Authenticity, the Epistolary, and Beyond: The ‘Substance of the Truth’ in Coetzee’s Foe

This article investigates the functions of the epistolary form in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe as a means of constructing authenticity and probing what Susan Barton calls the “substance of the truth.” Two distinct forms of authenticity play a central role in Foe (1987). The first is related to the narrative conventions of autofiction, particularly fictional autobiography, the epistolary form, and what has been termed “circumstantial realism,” as exemplified by Daniel Defoe and the eighteenth-century novel. The second emerges through Susan Barton’s insistence on the “substance of the truth” (F, 51), which appears to transcend these conventions of realistic narration. By employing a different, non-realist form of authenticity, Coetzee critiques the oppression and erasure of the female writing subject and foregrounds the fate of Friday, the traumatized subaltern who cannot speak. Coetzee’s postmodern rewriting thus both employs and deconstructs the representational conventions that establish authenticity, while also revealing an ethical commitment characteristic of his work in general.