JM Coetzee's 1986 novel Foe recounts the adventures and aspirations of Susan Barton, a fictional young woman who finds herself marooned on an unusual island with the stolid Cruso and the his tongueless slave Friday. The beginning of the novel is set on the island, where Susan immerses herself in a slow but steady pace of life with her new cohabitants, all the while developing a wealth of experiences and philosophies that she is eager to share. The latter of the novel then details his rescue and return to England, a place immediately established as a sort of contrast to the island. It is here that she turns her attention to writing - or rather convincing the famous author Daniel (De) Foe to write for her - and goes crazy in the process. Trapped in language, Susan, ironically, seems to lose control of her own story. Coetzee here adopts a rather unconventional perspective for an author: through the oppositional forces symbolized by the island and England, he presents the idea that reality and professional narrative are perhaps destined to collide, that authorship might in fact rob one of his (or her) truest and most substantial identity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Cruso and his secluded house, in short, represent simplicity and truth. On the island, he and Friday are autonomous in the almost literal sense of the word, abiding not necessarily by their own laws but certainly by their own intuition, unconstrained by social norms and therefore not pushed to be anything besides themselves. Upon arriving on the island, Susan serves as a sort of link between this simple, lawless structure and the urbanized world. She immediately shakes things up a bit, playing devil's advocate when she questions the primitive nature of island life, to which Cruso simply replies that "as long as [their] desires are moderate [they] have no need of laws" (36 ). Throughout her stay, she is continually struck by Cruso's extraordinarily simple lifestyle of building terraces and preparing food, but especially by his indifference to keeping records of it all. She observes that "he could have lived very happily on the island, but who, accustomed to the fullness of human speech, can be content with croaks, chirps, and squeals... and the moaning of the wind" (8). It is evident here that her social roots prevent her from truly connecting to the simpler pleasures of life; while Cruso is very confident in his ability to find fulfillment without words, Susan remains somewhat burdened by his desire for deeper, language-driven meaning. After returning to England, this burden only grows; the novel shifts here from its predominantly narrative form to a more epistolary fashion, reflecting Susan's transition from a very primitive experience to an invented narrative. As Susan becomes increasingly concerned about the author to whom she writes, she increasingly surrenders herself and her story to Foe (whose literary vision does not quite match her own). And just as England foils the island, Foe's character also appears to foil Cruso. Although Cruso lived in simplicity and truth, Foe presses her for details and urges her to change the narrative. He also orders her to teach Friday to write, a gesture that, while it may be well-intentioned, only reinforces the idea that a human being's purpose depends on language. Toward the end of the novel, it is clear that Susan has lost a significant part of herself in her attempt to turn an organic experience into a written story. She also observes that “the life [she] leads becomes less and less.