I think everyone is finished reading, so let's talk about Friday and his symbolism. What symbols do we see in him or his actions?
The loss of his tongue, which means he can't communicate in his mother language or anything else. What else?
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Well, again, he CAN communicate, or he COULD (signs, visuals, etc.) but he doesn't. How come?
Things I can think of:
1)Food for thought for teachers: when our students won't talk. What is their message to us?
I can imagine the following:
a) they don't speak ANY language well.
b) they are distancing themselves from reality for whatever reason.
c) they don't like us, or don't trust us, or they don't trust ANYBODY.
Just a wild guess: Friday experienced some gruesome abuse and never got over it. Quite possibly, it came from a white person, so he has no intention to learn to communicate with the white race, in any language. Silence can be his way to show contempt.
I also see the slave and the slave-owner, the dominant and the dominated. Hello, Atlas teachers! :)
Rowena,
I never got your last replies in my mail. How weird, because I got your comment to Gislene...
Ok, folks, I figured this out: you HAVE to mark "email follow-up comments to email address" to get them in the mail.
How annoying to have to do it every time.
Friday is silent throughout the book. If I understood the book correctly, it is at the end where we "hear" him and his version of the story. The narration of passing through the cabin, the wreck, the island. Last page 157 it starts: "But this is not a place of words. Each syllable, as it comes out, is caught and filled with water diffused...His mouth opens...
It sounds as though he is narrating this part of the book. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it?? Or I just really want to really know his version/story or anything from Friday!
Anna, I also thought the last chapter was Friday's voice. I felt both sad and happy reading it. Happy that he finally got his freedom, his "voice", and sad for his life-time of suffering.
Anna, more on the topic:
somehow I also feel that the last chapter is the voice of Coetzee himself...in a way. Looking at his creations and...smiling. Letting them all go and rest in peace.
Does it sound crazy?
I had mentioned in one of my discussion postings or blogs how I like or need some kind of closure at the end of a story. I feel that even though I still have questions as to who is speaking and what is going on, that the closure I seek is in the "water scene". Maybe the water is a symbol of cleansing or purification in a sense, that all the troubles, frustrations, secrets, of all the characters are all washed away...there is some kind of peace now.
Anna, I feel the same way: the cleansing water washing away all the superficial, the petty, the unnecessary, leaving one clean and "new". I also wrote about it in the discussion, I felt a relief, peace and a sense of closure in the last chapter. I totally loved it!
As I mentioned on the discussion on the webct, I think he just didn't want to communicate. If we amalyze the situation as as a "slave" ans "slave-owner"..he already had no options about what to do (maybe the biggest thing after "self-mutilating" would be kill himself??? So at least he aptioned for not communicating!! He already have lost his people, part of his culture....I would be his way of finding "peace", as it was mentioned somewhere here...
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