The Book, Meaning, and Densities of Essential Forms in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe

Figures & data

Table

Poem (ex computer)	Poem (edited)
Dawn Birds Stream	Dawn, birds, a stream, a calm morning.
Calm-Morning	You stand among the trees alone and tense.
You) Stand-Among	You have cried.
Forest	You spend the nights away from me,
Alone Tense	Terrified, rapt,
You) Cry	Among owls and black men,
You) Spend-The-Nights	Hoping for violence.
I) Away-From
Terrified Rapt
Owls Blackmen
You) Hope Violence

Table 1. Most frequent words in Coetzee’s Foe (function words excluded).

Feature	Frequency
friday	388
say	296
cruso	216
island	164
know	134
foe	133
story	131
make	130
come	120
one	117

Figure 1. A feature co-occurrence network of Coetzee’s Foe.¹⁴

Table 2. Top-weighted words of Coetzee’s Foe, by partition.

Partition (by word count)	Top-weighted features of novel (5)
200	foe, tongue, write, story, cruso
300	tongue, write, friday, foe, cruso
400	tongue, foe, cannibal, write, daughter
500	foe, cannibal, write, play, tongue
1000	write, foe, slate, amy, play

Figure 2. Word clusters (40 words) around the terms “foe” (red) and “write” (blue) in a word embedding map of Coetzee’s Foe.²⁰

Table 3. Nearest ten words to each of the top-weighted words of Coetzee’s Foe.

Feature	Nearest features (10) in order of proximity (nearest to furthest)
tongue	cut, lose, knife, put, slaver, master, friday, hold, say, across
write	letter, paper, nevertheless, read, book, purposeful, word, we, o, h
friday	say, cruso, live, master, now, take, can, go, find, ask
foe	mr, say, show, story, come, ask, we, find, give, can
cruso	live, friday, island, well, life, say, now, save, tell, come

Figure 3. A section network of Coetzee’s Foe, partitioned at 400 words.²⁹

Table 4. Top ten words (weighted by TD-IDF) of the most semantically related sections of Coetzee’s Foe.

Section	Top-weighted features of section (10)
11	law, immoderate, arrival, concern, stone, labour, desire, terrace, reflect, castaway
12	punish, misery, hobart, crag, sky, bluff, solitude, party, blind, death
18	spoon, soap, scullery, broom, book, particular, pleasure, cellar, page, use

Table 5. Most semantically connected sections of Coetzee’s Foe and the sections to which they are related (with highest TF-IDF weighted feature).

Section	Semantically related sections (with highest TF-IDF weighted feature)
11 (law)	8 (flea), 12 (punish), 14 (moon), 26 (danger), 28 (scatter)
12 (punish)	6 (firewood), 9 (mend), 11 (law), 14 (moon), 18 (spoon), 21 (circumstance), 48 (freedom)
18 (spoon)	6 (firewood), 12 (punish), 19 (hedge), 21 (circumstance), 48 (freedom)

Figure 4. Simplified network showing the connections of key sections in Foe, with the highest TF-IDF weighted term for each section.³⁰

Table 6. Five most coherent topics in Coetzee’s Foe.³³

Topic	Topic label	Coherence	Top feature in topic
24	play tune	0.345	friday, play, tune, flute, music, playing, forever, played, notes, morning
36	father born	0.274	dancing, robes, eyes, wig, spinning, shut, foe, form, head, house
40	susan barton	0.249	mother, true, barton, susan, house, susan_barton, father, brewer, forest, sit
8	cut tongue	0.228	tongue, cut, knife, slave, fridays, master, cut_tongue, trader, africa, slave_trader
13	lost tongue	0.227	bristol, africa, road, slave, ashore, gipsies, replied, ship, woman, washed

Figure 5. Theta for topic 24 in Coetzee’s Foe.

Table 7. Five most prevalent topics in Coetzee’s Foe.

Topic	Native topic label	Prevalence	Top features in topic
25	lost tongue	3.092	friday, cruso, words, time, day, life, lost, understand, lost_tongue, truth
31	friday friday	3.074	foe, friday, replied, sleep, head, door, jack, whispered, lay, friday_Friday
40	susan barton	2.839	mother, true, barton, susan, house, susan_barton, father, brewer, forest, sit
32	substantial substantial	2.711	writing, words, foe, speech, write, word, read, speak, world, Friday
8	cut tongue	2.700	tongue, cut, knife, slave, fridays, master, cut_tongue, trader, africa, slave_trader

Figure 6. Theta for topic 25 in Coetzee’s Foe.