Robinson Crusoe in Foe: Coetzee reads Defoe through post-colonial lens

Abstract

This study consists of the analysis of two important novels which represent the travel writing. They are Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Foe (1986), whose authors, respectively Daniel Defoe, in the eighteenth century, and John Maxwell Coetzee, in the twentieth century, also dialogue in writing through the Shakespeare language. Building on these intersections, we seek to establish, through literary comparativism, the textual and historical relations between their works. The novel Foe appears as a contemporary reinterpretation of the travel narrative genre which had already been developed in Robinson Crusoe, an earlier novel of this thematic category. Coetzee takes over the classic work establishing reflections concerning the colonial context in which Defoe wrote his work. Thus Coetzee takes a new look at the theme under the focus of the post-colonialism approach. This perspective reflects the way of writing the text, so the genre, reflection of the image of a period, ends up being rebuilt, according to the post-modern perspective.