan Barton, an important story character. The struggle between Fu and Susan for the right to speak the story is an extremely complicated behavior, which is closely related to the creator's purpose, intention and ideology. This also shows that what Coetzee shows in Fu is that the author is completely unreliable, and the historical narrative is not comprehensive or even subjective.

The traditional western way of thinking is subject-centered dichotomy. In this mode of thinking, the material world is divided into a series of binary opposites, such as self and the other, white and black, man and woman. During the period of colonialism, the West always occupied a self-centered position. They were rational, civilized and advanced, but on the contrary, the colonized were irrational, barbaric and inferior. This consciousness of binary opposition of colonialism permeates all kinds of colonial narratives, which makes people believe that the West is always in the center and the East is always in the position of attachment and obedience. In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Robinson is a rational, intelligent, energetic and indomitable pioneer in the face of difficulties. Friday is his loyal and obedient slave. Friday only exists as the opposite of Robinson and serves Robinson. However, in Fu, Robinson described by Coetzee is a decadent person, depressed, easily bored and without spiritual motivation. This means that the imperialist colonial rule represented by Robinson is threatened and tends to weaken. This deconstructs the binary opposition model centered on western whites from the inside.

The image of Friday has also been rewritten in Fu. In Robinson Crusoe, Friday was saved by Robinson from cannibals. Not only his life, but also his name was given by Robinson. He is a loyal slave, obedient to his master, willing to sacrifice his life in order to be with his master; He converted to his master's religion and studied his language hard. In a word, he is the most ideal "voter" in the eyes of colonists. In Fu's place, Friday was not only cut off, but also castrated, which not only lost the possibility of being colonized by words, but also made the colonists lose the possibility of continuing to oppress the next generation. He resisted colonial rule in this extreme way.

structure

From the details to the structure, Coetzee set up a "conspiracy" step by step with confidence. Fu is divided into four stages, which is more and more common in other art forms (for example, the sun rises as usual, disrupting the narrative time, and how to get excited is arranged by the artist himself). Not stiff and fluent technical exploration has always been what Kutcher is willing to do, and this kind of exploration and attempt has been carried out in all his works. Coetzee's four paragraphs in Fu did not fiddle with time, but broke the narrative angle. At the end, the first person and the second person appear alternately, and even the first person is retained but the narrator is changed-a person who has never appeared before appears at the end of the novel, and the whole article is examined and summarized with little space. This kind of formal exploration seems to take the three-dimensional description of a thing as the final judgment. Time will not stop, and the photographer turns to shoot the changes of events, giving readers an all-round feeling.