Foe by J.M. Coetzee and Atwood’s Happy Endings

Metafiction, loosely defined as fiction about fiction, provides an intriguing perspective on literature. J.M. Coetzee’s novel Foe and Margaret Atwood’s short story “Happy Endings” are able to provide a commentary on fiction writing while still retaining their own identities. Both authors offer criticism of fiction writing as connected to gender issues, societal expectations, and the process and components of fiction writing itself.

In order to become metafictional, Coetzee and Atwood had to make readers aware of what they were reading. Coetzee, by creating a story in which an author exists as a main character, personifies the act of writing fiction. In addition, by partially basing Foe off of Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee makes it obvious that his own book is a piece of metafiction. The very character of “Foe” represents a minimalist version of Daniel Defoe’s much longer Robinson Crusoe. Atwood, taking a different approach, directly addresses the conventions of storytelling in her own story. Plot, character development, setting, and form are all addressed within “Happy Endings.” And by creating multiple versions each with their own ending, Atwood encourages readers to interact and assign meaning to the stories both separately and when strung together. Not only does "Happy Endings" create a story about fiction writing, it also makes that story interactive, which draws more attention to itself as a criticism of traditional fiction.

Both "Happy Endings" and Foe provide commentary on gender issues in modern fiction writing. In "Happy Endings", Margaret Atwood’s attack on gender stereotypes reveals itself in the form of character interactions. Her various story versions portray how women are victims of conformity in a patriarchal societ...

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...ssion, political oppression, social oppression, etc., Friday is a symbol of those left without power of expression and, therefore, without an audience. Language, written or spoken, is a form of power and without it one is helpless in the face of society.

The concept of metafiction in Foe and “Happy Endings” is both engaging and difficult to grasp. While metafiction lends a sense of self-consciousness to the individual pieces of writing, identifying exactly what the authors are trying to say about fiction writing itself is complex and open to multiple interpretations. Nevertheless, Coetzee and Atwood both identify some similar ideas within their works. Gender conflict plays a central role in both stories, as women such as Susan and Mary are portrayed as inferior to their male counterparts. Their stories are dismissed in favor of a more conventional perspective.