J.M.쿳시의 소설과 미국의 식민주의/제국주의--『어둠의 땅』의 「베트남 프로젝트」를 중심으로

왕은철 한국영어영문학회 2008 영어 영문학 Vol.54 No.1

Critics are inclined to interpret J.M. Coetzee’s novels in South African contexts, which Coetzee’s own background seems to support. One has to bear in mind, however, that Coetzee tends to “see the South African situation as only one manifestation of a wider historical situation to do with colonialism, late colonialism, neo-colonialism.” In other words, putting too much emphasis on South African contexts may diminish or undermine significance of Coetzee’s multi-layered novels. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to highlight what Coetzee has to say about American colonialism/imperialism and to emphasize importance of “postcolonial rhetoric of simultaneity” which is repeatedly shown in his fictional works. It gives a meticulous attention to and analyzes “Vietnam Project,” the first novella of Dusklands, Coetzee’s very first novel, which depicts and characterizes “what Chomsky in the context of Vietnam [War] called ‘the backroom boys.’” “The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee,” “When a Woman Grows Older,” and Diary of a Bad Year are occasionally brought into discussion as well. This kind of study seems timely and pertinent especially when we take into account the rampant American imperialism which has devastated and almost traumatized the world. Critics are inclined to interpret J.M. Coetzee’s novels in South African contexts, which Coetzee’s own background seems to support. One has to bear in mind, however, that Coetzee tends to “see the South African situation as only one manifestation of a wider historical situation to do with colonialism, late colonialism, neo-colonialism.” In other words, putting too much emphasis on South African contexts may diminish or undermine significance of Coetzee’s multi-layered novels. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to highlight what Coetzee has to say about American colonialism/imperialism and to emphasize importance of “postcolonial rhetoric of simultaneity” which is repeatedly shown in his fictional works. It gives a meticulous attention to and analyzes “Vietnam Project,” the first novella of Dusklands, Coetzee’s very first novel, which depicts and characterizes “what Chomsky in the context of Vietnam [War] called ‘the backroom boys.’” “The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee,” “When a Woman Grows Older,” and Diary of a Bad Year are occasionally brought into discussion as well. This kind of study seems timely and pertinent especially when we take into account the rampant American imperialism which has devastated and almost traumatized the world.

“입증할 수 없는 것”으로부터 배우기 —쿳시의 『엘리자베스 코스텔로』

손영주 한국현대영미소설학회 2009 현대영미소설 Vol.16 No.3

Taking a cue from J. M. Coetzee's analysis of Erasmus's (non)position in the essay, “Erasmus: Madness and Rivalry,” this paper examines the question of the ethics of writing and reading in Elizabeth Costello. Coetzee's view of the limits and possibilities of the Erasmian (non)position -- meaning “off the stage of political rivalry” in the era of political turmoil -- sheds much light on the writer-protagonist Elizabeth Costello's position in the novel, as well as that of Coetzee's own in postcolonial discourses. As a writer who is notoriously elusive or silent on political matters, Coetzee has frequently been accused of political and/or moral irresponsibility. On the other hand, other critics have focused on Coetzee's postmodern metafictional writing from a different perspective, arguing that Coetzee's formal experimentalism enacts an ethics which is not assumed to be secondary to politics, but initiative of alternative politics. Drawing on recent studies in relation to ethics, particularly those about the ethics of postmodern theories, these critics emphasize that Coetzee's texts reveal the unknowability of the Other, the unbridgeable gap between self and Other, language and body, and text and world, namely, the limit of representation. Few critics, however, have noted the fact that Elizabeth Costello directs the reader's attention to the 'stages' that constantly seek to make Elizabeth's statements part of the discourses of power, and thus, deliberately foregrounds the ways in which the unsympathetic and overly rational audience simplify, misunderstand, and/or distort her language about literature, ethics, and being. Elizabeth's lectures at times sound absurd, passionate, or simply crazy, and yet, the seemingly common sensical and logical accusations against her turn out to be even more problematic in their failure to read Elizabeth's “unverifiable” yet true messages: alternative knowledge and experiences that affirm “knowing” and “being” the Other. Far from endowing Elizabeth with the authority to deliver and teach truth and ethics, the text suggests that the ethics of writing would not be possible without the existence of a reader who is willing to “listen” to the “unverifiable” through an on-going process of learning how to read. Taking a cue from J. M. Coetzee's analysis of Erasmus's (non)position in the essay, “Erasmus: Madness and Rivalry,” this paper examines the question of the ethics of writing and reading in Elizabeth Costello. Coetzee's view of the limits and possibilities of the Erasmian (non)position -- meaning “off the stage of political rivalry” in the era of political turmoil -- sheds much light on the writer-protagonist Elizabeth Costello's position in the novel, as well as that of Coetzee's own in postcolonial discourses. As a writer who is notoriously elusive or silent on political matters, Coetzee has frequently been accused of political and/or moral irresponsibility. On the other hand, other critics have focused on Coetzee's postmodern metafictional writing from a different perspective, arguing that Coetzee's formal experimentalism enacts an ethics which is not assumed to be secondary to politics, but initiative of alternative politics. Drawing on recent studies in relation to ethics, particularly those about the ethics of postmodern theories, these critics emphasize that Coetzee's texts reveal the unknowability of the Other, the unbridgeable gap between self and Other, language and body, and text and world, namely, the limit of representation. Few critics, however, have noted the fact that Elizabeth Costello directs the reader's attention to the 'stages' that constantly seek to make Elizabeth's statements part of the discourses of power, and thus, deliberately foregrounds the ways in which the unsympathetic and overly rational audience simplify, misunderstand, and/or distort her language about literature, ethics, and being. Elizabeth's lectures at times sound absurd, passionate, or simply crazy, and yet, the seemingly common sensical and logical accusations against her turn out to be even more problematic in their failure to read Elizabeth's “unverifiable” yet true messages: alternative knowledge and experiences that affirm “knowing” and “being” the Other. Far from endowing Elizabeth with the authority to deliver and teach truth and ethics, the text suggests that the ethics of writing would not be possible without the existence of a reader who is willing to “listen” to the “unverifiable” through an on-going process of learning how to read.

개인의 비극과 상처를 넘어: J. M. 쿳시의 『페테르부르크의 대가』에 나타난 고통의 시학

왕은철 한국영어영문학회 2020 영어 영문학 Vol.66 No.2

J. M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg can be read as a long, sus�tained “work of mourning” in which the fictional Dostoevsky tries to come to terms with his stepson’s death. Similarly it can be read as Coetzee’s own effort to mourn his own son’s tragic death. What Dostoevsky goes though in the narrative is then somewhat similar to what Coetzee went through when his son died. The novel shows how Coetzee writes about himself in the fictionalized Dostoevsky. At the same time, Coetzee tries to go beyond his traumatic experience and extend the narrative to a point in which he could explore the political, cultural, spiritual condition of Dostoevsky’s Russia as well as of his native South Africa. This paper argues that Coetzee vacillates between a need to mourn his son and a need to go beyond his personal tragedy and strive for, to use T.S. Eliot’s phrase, “a continual extinction of personality.” In between lies Coetzee’s painful loss of his son. As such Coetzee writes himself in and out. The novel is a curious amalgam in which Coetzee both succeeds and fails to bury his own self beneath the superstructure of the narrative. The novel painfully testifies to what he means by saying that “All writing is storytelling, all writing is autobiography.” It is a poetics of pain and suffering that informs and permeates every aspect of Coetzee’s emotionally laden text. Pain writes itself into and out of the text.

나딘 고디머의 눈으로 본 J. M. 쿳시의 소설 『마이클 K』에 나타난 원심력과 구심력에 관하여

왕은철 ( Eun Chull Wang ) 21세기영어영문학회 2014 영어영문학21 Vol.27 No.4

Nadine Gordimer published in 2010 a collection of literary essays spanning for more than half a century, one of which was her 1984 review of J. M. Coetzee’s The Life & Times of Michael K. Interestingly enough, she added a sentence to what she had written more than two decades ago: “Postscript: J. M. Coetzee took Australian citizenship in 2006.” It is hardly a news that Coetzee left South Africa and settled down in Australia, for anybody interested in Coetzee is surely aware of it. Yet Gordimer chooses to problematize it and seems to suggest the need to reappraise Coetzee’s novel in light that he is no longer a South African author. This paper not only explores in what ways The Life & Times of Michael K is related to the author’s relocation but attempts to see Coetzee’s novel in light of two antithetical forces: the centripetal force of Coetzee’s novel trying to “take up residence in a world where a living play of feelings and ideas is possible” and the centrifugal force of South African literature in which his novels are swallowed “into a political discourse.” This paper ultimately suggests that Coetzee’s novel derives its extraordinary singularity from a tension between two contradictory forces engaged in a deadly but creative fight against each other. Yet it remains to be seen, as David Attwell suggests, whether in his adopted country Coetzee will ever “produce as rich a harvest” as he has done in his native country. It is in this respect that Gordimer’s rather harsh and ironic words will need to be taken into serious account.

J. M. 쿳시의 소설에 나타난 공동체의 정치학 : 인종주의와 자유주의를 넘어 Beyond Apartheid and Liberalism

이석구 한국현대영미소설학회 2002 현대영미소설 Vol.9 No.2

J. M. Coetzee is often blamed for his alleged adoption of a liberal aesthetics, which, according to critics, has caused his novel to represent "a retreat from a commitment to political solutions." The diverse accusations against Coetzee are summed up in Nadine Gordimer's criticism that Coetzee excludes "social destiny" from his work of art. This study, however, directs attention to the critique of both Afikaner regime and white liberals embedded in Waiting for the Barbarians and Age of Icon. Coetzee uses liberal whites as the protagonists of his works; however, this employment of a white liberal voice is intended as exposing the inadequacy of white liberalism as an alternative to racism. For instance, in Waiting for the Barbarians, Coetzee, through the perspective of his liberal white hero, brings to the fore the inadequacy of liberal whites as an agent of bringing forth substantial changes against the naked militancy of an imperial regime. In Age of Iron, Coetzee, through the political awakening of Mrs. Curren, exposes liberal whites' complicity in racial crimes and highlights the need for their sacrifice and negation of a white identity. For instance, Mrs. Curren, bravely abandoning the comforts of bourgeois life, puts her life in danger in protest against police violence. This call for sacrifice is what, this study asserts, distinguishes Coetzee's political stance from liberalism. As Wolfgang Palaver argues, liberalism, which "can be characterized by its rejection of sacrifice," prioritizes the inviolability of the individual over anything, including the communal good and justice. The conclusion of this study is that Coetzee's novel has a vision going beyond liberalism and towards a genuine community which the author once called "a pool in which differnces wash away."

Rivaling History, Refusing Charity: Contest of Ethics and Politics in J. M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K

Peggy Cho 한국현대영미소설학회 2010 현대영미소설 Vol.17 No.3

A Booker Prize winner in 1983, J. M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K has long attracted critical attention for introducing a protagonist who seemed unresponsive to the gravity of the historical situation and even lacking an awareness of himself. A seminal work in Coetzee's early fictional output, it has been at the center of a heated debate between art and history or ethics and politics. While Coetzee has often been accused of evading the question of the writer's responsibility in urgent historical times, a close examination of his works reveal that he has been acutely sensitive to the demands of history. This essay reads Life and Times of Michael K as an imaginative investigation of the very structures which produce and perpetuate injustices in history and human relations. Critics have claimed that the protagonist's passivity and tendency to withdraw from society convey a negation of history. However, the silent, negative responses of Michael K are an expression both of a fierce resistance to authority and a profound desire for individual freedom and self-determination. By choosing to remain silent and refusing to become part of the colonial project or an object of institutional charity, Michael rivals history by exposing the fundamental dishonesty in human associations. The novel is also an important work in Coetzee's oeuvre as it reveals his unique ethical sensibility to the act of fictional writing. As a writer acutely sensitive about the responsibility of the author and the authority wielded in writing about the other, Coetzee pays attention to the problem of interpreting the otherness of Michael K and makes it a key formal consideration. Michael K's refusal to supply a story for a guilt-stricken narrator is used to pass judgment on the white obsession to contain the other in the narrative act. Rather than being preoccupied with its own elusiveness, Coetzee's novel succeeds in championing the autonomy of the marginal other, both on the literal and metafictional dimensions. Thus, Life and Times of Michael K is a prime example of Coetzee's concern with the ethical act of writing and the complicity of the author in the project of subordinating the marginal figures of society.

Rivaling History, Refusing Charity: Contest of Ethics and Politics in J. M. Coetzee`s Life and Times of Michael K

( Peggy C. Cho ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2010 현대영미소설 Vol.17 No.3

A Booker Prize winner in 1983, J. M. Coetzee`s Life and Times of Michael K has long attracted critical attention for introducing a protagonist who seemed unresponsive to the gravity of the historical situation and even lacking an awareness of himself. A seminal work in Coetzee`s early fictional output, it has been at the center of a heated debate between art and history or ethics and politics. While Coetzee has often been accused of evading the question of the writer`s responsibility in urgent historical times, a close examination of his works reveal that he has been acutely sensitive to the demands of history. This essay reads Life and Times of Michael K as an imaginative investigation of the very structures which produce and perpetuate injustices in history and human relations. Critics have claimed that the protagonist`s passivity and tendency to withdraw from society convey a negation of history. However, the silent, negative responses of Michael K are an expression both of a fierce resistance to authority and a profound desire for individual freedom and self-determination. By choosing to remain silent and refusing to become part of the colonial project or an object of institutional charity, Michael rivals history by exposing the fundamental dishonesty in human associations. The novel is also an important work in Coetzee`s oeuvre as it reveals his unique ethical sensibility to the act of fictional writing. As a writer acutely sensitive about the responsibility of the author and the authority wielded in writing about the other, Coetzee pays attention to the problem of interpreting the otherness of Michael K and makes it a key formal consideration. Michael K`s refusal to supply a story for a guilt-stricken narrator is used to pass judgment on the white obsession to contain the other in the narrative act. Rather than being preoccupied with its own elusiveness, Coetzee`s novel succeeds in championing the autonomy of the marginal other, both on the literal and metafictional dimensions. Thus, Life and Times of Michael K is a prime example of Coetzee`s concern with the ethical act of writing and the complicity of the author in the project of subordinating the marginal figures of society.

J. M. 쿳시의『추락』: 인종주의 공간에서 서술되는 윤리적 딜레마의 수사학

김현아 한국중앙영어영문학회 2009 영어영문학연구 Vol.51 No.2

John Maxwell Coetzee(1940- ), one of the most influential writers of the Republic of South Africa, has attracted public attention in the world of English literature. The ethics of the Other that Coetzee’s novels coherently examine has something in common with the theories of Gayatri Spivak and Emmanuel Levinas. Spivak emphasizes ethical responsibility in the postcolonial discourse and constructs a comprehensive academic and practical sphere which includes imperial history and subaltern study beyond the European philosophical and literary tradition. Levinas, an ethicist who analyzed the structure of the ethical relations between the self and the Other, further focuses on how the egoistic self respects the Other and attempts to constitute ethical relations between them. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the Rhetoric of Ethical Dilemma Narrated in the Racism Space in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999). While white writers like Coetzee in South Africa are considered to be more objective concerning racial discrimination than black writers, they have collided with certain racial limitations as they are not entirely free from the cultural traditions of Europe. Furthermore, white authors’ writings like Coetzee are accused of conspiring with the white people’s segregated society concepts and their former political power. This paper deals with Disgrace that suggests the future prospect of South Africa be positive through ethical coexistence in the post-Apartheid period, when the confrontation between black and white remained unchanged and conflicts and deep wounds were still felt. To explore “re-awoken” main characters rewriting contemporary history toward a new reconciliation between white and black, this analyzes Lurie, a white professor, who is deprived of his social position due to having had a sexual intercourse with his colored female pupil, and his daughter, Lucy, who was raped by black men. Although Lurie lived apart from the reality of culture, history, and geopolitics, he challenges the old stereotype that black and white cannot coexist. This text reveals not only the violence Lurie and Lucy undergo but also the process of the exploration for “truth and reconciliation” by asking whether black and white can truly coexist and by recalling the need for ethical self-reflection for true coexistence. In the end, Lurie and Lucy are reborn as characters who rewrite the contemporary history in the post-apartheid era. In Disgrace Coetzee aims to lead his readers to reflect upon what is indispensable for a world of genuine coexistence and true reconciliation instead of simply showing them the terrible events of Lurie and Lucy’s lives.

오스트레일리아와 러시아를 통해서 본 J. M. 쿳시의 공간서사 슬로우 맨과 페테르부르크의 대가를 중심으로

김현아 ( Hyun Ah Kim ) 21세기영어영문학회 2014 영어영문학21 Vol.27 No.2

This paper is concerned with Coetzee``s intention of experimenting with new subjects through the movement of his spatial background, centering on the novels The Master of Petersburg and Slow Man. These novels are based in Russia and Australia, in contrast to South Africa where Coetzee placed his past novels. The Master of Petersburg treats the subtle tension between a revolutionist devoting his attentions to history, and a writer criticizing “blind revolution”. Following this course, Coetzee raises the question whether Dostoyevsky``s reproach of a revolutionist can be indeed justified in a complex way. Coetzee, that is, confuses the reader by not giving Dostoyevsky moral legitimacy. The Dostoyevsky Coetzee creates is obsessed with a desire for writing and eventually comes to betray everyone around him, including his dead son, using them as materials for his writing. But Coetzee does not blame Dostoyevsky, as most writers inevitably use people around them for inspiration. Slow Man characterizes the individual``s self-conscious life, regardless of political or historical aspects, as in The Master of Petersburg. The main character, Paul Rayment, is an immigrant from France who has been disabled in a bicycle accident in his old age. This circumstance stresses his strangeness and Otherness as a “slow man”, the title of the novel. His situation of being disabled, however, incites him to come to accept the Other. Based on these novels’ characters, this present work analyses how the main subjects of these texts have changed as the backgrounds of these texts have shifted from South Africa to Russia and Australia. This is because it is important that the changes reflected on the new spaces have shown the author’s recreated view with his own immigration. In this context, this paper emphasizes that The Master of Petersburg and Slow Man are creative narratives which need to be extended to readings related to movement of background, to Russia and Australia, far from Coetzee’s homeland of South Africa.

Ghostly Writing: Narrative Structure in J.M. Coetzee's Foe

Youngnam Cha 21세기영어영문학회 2008 영어영문학21 Vol.21 No.1

The paper provides an in depth of examination of the narrative structure of J. M. Coetzee's Foe. First of all, Coetzee writes back to Robinson Crusoe, written by a British author, Daniel Defoe in the eighteenth century. In writing back to Robinson Crusoe, Foe appropriates Defoe's rhetorical devices such as an autobiographical element, journal and memoir. The appropriation is shown from the section one to the section three. Most significantly, the appropriation aims at (de)constructing the reliability of the novel in the early eighteenth century. It is, however, notable that the strategy of writing-back in Foe is not that simple. That is to say, Coetzee essentially questions the reliability of Robinson Crusoe within the postcolonial context. The subversion of the reliability begins with the third person female narrator, Susan Barton, instead of the first person narrator, Robinson Crusoe in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Under the gaze of Susan Barton, the reader finds that Defoe's rhetorical devices are not applied to the racial other, Friday. By pointing out the problematic representation of Friday, Foe maximizes the subversive effect of the writing-back strategy. In particular, Coetzee's idea on representing the other goes a step further. For him, Susan Barton also cannot speak of the other as well as for the other. The disappearance of the reliable narrator, Susan, in the last section reveals the radical idea of Coetzee on writing and representation. The ghostly voice of the last section questions the reliability and narrative of Susan Barton. The ghostly narrator clearly tells that any narratorial subject cannot be free from the reliability in terms of representing the other. In sum, J. M. Coetzee's Foe takes advantage of the effect of the appropriation and subversion as a postmodern parody of Robinson Crusoe. And at the same time, the narrative structure of Foe offers the reader a chance of reconsidering its textual limitation as well as a counter-discourse to the racial contract embedded in colonial narratives.