CHALL/A/NGING
the THEORY OF RELATIVITY OF DIALECTICS
The theory of relativity is the theory of interaction an interconnection.
“Theory of Relativity essentially deals with the question of whether rest and motion are relative or absolute, and with the consequences of Einstein’s conjecture that they are relation” (Parsons 26).
So are dialectics in the language; they are in a relative relation with each other!
Tradition of linguistics has set up a hierarchy of binary oppositions with a distinct differentiation of the two elements in the system of language. The way language creates binary oppositions transcends to the meaning of all ideas and objects perceived as the reality. Besides, the units of language that function as dialectic constitute the notions of authority and inferiority. Usually in the pair of dialectics the word stated first has positive meaning and is considered more powerful than its follower which is thus associated with the negative, for example, oppressor/oppressed, able/disable, voiced/voiceless, right/wrong, good/bad, new/old, self/other and so on. Thus, binaries have been assigned specific roles in our lexicon, and we are already “plugged into a system that has already programmed us with a set of values [which] we imaginatively believe to be our own and use to mediate our judgment on anything we perceive to have any sort of moral value” (Arakelian). Thus, binaries are indicative of certain values and “of the conventional sort of knowledge that we abide by. They are the sort of words that [arbitrate] our machine-like interactions and help mold our clockwork identities” (Arakelian). Coetzee in his works plays with the predetermined roles of dialectics and by displacing them rejects their relative relationship and alters their prescribed meaning.
French deconstructionist J. Derrida, explains the binary opposition by using the word “differance” with a silent letter “a” to denote the systematic play of differences. As distinct from “difference,” Derrida’s “differance” shows “temporalization in transcendental language” (Rivkin 279). This “temporalization” denotes alternation that occurs through the processes of transgression to a better and exchange for accomplishment. “ ‘To differ’ in this sense is to temporalize, to resort, consciously or unconsciously, to the temporal and temporalizing mediation of a detour that suspends the accomplishment or fulfillment of ‘desire’ or ‘will,’ or carries desire or will out in a way that annuls or tempers their effect” (Derrida 283). Coetzee thus refusing to conform the established ideas/ meanings of dialectics, makes them be different or in Derrida’s terms chall/a/nges in order to changes our predetermined expectations.
Most of the main themes of Coetzee’s works introduce displaced dialectics, and as we read we may automatically switch the order of the words in each binary so that they align in the assumed specific order where their signs harmoniously fit with our associations of weather they are right and wrong. We thus, ascribe biased privileges to each sign and delineate the dominant from the recessive. However, attempting to accept the shift that Coetzee introduces, even if temporary, will help us subvert hierarchal, reputed binaries and see new ideas and meanings that may have been beyond the zone of our expectations. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick says, deconstructing binaries reveals a hidden agenda that is based on power manipulation. Deconstructing binaries and understanding how they work doesn’t eliminate them but uncovers how they’re used as a means of gaining power (3). These concepts appear fixed when in reality they are unstable, and this instability makes them easier to critique. Furthermore, concepts that have been oppressed by the dominant ones also have power, which, according to Sedgwick, is not visible on the surface but becomes visible once deconstructed.
Listen to Bond’s “Duel” and feel the interplay between dialectics!
DECONSTRUCTING BINARIES IN COETZEE’S WORKS FOR NEW MEANINGS
VOICE / SILENCE
Coetzee depicts the dialectic of voice/silence in many of his works where he challenges the importance of the narrator’s voice; the notion of power associated with voice and subjectivity with silence, as well as changes our presumed gender expectations of those with voice vs. silent ones. In many of Coetzee’s books the narrator is not the protagonist of the story. In some of his books we cannot even decide who the real narrator is. “Who does the writing, who seizes power by taking pen in hand? Can black experience be depicted by a white person? In Foe, Friday is an African, already dehumanized by Defoe. To give speech to Friday would be to colonize him and deny him what remains of his integrity. The girl in Waiting for Barbarians speaks an intelligible language and has been blinded by torture; Mickael K has a harelip and Fridy has had his tongue cut out. His life is recounted by Susan Barton: that is, through ‘white writing” (Wastberg). Thus, according to Per Wastberg in many of Coetzee’s works white people take over to tell the story of the black and thus reemphasizes the perception of inferiority. On the other hand, Coetzee lets the white people take over since as Henry Loise Gates Jr. argues race is a discursive practice, a text which needs careful and suspicious reading as it represents the traditional inheritance of the people and culture. And thus, “black tradition and culture exist as black artist performs it” (Gates 2426), but since English language was considered the noblest language, the language of liberty, it could not depict black soul, life, and traditions; it should only be expressed by black language “ [it is] the black language of black texts that expresses the distinctive quality of our [black] literary traditions” ( Gates 2426). Similarly, Coetzee changing the narrator of his novels shows that the reality is always fluctuated and changed.
The retelling of Daniel Defoe’s story shows that since past we have always had that notion of “retelling” which thus takes away the originality and “moves” us, the reader, away from truth. Thus, Foe is a story of voice and identity which can be taken away or taken over. First of all, Daniel Defoe’s story of Robinson Crusoe is being retold with a new character, Susan Barton. Secondly, Susan’s adventure story is told by Foe, who alters what she perceives important, and makes it a different-fictional story. Hence, since it is the narrator who usually preserves the voice and the authority over the story, with the change of the narrator the authority and the voice are lost. Thus, taking over the story determines taking over the voice. However, what is more interesting is that Susan Barton, who loses her voice in her own story telling, is attempting to give voice to Friday, who is also voiceless due to the loss of his tongue.
Elizabeth Costello, on the other hand, is presented as a narrator in some of Coetzee’s works and thus she “takes over” Coetzee’s voice as the narrator/ author and tells the stories of others. Referring to the notion of speaking for someone, Robin Probyan in his article “J.M. Coetzee: Writing With/Out Authority” argues that feminist critics who theorize issues in terms of the postcolonial are speaking from and for nonwhite African women. He argues that this double bind of race and gender creates conflicts with white South African women who are caught between the two systems of patriarchal situation. The author believes that this conflict serves to silence the South African feminist agenda as seen in the Coetzee’s female narrators.
Also, in Dusklands, and in Slow Man the reader cannot really decide who is the narrator. Coetzee too, as the author and thus the narrator moves himself from the position of the narrator in many of his works. Even though at times it seems that the purpose of retelling is to compare similarities and differences between races, genders, and even animals and human, animals and women, I believe Coetzee’s intent is to show that once a story is being retold not only the narrator loses his/her authoritative voice but the reality changes.
Even if the story seems to be a certain character’s autobiography or the character’s written story, it still doesn’t abide with the character’s importance as the narrator. The autobiographical tales that present facts and incidents marking the gradual development of narrators’ lives, their attempts to reconstruct identity through social interactions, and finally show the concepts of right and wrong through subjective lens, do not follow the expected first person perspective. Writing with first person perspective creates the unique style, the peculiar way any discourse is presented, and thus identifies the voice of the narrator. In the novel the use, as well as the switch of the authorial voice by narrating the story with the third person perspectives instead denotes Coetzee’s intent to present a new outlook, a different consideration of the importance and power of voice.
Life and Times of Michael K and Slow Man are two novels that tell a life story and therefore are expected to be presented in the first person perspective. Usually, the ability to narrate about oneself identifies one’s voice and individuality and thus the narration with the first person perspective identifies the voice of the narrator. Hence, the voice that determines identity is individual’s language. As Gloria Anzaldua claims language determines, distinguishes, and recreates identity. However, in the life story of Michael K, language is his silence, and it is the silence that depicts his identity.
In the dialectic of voice and silence/voiceless, the notion of silence is considered a form of subservience and is usually associated with the lack of power and thus is ascribed more to women. In Coetzee’s novels, however, some men are silent. Michael K refuses to talk about his life and chooses silence. Friday, also is silent, and Paul from Slow Man for a long time preferres to be silent about his feelings. “However hard we attempt to grasp Michael and Friday, they have been made, by Coetzee, unsullied by interpretation. They remain silent. But between the lines, in what is unspoken, there is distillation of feelings uncommon in contemporary literature” (Wastberg 2).
Since language gives power to ideas and initiates communication, it is attributed to those in power (to the colonizers/oppressors, and/or to men vs. women) Thus, its dialectic, the silence, is postulated for the oppressed and/ or women but certainly not in Coetzee’s works. Even in Elizabeth Costello Coetzee states that we need to be in certain position to speak up as we are just performers speaking our parts. Hence, we all are the performers of social ideologies that define our parts and position. Although silence is considered a form of subservience and is peculiar to the oppressed, at least from the patriarchal and colonizer ideology, silence also is a form of communication that shows an ignorant attitude and a move that switches the power from the one who talks to the silent communicator. Moreover, silence provokes questions, debates, and uncertainty, and thus, creates grounds of dominance, leaving others in the state of never-ended expectations. Hence, Coetzee’s protagonists use silence as a power tool, as such means of communication through which they present their opposition toward power domination or as a moral choice.
Hence, Michael K uses his silence as a power tool, as such means of communication through which he not only constructs his own identity but also presents his opposition toward domination and power structure. The expectations that the society imposes determine what the appropriate and accepted behaviors are. Michael’s incomprehensibility doesn’t simply defines a powerless, voiceless black gardener, but rather shows that it is inacceptable by those in authority – the police and the military who demand revealing about himself.
Furthermore, in her article, Laura Wright makes reference to voice as the “middle voice.” in taking Magda’s character, for instance, “Magda’s narrative is a narrative of desire, the specific desire of a white woman for language, for sex, for connection, and for salvation, within a context that repeatedly negates those desires.” The echo of her feelings also can be seen as the voice for those forgotten in history, in real life, in the vastness of Africa.
INTERPELLATION/TRANSGRESSION
Some of Coetzee’s works can be analyzed in terms of interpellation. The word “interpellation” as reproduction can be understood as to reproduce oneself. Louise Althusser used the term interpellation to define the way subject may identify with their place within a particular discourse and recognize the sorts of characteristics which that discourse involves (Althusser, Theory and Media). Moreover, interpellation can be seen in reference to challenging or achieving ideology, which is a medium through which people experience the world and their role within a given society. For example, Michael’s inability and/or rejection to talk about himself is not only a resistance towards the world, power, and authority, but also his objective perception of impossible, his reference to the world that reproduced him but didn’t give “access.” Silence thus, becomes a medium through which he experience the world and his role within the society based upon the social acceptance, authority recognition, and power hierarchy. Moreover, not having the “access” and “place” in the world, Michael creates his own world in within himself. Therefore, the outside world being covered and inaccessible for him, Michael, too, covers his own world with his silence about his identity and thus makes his world inaccessible for the outsiders. This is a great example of interpellation as reproduction and recreation; Michael, the product of the cruel world at the time of life, unable to fit in, reproduces a new world within himself.
Also, in terms of interpellation, we can see how some of the characters in Coetzee’s novels are the subject of their nation and how their social, racial, and cultural belonging can deemphasize or privilege their role in life. Like Marx in his “Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” argues “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determined their consciousness’.” In the Heart of the Country through a narration of a life story of a white African girl, Magda, Coetzee introduces passionate striving for individual identity, but also depicts cultural issues and the notion of colonization referring to South African life and reality and the repressive intentions of European countries in the 18th century. The time and the world Magda belonged to created her as a colonizer and embedded in her strives to be a man. Thus, Magda, as a product of the white/ black, colonizer/ colonized world kills her father, buries his body by herself, takes over his place, and thus acts peculiar to a man in power and not like a white woman, a “Miss.” as she is called. In the Heart of the Country “is an intellectual lyric which sings the absence of history, the electric lull before history breaks, rather than a chronicle of a frustrated woman’s life-on the level of individual psychology the story is unconvincing but as a piece of cultural psychoanalysis and diagnosis, it’s glitteringly precise. It tells of a society turned to stone and of terrible retributions to come” (Wastberg 2).
In Disgrace, interpellation can refer to childbearing and thus is about Lucy’s pregnancy. Here, interpellation is achieved through sexual intercourse/rape and thus is a sexual production. Refering to Lucy’s pregnancy Yang nan and Wang Xia claim that ” some readers consider the novel to be disseminated and missleading portrait of post-apartheid south Africa (such as the outrageous gang-rape scene) and some consider it a sincere expression of the white’s willingness to atone for their ancestors (such as Lucy’s final decision to give birth to the bastard baby conceived in the gang-rape to atone for her white ancesstors” ( Nan, Xia 1). Lucy’s decision to give birth to the baby denotes the production of a new generation, the hybrid of black and white. In terms of interpellation, the birth of the child denotes the change from the old order to the new, the birth of the New South Africa.
Transgression can be seen in terms of stepping beyond the limits of social constraints and expectations. “Transgression” means to alter in form or nature to a higher form and go beyond the imposed boundaries and limits (Webster’s Dictionary Online). Many of Coetzee’s works depict gender, racial, power problems embedded in social epitome, but also present how protagonists challenge these cultural ideologies and transgress beyond the set boundaries and become “other” or different. For example, in the times of civil war, and power strife, the novel Life and Times of Michael K also presents such notions as simplicity, stillness, silence, and tranquility with which Michael K challenges power relations and cultural ideologies and thus transgresses beyond the set boundaries to become “ other,” different. The transgression that exceeds the predetermined performance of the world Michael K lives in, shapes his own identity and recreates his own world. This thus can be refered to Marx’s theory of German Ideology that proclaims “the nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production and how individuals express their life.” Michael K’s simple life and his condition of inarticulation is the “product” of the time and the existing power relations, which also ( it may sound as a paradox or ambiguity) produces Michael K’s silence as a means of expression of his life.
Furthermore, the notion of transgression can be described in the convention of interracial sexual contact in Disgrace. ” interracial sexual contact within white South African writing is structured around the signifier ‘transgression’, and that J.M.Coetzee retains this signifier as a point of reference within the trope, by shifting its overt content from interracial desire to interacial rape” ( Barris 1). Hence, in Coetzee’s works both notions of transgression and interpellation are used to depict problems of South Africa; instead of describing the problems of reality, Coetzee shows them through his characters who either reproduce and abide to those problems or step beyond them.
DISPLACEMENT/ CHANGE and OLD/ NEW ORDER
Displacement and Change are seen in many of Coetzees works : in Disgrace ( David’s life, career changes), in Foe ( Friday’s life change, change in time and place), Waiting for Barbarians ( Magistrate’s life changes), In the Heart of the country (Magda’s life changes after her father bring in a new bride and also after she kills her father), and in Slow Man ( Paul’s life changes after losing his leg and then his love).
The two novels Disgrace and Slow Man can be seen similar if viewed through theoretical lens of personal change as well as change in the old and new order. In Disgrace David Lurie’s life changes from being a professor to a dog keeper. His ambitions and personality also changes after her daughter is raped. David’s changes can be interpreted as both good and bad; he loses his career, his image, but at the same attains freedom and personal growth. “In the dystopian novel Disgrace, David Lurie does not achieve creativity and freedom until, stripped of all dignity, he is afflicted by his own shame and history’s disgrace” ( Wastberg). Moreover, in Disgrace political concerns of the NEW South Africa are also depicted where “whites have lost their previous privileges and seek their unresolved destiny in the black land” ( Nan, Xia). The change in the old and new order thus is well described through sexual intercourse/rape. First, it is the sexual intercourse of an old white professor with black student and then black gangsters raping white Lucy. Thus, in Disgrace the change occurs in David’s personal life as well as in the old and new order. The displacement is portrayed through the power relations between professor and student ( student had the power to seduce and expel the professor) as well as in between black and white people ( the black raping the white woman).
In Slow Man change also refers to personal life change that Paul faces and undergoes after the accident as well as to the change in the rule of life where one takes over the other as new taking over the old. The search for displacement in the novel is due to the lack of power as well as in the authority /relationship between the author and the character. The loss of the leg makes Paul not only feel disabled but seek a displacement. According to Freud, “Displacement is caused by repression of deeper, unconscious impulses or buried memories from a desire or a trauma.” The term, “return of the repressed” leads to reaction-formations or substitute-formations,” and thus, Paul unconsciously seeks a substitute for his loss of ability in finding love and becoming a godfather for Diego and Marijana’s family. Later, as Paul loses Maijana or his hope to get love from a married woman with children, he writes a letter to Marijana’s husband begging to become a godfather for their family and support Diego’s educational costs. It is thus, vivid that the loss of his leg evoked unconscious desire to replace it with love or with becoming a “mighty” godfather to gain sense of wholeness.
The role and the appearance of Elizabeth Costello in the novel is justified with her intention to use Paul as the character of her novel . If considered so, then Coetzee here shows the displacement of the authority of the writer and the character, Paul, who not only had influence on Costello-“his author” throughout the story and also in the end when he rejects her companionship proposal. Does Coetzee with her appearance indeed suggest the relationship existing in between the writer and the character as to who has the authority and how important the writer’s intent is? Are Paul and Costello indeed in writer-character relationship? On the other hand, we can doubt Costello’s “profession as a novelist” see her in the duty to replace Paul as new order replaces the old in life. She came to replace his, as new order replaces the old in life. Plato argued that the writer mimics the reality, and then Paul as a photographer also used to mimic the reality. Did then Costello appear to take over the “task” after Paul’s disability? Isn’t it the “rule” of life one takes over the other in the life journey and with this change/displacement life and history continues on? Wasn’t this the same idea under the main theme of retelling Crusoe’s story with a change and displacement, and thus, bringing back the past, the old order to show its displacement with the new?
SELF/OTHER – Identity, Dsire, Power Relations
“Because its sense of self is only ever garnered from identifying with the images of these others” (Lacan).
Many of Coetzee’s works are addressing the themes of Self and Other. It is the desire of self wholeness, the desire for identity, and for power that ties “self” and “other” in a dialectical relationship. The desire of self wholeness depicts Lacanian explanation of the Mirror Stage during which human (Lacanian child) upon seeing his image in the mirror realizes the perception of self as being separated and thus alienated. The acknowledgement of being fractured and divided, makes him long for self wholeness. In Slow Man Paul’s repressed desire for his self wholeness or ideal self and for regaining power after losing his leg makes him unconsciously search for the “other” and displace the lack with a substituted other- with love or with becoming a “mighty” godfather to gain sense of wholeness.
In Foe Susan’s repressed desire to be able to attain her own self in telling her own story makes her search for the ability to talk in Friday. Hence, Susan tries to fulfill the inability to speak up her story with the other- trying to make/teach Friday to commute at least in the form of writing.
In Life and Times of Michael K, Michael, not having the “access” and “place” in the world, creates his own world in within himself. Hence, Michael K chooses silence as his language, a means to be “other”, and to cover his inner world and his identity, as well as it is the power epitome that grants him freedom, and establishes his self in within him.
In the Heart of the Country, Magda’s inability to experience the pleasure of love, her sexual urges, her desire to be in power- to be a man to take the place of his father, and finally her dissatisfaction for not fulfilling her sexual desires represent the lack of establishing her own identity, which then can again be related to Lacanian impossible wholeness of self. Repressing all these problems and desires, Magda, thus, searches the self- fulfillment in the “other”; in her father and in Klein-Anna.
The interchange and relationship between the dialectics of Self and Other, Coetzee thus, shows human desire and search for self-fulfillment, self –identity and power for freedom; however, born into language, culture, gender, race, and class, the human is always a subject and thus is never fully autonomous.
In conclusion, Coetzee presents different dialectics as themes of his novels but through the displacement of the order and meaning of each of these dialectics within the set, he challenges their predetermined denotations ascribed to them. In Coetzee’s novels silence can be a powerful tool to reestablish identity and the voice of the narrator can be taken away or given to the oppressed. Silence can be ascribed to a man character, and a woman can become the narrator for a man’s life story. Coetzee’ s stories can be read as literary works that have a beginning, climax, and resolution, but also can be complex, puzzling with two different resolutions, or can be analyzed as stories that are not exactly about the characters but about the reality and human longing for self wholeness and truth. Coetzee through his alluring characters shows past and present, social, racial, and gender problems of South Africa and of the time, the changes, and the power relations that have always been and still exist in life. Displacing ideas and ideologies that are in the binary correlation with each other, Coetzee challenges the theory of relativity, a theory of physics/ science which is usually used to explain theories and happenings in the world, and also reemphasizes Derrida’s theory of “diffarence” being temporal. Hence, displacing time, different scenes, themes, retelling the past and foreseeing the future, as well as making his characters and scenes reoccur, Coetzee reemphasizes the ideas of timelessness and repetitiveness; the same problems embedded in the social epitome will always and always be there and will reoccur through the history.
WORKS CITED
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Elucidating Coetzee's World and Works 