The present article offers a comparative reading of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Foe by J. M. Coetzee through Roland Barthes’ distinction between the readerly and writerly texts, while separating this framework from the binary of Plaisir (pleasure) and jouissance (bliss) articulated in The Pleasure of the Text. Taking the relative narrative coherence of Robinson Crusoe and the formal fragmentation of Foe as its point of departure, the study argues that the significance of a Barthesian reading lies in its displacement of critical attention from the representation of colonial power toward the textual production of reading itself. The text operates not as a closed structure of stable meaning but as a shifting site of signification constituted through narrative rupture, semiotic indeterminacy, and textual plurality. Accordingly, the semantic coherence of Robinson Crusoe and the instability of Foe mark two distinct textual economies and modes of readerly implication: Defoe’s novel privileges continuity, hermeneutic containment, and moral legibility, whereas Coetzee intensifies silence,
Niknezhadferdos, H. (2026). The Seduction of Coherence and the Tyranny of Silence: Defoe, Coetzee, and Barthesian Reading. Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice, (), -. doi: 10.22034/jls.2026.145253.1337
MLA
Niknezhadferdos, H. . "The Seduction of Coherence and the Tyranny of Silence: Defoe, Coetzee, and Barthesian Reading", Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice, , , 2026, -. doi: 10.22034/jls.2026.145253.1337
HARVARD
Niknezhadferdos, H. (2026). 'The Seduction of Coherence and the Tyranny of Silence: Defoe, Coetzee, and Barthesian Reading', Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice, (), pp. -. doi: 10.22034/jls.2026.145253.1337
CHICAGO
H. Niknezhadferdos, "The Seduction of Coherence and the Tyranny of Silence: Defoe, Coetzee, and Barthesian Reading," Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice, (2026): -, doi: 10.22034/jls.2026.145253.1337
VANCOUVER
Niknezhadferdos, H. The Seduction of Coherence and the Tyranny of Silence: Defoe, Coetzee, and Barthesian Reading. Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice, 2026; (): -. doi: 10.22034/jls.2026.145253.1337
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