J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace

Deconstruction in J .M . Coetzee 's Disgrace

Being a post-colonial text , J .M . Coetzee 's Disgrace is a multi-layered narrative of deconstruction- from the language , the characters and their values , the setting and the context . Deconstruction is a strategy employed by J .M . Coetzee to present and critique the effects of colonialism within the South African post-apartheid context . After the removal of the apartheid system that has hounded South Africa for the longest time , one would expect a complete turnabout in values , beliefs and practice amongst the people and the community-both rural

and urban Coetzee subverts this expectation by depicting a post-apartheid life and existence that is still , in the metaphorical sense , imprisoned and clinging to the misery and antiquity of the colonial past . David Lurie the lead character and the narrator in the literary text is a man who has drunk and gobbled many of life 's bitter disappointments- from his unfulfilled teaching days in a university turned technical college to his demotion as a caretaker of terminally ill animals in his daughter 's farm . Coetzee deconstructs David 's character by portraying him as a man still shackled from his own vices and values as well as from the old world that boxed and created him instead of a free , happy man in a post-apartheid environ (ment . On another level , David 's character undergoes deconstruction by being depicted as a Caucasian South African male in a time and place (post-apartheid ) where the whites do hold as much power as they once used to . In terms of language , Coetzee 's prose is anti-realist . Truth and meaning in his narrative are not laid bare explicitly it is covered and laced with undertones , symbols and irony The novel also deconstructs the romantic pastoral prototype of the farm novel tradition through its portrayal of a lonely and desolate farm , and through the narrator Magda , a lonely spinster suffocated by an environment of intellectual and spiritual drought (Subverting the pastoral : the transcendence of space and place in J .M . Coetzee 's Disgrace 2006 . Coetzee transforms the farm which often conjures up an image of one that is idyllic and laidback into a setting that is marred with unhappiness and disillusionment

Work (s ) Cited

Subverting the pastoral : the transcendence of space and place in J .M Coetzee 's Disgrace ' High Beam Encyclopedia . 2006 . 27 March 2008...