‘Bodies are Their Own Signs’: Representation, Authenticity and the Silence of Land, Animals and Women in J.M. Coetzee’s Novels Foe, Disgrace and In the Heart of the Country

‘Bodies are Their Own Signs’: Representation,

Authenticity and the Silence of Land, Animals

and Women in J.M. Coetzee’s Novels Foe,

Disgrace and In the Heart of the Country

İpek Erkal

10618848

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Humanities

Master of Arts English Literature and Culture

Master Thesis

June 2014

INTRODUCTION...3

CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...6

Postcolonialism: How Knowledge Renders the Colonised as Powerless...6

Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Recovering the Invisible Environment...10

Postcolonial Ecofeminism: The Voice of the Subaltern...15

CHAPTER TWO: AN'OTHER’ VOICE OF SILENCE: FOE’s SUSAN AND FRIDAY...19

Susan’s Subverted Voice and Identity by Author Mr. Foe...23

Friday’ Silence: The Voice of the Island...27

CHAPTER THREE: PATRIARCHAL AUTHORITY IN REPRESENTING THE DISGRACE: THE POSITION OF WOMEN AND NON-HUMAN NATURE IN DISGRACE...34

David and His Construction of the Farm...37

Patriarchal Constructions of Animals and Women...40

CHAPTER FOUR: ‘IN THE HEART OF NOWHERE’: THE POLITICS OF AFRICAN LANDSCAPE IN IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY...47

The Failure of Representation of the African Landscape...51

Farm Novel’s Contribution to Magda’s Silence...55

CONCLUSION...61

Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not

only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.

INTRODUCTION

In J.M. Coetzee’s novels Foe (1986), Disgrace (1999) and In the Heart of the

Country (1977), the ecologies of apartheid and post-apartheid settings are interwoven

with colonial politics and politics of gender. In these novels patriarchal and

anthropocentrical views of ‘the castaway’, such as of Susan and Friday in Foe, Lucy in Disgrace, and Magda in In the Heart of the Country highlight their marginalisation. However, as I will show in this thesis, these characters are not the only marginalised that suffer from the appropriation of dominant colonial and patriarchal culture as it has been showed in previous studies. Indeed, like the characters, the landscape and the land, as well as the nonhumans living together with these castaways are a part of colonial and postcolonial politics. Challenging the traditional understanding of how humans and nonhumans interact and influence each other, my thesis develops an ecofeminist approach to postcolonial politics in the selected novels.

In these selected novels, I’ll argue that master narratives shaping the history of what is accepted as ‘true’ or ‘rational’ create a hierarchy in which women, nature, and landscape are put in the periphery in terms of perspective; and this results in their marginalisation. As a result, the emphasis on master discourses, which are highly patriarchal and anthropocentrical gives rise to the absence of authentic representation of the marginalised in the novels. In Foe, Susan and Friday, through lack of narration of their signs and bodies, exhibit this lack of authority, which result in their silence. Similarly, Magda in In the Heart of the Country is stuck in the traditional and ideal representation of farm novel female characters, which combines the politics of the African land with patriarchal constructions of the farm novel; whereas, in Disgrace, the African land, watch dogs and Lucy are a part of patriarchal representations of

post-apartheid politics. Therefore, in all three novels, the politics of representation is closely linked with silence, which symbolises the lack of authority and authenticity, as the patriarchal gaze cannot escape from its desire to see only things that benefit itself. Consequently, the restricted Eurocentric and anthropocentrical perspectives in these works create binaries that underrepresent the agency of women, the native and nonhuman nature.

In the following chapters, I will firstly introduce the problem in my research, and discuss ecofeminism as my chosen approach to analyse these novels. In the second chapter, I will discuss Foe, and how patriarchal and colonialist perspectives in this novel are unable to truly represent the textuality and the actuality of the land, the castaway Susan and the mute slave Friday. In the third chapter, the textual authority of patriarchal figures will be analysed to show how Lucy, the dogs and the African landscape are doomed to be penetrated by anthropocentrical thoughts, which show another level of colonialism. These marginalised subjects become objects in David Lurie’s narrative, losing their agency to speak for themselves freely; and this will reveal how the marginalised are conquered and shaped according to patriarchal and anthropocentric discourses. Lastly, in In the Heart of the Country, I will show yet another level of patriarchal dominance in a colonial setting. The spinster of the colonial African farm, Magda, is doomed to lose her authenticity as well as the landscape, which cannot be understood in its authentic signs.

CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The framework for this thesis is premised on three main critical approaches. These are postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, and feminism. While analysing the selected novels of J.M. Coetzee, my thesis hence adopts a postcolonial ecofeminist approach to specifically the power structures in literary representations in Foe,

Disgrace and In the Heart of the Country. While many postcolonial studies focus on

the social injustice and inequalities from the point of human beings, traditional ecocritical studies mainly consider ecological problems without a deep analysis of human-nature relations. My thesis, on the other hand, raises awareness of Eurocentric, patriarchal power structures, which subordinate the positions of women, natives and the nonhuman environment in postcolonial settings. This argument is complicated by the fact that women are not only oppressed by European patriarchal power structures, but also by the male-dominated, local cultures. In the three novels this is expressed when, women and the nonhuman environment cannot articulate their oppression, and are not entitled to represent themselves in an independent way, as they are disabled to do so. Therefore, my thesis will focus on the literal and metaphorical disability of women and the environment as the mute, to show the dominance of masculine power structures in the selected novels. The silence of the agents, I will argue, becomes a narrative strategy to deconstruct their oppression and appropriation by the dominant patriarchal and anthropocentric culture. Before analysing the novels, however, I will first discuss postcolonialism, ecocriticsm and feminism and how they contribute to the framework in more detail.

Postcolonialism: How Knowledge Renders the Colonised Powerless Providing a basis for the critique of the novels I will analyse, postcolonial theories challenge the hierarchal perspectives that give rise to the dominance of

imperial, Eurocentric and master narratives, which aim to represent and appropriate the Other. The effects of apartheid politics in South Africa and imperial approaches to nature, women and natives in Coetzee’s novels present the structures of cultural conquest and colonization. In the analysis of Foe, Disgrace and In the Heart of the

Country, I will explore the imperial power structures and master narratives that result

in the marginalisation of certain characters in the mentioned works. Concerned with the political and discursive power of the West, postcolonial theories aim to elucidate the oppression and subjugation of the oppressed and the marginalised colonial subjects. Therefore, postcolonialism deconstructs Eurocentricism and, consequently, criticises the characters of ‘the centre’, which benefit from narratives of hegemony and imperialism.

One of the problematic layers in Coetzee’s works is the Eurocentric gaze of male characters. Responding to the Eurocentric gaze of the West, one of the main figures in the formulation of postcolonial theories, Edward Said, influenced by Foucault’s and Gramsci’s understanding of power and knowledge, notes that

Orientalism is a Western discourse. He defines “[o]rientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient”(Said 3). Legitimizing Western understanding and attitudes, Orientalism reinforces the superiority of the West. Ania Loomba summarizes Edward Said’s argument as follows:

When, therefore, the European scientist studies… his study and investigations are accepted as true and authoritative…Here, also the eyes sees, the ear hears, but the real meaning of what is seen or heard is supplied not by he senses, but by understanding, which interprets what is seen and what is heard in the light of its own peculiar experiences and associations. (Loomba 181)

Similarly, my thesis problematizes the legitimisation of knowledge, and truth in understanding other cultures and traditions, as Said’s Orientalism suggests. As such, my thesis raises an awareness of Said’s understanding of Western power and its spillover effects. In other words, I will be concerned with how in the three selected novels the Western perspective asserts that there is one way to reach the truth, and that is the Western, rational truth. As a result, the colonized are made believe in the fact that they are culturally and racially inferior to the West. In relation to the

domination of the gaze of the West, Amilcar Cabral comments on the assimilation of the colonized, and notes that,

… a considerable part of the population, notably the urban or peasant bourgeoisie, assimilates the colonizer’s mentality, considers itself culturally superior to its own people and ignores or looks own upon their cultural values… Cabral 14

Therefore a Eurocentric construction of superiority over the Other in society is another result of colonization. Accepting the colonizer’s way of thinking, the colonized adapt a hegemonic way of life. As a result, the desire of the centre to be superior undermines the agencies of those who have no authority of their lives. Revealing what legitimises the white male Western stance, by elaborating on Deleuze’s understanding of colonial knowledge, Spivak adds that, “An

undifferentiated desire is the agent, and power slips on to create the effects of the desire” (Spivak 69). Then, the desire and self-centred perspective of the coloniser that creates ‘us’ and ‘them’ is the underlying factor that results in the discrimination of the Other. Along the same lines, my thesis acknowledges that Western desires construct the aspects of knowledge according to their needs, and thus, that the truth is always subjective and partial. Hence, as I’ll argue in the following chapters, the desire of the

narrator reshapes and reconstructs its surroundings thanks to the power it holds as a patriarchal or anthropocentric view, regardless of the different varieties of cultures and point of views around it. Therefore, just as postcolonialists analyse how the West imagines the East or natives in biased constructions, my thesis is concerned with social constructions of patriarchal and anthropocentric imagination that create locals, women and environment as a binary opposite of the colonizer, and as the Other.

Another aspect of postcolonial studies that is significant to the research is that how postcolonial studies problematize the politics of representation. In the selected novels, authoritative patriarchal figures appropriate the voice of the marginalised characters; in other words, they represent the Other in a colonial and anthropocentric discourse. Therefore representations result in the absence of an authentic voice of the subject. Moreover, closely linked with feminism, postcolonial theories criticize the politics of representation and the authority of minor characters. On the lack of authority of the Other to present and identify themselves Val Plumwood states, “master’s qualities are primary and defining social values whereas slave’s are defined in relation to them”(Plumwood 52). In other words, the socially constructed

superiority of the master gives him/her the authority to redefine the Other. Hence the Other is spoken of, rather than speaking, and the agency of the Other is taken away, as it is represented through the mouth of the colonizer, or the central narrator. In other words, as Stuart Hall says in relation to imperialism and colonialism, “Africa was a case of unspoken, Europe was a case of that which is endlessly speaking” (Hall 399). Another aspect of the representation problem is that it is always impossible to speak for the authentic voice of the subject that is oppressed, as in the case of Susan in Foe and Lucy in Disgrace. In this respect, Said argues that

… to articulate the silent testimony of lives suffering and stifled experience, there’s no sound, no articulation that is adequate to what justice and power inflict on the poor, the disadvantaged and the disinherited. But there are approximations to it, not representations of it, which have the effect of punctuating discourse with disenchantment and demystifications. (qtd. in Spencer 526)

Along the same lines, the articulation of women, landscape and native people and their lives by Eurocentric male narrators can never represent their true experiences. In “My Orientalism”, Alexander Lyon Macfie also puts emphasis on the pitfall of

representation as follows, “ [t]he claim for representativity can flip over into an appropriation of the other’s experience” (Macfie 625). It’s the Western gaze that leads to attempt to represent the Other, which end up appropriating the differences, creating binaries between two ends of the discourse.

My thesis also grounds postcolonialism as a basis for an ecocritical approach, since environmental justice cannot be sought without questioning cultural and eco-social problems of people and land. Hence, I will demonstrate that the dialogue between environmental problems and social justice offers a better understanding to the relations of humans and environment in post-apartheid settings of the selected novels of J.M Coetzee. Being aware of the anthropocentric focus in postcolonial studies, my thesis challenges this gap with an ecocritical approach for social equality. Thus, postcolonialist theories provide a background for an ecocritical perspective on the selected novels.

For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread, and above

all, dignity.

Frantz Fanon The concept of postcolonial land and landscape constitute an important part the critique of the Western gaze in Coetzee’s novels in the thesis. As stated above, land and issues of land are crucial, as often the people living on it are described in terms of the land and landscape. Thus, ecocriticism is one of the lenses I will use to explore the relation between the land and people. Postcolonial ecocriticism is a relatively new perspective in postcolonial studies. Relating the long neglected relation between imperialism and the non-human environment, postcolonial ecocriticism analyses how colonial power structures affect the local nature and animals in the previously colonised countries. This is an essential perspective for the research, as the thesis will be exploring the results of imperialist and anthropocentric approaches on land and landscape, and their connotations related to the native culture in the novels. Moreover, as anthropocentric, Western notions of the empire have legitimised the exploitation of land, postcolonial studies have been shifting to ecocriticism to look at the effects of colonial exploitation on the nonhuman environment. Postcolonial ecocriticism asks questions about the ways in which colonial exploitation has disturbed the ecological relations of humans and nonhuman nature, and how anthropocentric attitudes lead to ecological and, consequently socio-political

problems in postcolonial settings. An ecocritical method to postcolonial studies, thus, contributes an understanding that is beyond the scope of humans. As both frameworks contain ethical, yet also, critical concerns about social injustice, they contribute to each other’s methods. The combination of postcolonial and ecocritical theories “… challenge[s] continuing imperialist modes of social and environmental

narrative of colonisation, postcolonial ecocriticism emphasizes the emergence of sociological and environmental problems, as socio-political problems are deeply intertwined with environmental problems. As Alex Hunt and Bonnie Roos quote Huggan and Tiffin, “no social justice without environmental justice; and without social justice-for all ecological beings- no justice at all” (10). Specifically, my thesis puts forward the idea that, postcolonialism realizes ‘advocacy’ function for

ecocriticism, and opens up an imaginary space to contemplate how world might be transformed. Hence, the interdisciplinary analysis of the thesis aims at finding out how the knowledge of the colonial land and people are transformed into narratives in the selected novels.

As the perspective of the patriarchal and Eurocentric authority shapes the way land and nonhumans are narrated, environment and animals in the narrative are affected by socio-political environment the narrator is surrounded with. One of the concepts I’ll unpack in the next chapters, regarding the relation between land, gender and postcolonialism, is the farm life and the plaasroman, known as farm novel in South African literature. The Plaasroman explores the traditional characteristics of the farm life and manners, which highlight the conventional relationship between humans and nonhumans. Thus, it is important to analyse the essentialist connotations inscribed in the relationship between the farm and humans. In Disgrace and In the Heart of the

Country, farm life and how people relate to each other and to nature through the farm

they live in is a crucial concept to understand a broader effect of post-apartheid politics. As I will argue in the following chapters, apartheid and post-apartheid politics require a comprehensive understanding of land and how the white and non-white settlers approach to the issues of earth. In White Writing, Coetzee reflects his thoughts on the land depicted in farm novels as follows, “To the pastoral novel,

landscape is humanized when inscribed by hand and plough: in effect, the genre invokes a myth in which the earth becomes wife to husband-man”(Coetzee7). Here Coetzee articulates the cultural oppression inscribed in the South African land, even in gendered terms. In my analysis of Disgrace and In the Heart of the Country, the myth of earth is unpacked to challenge certain essentialist perspectives on gender, race and ecology.

Land and landscape thus become a space of human anxieties, and problems; and land becomes yet another object, not a real subject, for the patriarchal beholder. In my discussion of the novels, I will explore the patriarchal constructions of

landscape, and how the land and landscape is gazed through Eurocentric fantasies and myths. As Lawrance Buell comments on the inseparability of landscape from humans, he says “Although the scape of the English noun [landscape] implies a reified

‘thereness’, landscape should also be thought of as shaped by the mind of the

beholder”(Buell 143). Here, Buell not only highlights the subjective perspective of the beholder on the landscape, but also how land is penetrated by human politics, as it is ‘shaped’, in other words, constructed by human mind and language. Similarly, I will analyse how the narrator, or the beholder interprets the land and landscape in relation to their own experiences. Especially the patriarchal gaze is closely related to colonial connotations of the land and people’s relations to it in the novels. As Coetzee suggests in White Writing, “[l]andscape art is by and large a traveller’s art intended for the consumption of vicarious travellers; it is closely connected with the imperial eye- the eye that by seeing names and dominates- the imperial calling” (Coetzee 174). As a result, the landscape and the land, just like the native and women, come to be truly unrepresentable, as the narrator cannot see the land beyond his experiences. In White

Writing, Coetzee reflects his feelings about the impossibility of representing the

landscape and he says,

What response do roads and stones make to the poet who urges them to utter their true name? As we might expect, it is silence… The failure of the

listening imagination to intuit the true language of Africa, the continued apprehension of failure, by no means inevitable: a failure to imagine a peopled landscape, an inability to conceive a society in South Africa in which there is a place for the self. Coetzee 9

Here, as Coetzee suggests, the appropriation of the landscape by the eyes and the discourse of the Westener results from socio-political implications of apartheid politics. Consequently, people related to the landscape are also trapped in representations and connotations. Therefore the lack of communication between people is reflected on the landscape as well. The unrepresentability, as discussed in postcolonialism part, is a silence, a gap and a communication failure between master and slave, the man and woman, the human and nonhuman. Thus, anthropocentric and patriarchal constructions of the environment cause yet another, usually neglected result of colonial perspective. Therefore, in the following chapters land and landscape become a mirror to constructions of identity, gender roles and racial relations in colonial and postcolonial settings. In Foe, I will be focusing particularly more on the native and how they represent the land through the Westerner’s eyes, and how this gaze simplifies and rejects to see bodies and land in their own signs, which underline the problem of Eurocentricism and anthropocentricism, excluding plural perspectives, resulting in ideological blindness.

Postcolonial Ecofeminism: The Voice of the Subaltern Postcolonial ecofeminism connects the problems of race, gender and environment in the context of postcolonialism. Merging ecocriticism with race and gender further challenges the superior, rational Western discourse of knowledge. Thus, ecofeminism is not a challenge solely against male ideologies, but also to the ways in which common sense is created through colonial practices, and through hierarchies that are not only present in gender politics, but also in the politics of nature. Therefore, ecofeminist theories analysing the binaries and dualities that exclude a fair confrontation of culturally different concepts comprise yet another theoretical background of my thesis. In the novels discussed, nature and women become mere backgrounds for the patriarchal and anthropocentric incentives of the phallocentric centre. The postcolonial feminist argument that woman’s identity is shaped and defined by the powerful colonialist also applies to ecofeminist criticism, which compares the oppression of women to that of the nonhuman environment. Greta Gaard explains ecofeminism as follows: “… ecofeminist approaches the

problems of environmental degradation and social injustice from the premise that how we treat nature and how we treat each other are inseparably linked” (Gaard 158). So, postcolonial ecofeminism requires an analysis not only of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonised, but also of human and nature, and man and woman. Consequently, postcolonial ecofeminism understands the relationship among these actors as inseparable.

The analysis of the interconnection of marginalised races, sexualities and environments offers a critique of oppressive, male-centred authority and essentialist dichotomies and definitions. Hence, in the colonial discourse environment and women are put in a similar, weak position, and need to be assisted by male rationality.

Thus, as I have discussed above, masculine power structures have a spill-over effect in social relations and environment, and they create a common sense that legitimises their actions. As Vanada Shiva and Gayatri Spivak propose, “those between

development, globalisation and fragile ecologies- women, indigenous populations and subaltern groups” (qtd. in Mullaney 24) are the ones who are under the domination of the patriarchal, European powers. Therefore, postcolonial ecofeminism investigates how the voices of the marginalised actors of the colonial discourse are silenced in the shouts of highly patriarchal understanding of common sense.

Particularly, my thesis considers Val Plumwood’s ecofeminist criticism on dualism and rationality as a crucial to understanding how the patriarchal and anthropocentric gaze creates and excludes the Other in Foe, Disgrace and In the

Heart of the Country. Plumwood sees the construction of binaries as a way of

inflicting a certain power ideology and patriarchal hierarchy on the agents that end up on the opposite side of the binaries. By using the discourse of rationality,

male-centred ideologies legitimised their exploitation of the marginalised groups. As Plumwood notes,

Because western culture has concerned the central features of humanity in terms of the dominator identity of the master, and has empowered qualities and areas of life classes masculine over those classed as feminine, it has evolved as hierarchal, aggressive and destructive of nature and of life (Plumwood 30).

Hence, the consequence of creating a male-centred common sense also affects the way society sees environment as possession and a resource for its material gain. Patriarchal ideology that creates binaries, such as essentialist understandings of gender roles, man as the master of nature, Westerner as the master of the East or

global South, segregates people and serves for hierarchal power structures. According to Plumwood, this exclusion takes place as follows,

Dualism is a relation of separation and domination inscribed and naturalised in culture and characterised by radical exclusion, distancing and opposition between orders constructed as systematically higher and lower, as inferior and superior, as ruler and ruled, which treats the division as part of the natures of beings construed not merely as different but as belonging to radically different orders or kinds, and hence as not open to change. (Plumwood 48)

Just as argued in relation to postcolonialism, Plumwood shows that phallocentric ideologies are frequently neutralized, and thus exclude differences that do not interest them. As a result, dualistic discourse that value patriarchal and anthropocentrical ideas excludes, discriminates the Other, as the differences are understood in essentialist terms. As a result, in Plumwood’s terms, ‘backgrounding’ then is a mechanism where these anthropocentric ideologies perpetuate themselves as superior to animals, women and the land itself. For my thesis it’s an important concern because I’ll argue that the silence of the Other is a result of backgrounding their voice and replacing them with patriarchal and highly humanocentrist modes of language and communication. I’ll be concerned with how dualism is a process in which power forms identity, and how Western knowledge justifies itself with notions of rationality, and humanity in the analysis of the novels in the next chapters.

Finally, although ecofeminism is the main framework of my analysis, I’ll be aware of the pitfalls of traditional approaches to the relationship between women and nature. Although the prefix ‘eco’ in ecofeminism is derived from the word ‘oikos’, which means house or location in Greek, my thesis recognises that such an intrinsical link between nature and women is essentialist. Instead, my framework is concerned

with dualisms and patriarchal frames that exclude women and the nonhuman in colonial settings, where patriarchal ideologies create the norms in the novels. So, rather than looking for a spiritual connection between nature and women, my analysis of the novels adopt a stance where women and the nonhuman are defined and

appropriated under similar self-centred patriarchal appropriation.

To sum up, being aware of the plurality of postcolonialisms, my thesis will focus on the implications of colonisation related to the discourses of farm life and experiences in South Africa, where two of the novels take place. Other than farm life, my thesis is concerned with the colonised land as an idealised space imagined

according to Western desires. In other words, my thesis will investigate how the prioritised Western knowledge and practices exploit the nonhuman environment and women in the selected novels. So, drawing on postcolonial ecocriticism, my thesis will explore how the knowledge of places change through the Western and native narratives. In light of the scholarship on postcolonial ecocriticisim, my thesis aims to deconstruct colonial practices that create boundaries between genders and species, and tries to bring to light to the inequalities of the victims of patriarchal, Eurocentric and anthropocentric attitudes to the inarticulate lands and people. As a result, the silence of the marginalised becomes a textual and narrative strategy to explore their representation by the power-holders, in the forms of authors or farm owners in the novels. Therefore, I will investigate the interwoven relationship between these silenced, marginalised actors, which will reveal a broader picture for the effects of colonialism.

CHAPTER TWO: AN’OTHER’ VOICE OF SILENCE: FOE’s SUSAN AND FRIDAY

J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, rewriting the story of Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe, presents readers with underlying power structures of authority, and challenges the ways in which marginalised groups are represented in the original story. Focusing on and decentring the story of Susan Barton, a mother who lost her daughter and set off to find her, the ambiguous and unstable narrator, sometimes being Susan, sometimes Foe, shows how some voices are more powerful than others in a narrative that

constructs reality. In this case, Susan cannot tell her story according to what happened to her, and Friday, a mute native, cannot even articulate his experiences. Highlighting the nature of colonist discourse, which always serves the purposes of patriarchy, Foe shows readers the perspective of a woman in a colonist narrative. However, Susan as a white castaway female is not the only one who is oppressed. By silencing Friday, the narrative shows the impossibility of representing land and the native in colonial and patriarchal narratives. More importantly, he is attributed the characteristics of animals and nature. By consequently Othering Friday as an uncivilised, inarticulate native, colonist discourse creates a division between nature and culture, human and nonhuman, creating and confirming a hierarchy based on patriarchal binaries. In this chapter, I will argue that the colonist discourse renders the native and the woman mute, literally and metaphorically, as Mr Foe, the author of the main narrative reshapes the identities of Susan and Friday. Hence, the marginalisation of these characters takes place, as Foe rewrites the story of the island according to his desire, and the minor characters, including the island, remain powerless to represent

holds power and authority over others as a Western male writer, consequently constructs the identities and stories of the marginalised for his book. Hence, Susan and Friday become mere characters and subjects in his book. Even, the story of Friday is rewritten by Foe, as Friday has no tongue to articulate his experiences. Metaphorically, Susan is rewritten by Foe, as he appropriates the story according to a patriarchal audience. So, the narrative not only challenges the way truth is

constructed, but also how discourse of power takes over and underrepresents marginalised groups in colonist discourse. In this discourse, nature represented through the body of Friday becomes a space where patriarchy dominates and erases the agency of marginalised characters.

In what follows I will firstly give a brief introduction to the problem of voice and representation. In the second part, I will problematize the voice of Susan Barton, a female castaway on the island, and explore how her story and identity are

constructed by patriarchal values. In the third part, I will discuss Friday’s silence as a representative of the powerless voice of the island, which has been exploited and manipulated by the white male traders and colonialists. Lastly, I will conclude this chapter by comparing the exertion of patriarchal power over the marginalised characters, focusing on their silence as a disability, which becomes a narratological element to resist patriarchal order in Foe.

Susan’s position as a female castaway narrator problematizes gender politics, whereas Friday’s condition as a mute slave challenges racial relations in the novel related to the politics of representation. Both unable to articulate their stories, Susan and Friday are thwarted in their speech. Thus, they are reshaped according to a discourse that excludes their active participation in the act of storytelling and

the restricted nature of freedom and representation for women and the non-existence of freedom for natives and nature. Alternating a female point of view to the story of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Foe, as the title suggests, shows us how the master narrative is both the protagonist and at the same time foe, in other words, enemy of the story of the island. As a result, Foe suggests how the storyteller tells his story according to his desire, which always excludes the minority groups in the story. Therefore, in the novel Foe cannot represent Susan and Friday and their struggle independently from his colonial desires. At the same time, their disability- their inability to speak- becomes their power to raise awareness to their inferior position in the story.

By showing the multifaceted nature of a master narrative, the narrative of Foe challenges the perception of truth. The limited representation of Susan and Friday’s voice in the master narrative of Foe demonstrates how the colonialist, patriarchal discourse of truth of Foe is not a totality, but only a mere point of view in the story. By metaphorically disabling the woman and literally disabling the native, the narrative hence presents readers the hierarchy of power and the resulting power of desire according to power relations in a narrative. This subjective story perceived as an absolute and objective truth, is in fact a product of a patriarchal discourse. In this respect, Gayatri Spivak quotes Michael Foucault’s words in ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ as follows, “[w]e never desire against our interests, because interest always follows undifferentiated I the agent, and power slips in to create the effects of desire” (qtd in Spivak 68). Consequently, patriarchal power shapes knowledge and common sense and constructs truth according to patriarchal desire. Through this desire, Susan and Friday are shaped and constructed in the narrative according to the desire of patriarchal values, by the pen of Foe. Contributing to the neutralisation of patriarchal

discourse to shape the truth, Patricia Waugh adds, “… ‘everyday’ language endorses and sustains such power structures through continuous processes of naturalisation whereby forms of oppression are constructed in apparently ‘innocent’ representations (Waugh 11). Therefore, patriarchy shapes the discourse and language in a way that they valorise patriarchal values, as it in the case of Foe, who rewrites the narrative of the island and appropriates Susan’s story. As a result, in colonialist patriarchal power structure, the desire of the centre excludes the periphery. The periphery, in this case, women and the nonhuman, is a construction of man-centred world.

In the novel, Foe’s authorial power as a representative of the desire of the patriarchal centre prioritises the advantages of phallocentricism. Consequently, women and nonhumans are perceived and presented as the ‘other’. However, it is important to take a closer look at the construction of patriarchy to understand the hierarchal, colonist power representations in the novel. In the seemingly innocent representations of anthropocentric narratives, reason and culture creates a common sense that renders diverse understanding of humanity and nature as binary

oppositions. As Val Plumwood claims in Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, Because western culture has conceived the central feature of humanity in terms of the dominator identity of the master, and has empowered qualities and areas of life classed as masculine over those classed as feminine, it has evolved as hierarchal, aggressive and destructive of nature and of life. (Plumwood 30)

In other words, a Eurocentric and patriarchal understanding creates a norm identity that excludes others and strips them of agency, as patriarchy forms what is normal and true according to its desire. Eventually, essentialist approaches to power structures limits the voice of women and nature forever, as the master narrative, both as a

dominant narrative as well as the dominant discourse of the master, has the agency of defining nature and women according to its desire. As a result of this approach, the slave, Friday in Foe, connotes the animal and inferior, which not only shows a hierarchy of the master over slave, but also of humanity over nature, as nonhumans are presented uncivilized and undesired. Plumwood adds, “Thus the slave’s being is part of a lower order in which other linked inferiors also have their being—the slave is body, the slave is animal, the male slave is feminized” (Plumwood 61). One can see how femininity, race and nonhumans are limited in a periphery that limits them as inferiors to masculinity of masters. To sum up, Foe’s authority of the text of his books shows his dominance over the constructions of Friday and Susan’s individual

struggles on the island. Whereas Susan suffers from gender appropriation, Friday can’t even articulate his experiences as a slave on the island. As a result, their silence in the text reveals that Foe cannot represent their struggles in authentic way the individuals would express themselves.

Susan’s Subverted Voice and Identity by Mr. Foe, the Author In Foe, the focalisation of the voice of the woman is limited, as the act of representing woman takes place in the hands of patriarchal authorities. Highlighting her marginalisation, Susan’s voice and identity are shaped by the writer Foe.

Consequently, Susan cannot be the author of her life, as she has no authority over the narrative of her experiences on the island. So, through a female voice, the narrative presents the evasion of a standpoint from which to speak or articulate one’s own experiences. On the importance of a story, and telling your own, MacLeod says,

Story is nothing less than the framework that provides order to consciousness, it is the necessary mechanism for personal agency, the necessary condition for any type of control and power in the world. (MacLeod 206)

As the story of the island, which she cannot call as hers, connotes a source of authority, individuality and agency, she is deprived of a voice that legitimizes her power in the narrative. For example, Susan has to change her story according to Foe’s wishes. She has to leave out the part where she goes to Bahia, and has to include the story of her lost daughter. By appropriating her story according to patriarchal society norms, her real voice is underrepresented. Nonetheless, Susan articulates her wish to have authority over and validation of her own story. Faced with Foe’s construction of the story of the island, Susan says, “I endeavour to be the father of my story” (Coetzee 123). Here, being a father comes to mean having authority, and supremacy; and is juxtaposed with her maternity, which lacks authority. Laura Wright comments Foe’s desire to change Susan’s story as, “The narrative that restores the child to the mother is less subversive than Susan’s indecent narrative of a woman who abandons the search for her daughter”(Wright 20). As another example of dominant construction of patriarchy, Susan refers to the girl who claims to be her daughter as a ‘father born’ (Coetzee91), as she comes to existence through her inclusion in Foe’s narrative. Accordingly, Susan points out how Foe, a patriarchal figure characterised as an author, has the power to fabricate the return of Susan’s daughter to and as such to appropriate and popularize Susan’s story in real life for his book. As the creation of a pen, which stands for phallocentric authority, the daughter is a creation of patriarchy, and its desires. Seeing Foe’s pen’s authority over her personal narrative of the events, Susan conveys her insecurities as a female storyteller by noting that, “Some people are born storytellers: I, it would seem, am not”(Coetzee 81). Susan here juxtaposes authority with authorship and masculinity; and shows how masculinity represents the power of a singular perspective, and penetrates into femininity and strips off her agency and capability to represent its voice. The stories of the island and Susan’s

experiences as a castaway consequently become substances for Foe’s story, and Foe creates the his-story.

Besides her subjugated voice in her own story, Susan also begins to doubt her own identity, as it is shaped and constructed by Foe, seemingly her only friend but also, enemy. Foe’s self and society-centred approach to Susan’ experiences in the island turn her into a textuality, a character that he reshapes according to the

expectations of the readers of his book. As a result, a patriarchal discourse signifies and constructs feminine identity, which stays behind its shadow. In the novel, Susan begins to doubt her own story, as she assumes she has no part in a patriarchal society. Susan says, “a liveliness is lost in the writing down which must be supplied by art, and I have no art (Coetzee 40). Here, Foe’s influence on Susan as a dominant masculine writer is visible, as she is concerned that she lacks a ‘liveliness’ that is absent with her female authorship. Feeling the absent masculinity as ‘liveliness’, Susan shows readers the influence of dominant patriarchal tradition that validates the power of masculinity over femininity. Likewise, in his essay “J.M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Reading” Derek Attridge problematizes Susan’s desperate position as she surrenders to the patriarchal superiority. Attridge claims,

Even those who speak against oppression from the position of the oppressed

have to confirm to the dominant language in order to be heard in the places

where power is concentrated, as Susan Barton discovers. (Attridge 86)

In this case, Susan who strives to articulate her narrative of her experiences in the

island, accepts that her story is devoid of art, a superior quality dedicated to male

authorship. Here, one sees how Susan, trying to resist her underrepresentation by the

pen of Foe, has to give into the man-centred order because of her social status as a

constructed by male authorship in society. More and more, Susan feels she lacks

substance, which makes her realize she is another character shaped by the pen of Foe

in her life story. Susan says,

In the beginning I thought I would tell you the story of the island and, being

done with that, return to my former life. But now all my life grows to be a

story . . . I thought I was myself and this girl a creature from another order

speaking words you made up for her. But now I am full of doubt. I am doubt

myself. Who is speaking me? (Coetzee 133)

Here, Coetzee shows readers the thin line between life and story, implying that life is

all about the construction of a story and a narrative. In this narrative, Susan cannot

represent herself, as Foe is the one who gives her voice. Lacking a self, an

independent identity, Susan is a creation of Foe. She also reveals her passive role in

her identity construction in the beginning of the novel as, “What kind of a woman was I in truth? Do you think of me, Mr Foe, as Mrs Cruso or a bold adventuress?”

(Coetzee 28). She lacks individuality and agency, as her story, and identity is taken from her. In other words, she is a creation of patriarchy that prioritises male desire over ‘the other’. Hence, Susan’s silence as a narrative strategy illustrates the limited

perspective expressed in Foe’ words shaping the world and history through his

appropriation of the narrative. Susan reveals that she cannot trust Foe’s interpretation

and narrative, as such a representation cannot speak up her position as a female

castaway. All in all, her potential substance as a female castaway to Foe attributes to

her silence, as she loses her substance as an independent female identity. Susan is an

Friday’s Silence: The Voice of the Island

Just like Susan, Friday is another marginal character who is identified and

signified by colonial white male discourse in Foe. Specifically, as I’ll argue, Friday’s silence as a disability enables others to construct his identity as a nonhuman being and erase his participation in narrative. Hence, this part of the chapter on Foe will show the ways in which Friday and his body stand for the voice of the island against the

mastery of Cruso and Foe, who exert dominance over the woman and native, and

nonhuman nature. He lacks a tongue and consequently his-tory is erased. The

metaphors used for Friday, such as ‘buttonhole’ and ‘o’ (Coetzee 141), stand for the

hole in Friday’s history, for through the loss of his tongue the power to articulate his

narrative. Just as Susan cannot tell her own story, Friday literally lacks a substance,

his tongue. Consequently, Friday’s position is appropriated by Foe and Cruso, and

sometimes also by Susan. Foe says to Susan, “For as long as he is dumb we can tell

ourselves his desires are dark to us, and continue to use him as we wish” (Coetzee

148). Here, Foe presents us how as a storyteller, Foe can shape Friday’s story on the

island. Likewise, to use Spivak’s terminology, ‘the wish’ of the white male discourse,

which privileges the western subject over the native, male over female and human

over nonhuman, shapes Friday’s identity in the story. For example, the constructed

nature of Friday’s appropriation by white male colonialist discourse is illustrated by

Cruso’s different accounts of Friday’s origins. Susan highlights this artificial narrative

construction as she says,

Friday has no defence against being reshaped day by day in conformity with

the desire of others… What is the truth of Friday? You will respond: he is

neither cannibal nor laundryman, these are mere names, they do not touch his

so. No matter what he is to himself . . . what he is to the world is what I make

of him. (Coetzee 121-122)

Here, Susan illustrates how Friday exists outside of the realm of patriarchy, and is

thus unable to express himself in patriarchal signs. The colonist discourse renders him

as the eternal other according to its desire; however his silence symbolises how his

body is a unique sign that cannot be interpreted any other way. Friday is thus another

character that is changed, appropriated and imagined by colonist discourse. As such,

his silence shows the impossibility of representation or speaking up for the

marginalised in a postcolonist discourse.

The voice of the island and Friday’s silence functions as a simile that shows the subjective western approach to the native and nature by the narrator, and how his silence is also related to the erasure of the history of the island. Culturally tied to the island, Friday’s voice can only be heard through and represented by the voice of the island to the narrator and Susan on the island. For example, when Susan first comes to the island, she tries to adapt to the condition on the island. She says,

If one circumstance above all determined me to escape, whatever the cost, it was not the loneliness nor the rudeness of the life, nor the monotony of the diet, but the wind that day after day whistled in my ears and tugged at my hair and blew sand into my eyes, till sometimes I would kneel in a corner of the hut with my head in my arms and moan to myself, on and on, to hear some other sound than the beating of the wind; or later, when I had taken to bathing in the sea, would hold my breath and dip my head under the water merely to know what it was to have silence. (Coetzee 15)

The flute Friday plays, through which he blows the wind of island, creates a similar irritation for Susan. His silence, erasing the exploitation and manipulation done to the

island by the slave-traders and, perhaps also by Cruso, represents the submission of the island to colonialism. So, not being able to bear the silence of the island, Susan wears earplugs (35) for she cannot relate herself to the nature of the island. This shows that the Western perspective does not accept the existence of ‘the other’ when it speaks in its own way. A similar connection between Friday and the island can be traced at the end of the novel as well. When Friday dies, the narrator notes that

I begin to hear the faintest faraway roar: as she said, the roar of waves in a seashell; and over that… the whine of the wind and the cry of a bird. Closer I press, listening for other sounds: the chirp of sparrows, the thud of mattock, the call of a voice. From his mouth, without breath, issue the sounds of the island. (Coetzee 154)

Here the ambiguous narrator shows how Friday is tied culturally to the colonial island. Consequently, his silence and existence on the island reveal to Susan, Cruso and Foe nothing more than the story of a colonial island whose history is lost. Although “This is not a place of words… This is a place where bodies are their own signs” and “It is the home of Friday”(Coetzee 157), Susan, Foe and Cruso cannot understand his body as a sign outside of colonialist discourse. Similarly, not being able to see Friday and his relation to the island outside of a western gaze and fantasy, Susan interprets Friday’s ritual with petal leaves as an ‘offering to the god of the waves to cause fish to run… or performing some other such superstitious observance’ (Coetzee 31). Here Susan appropriates Friday’s act according to her view of the island at the island and Friday, which is reduced to a ‘superstitious’ hence a senseless act. Therefore, the voice of the animals and the voice of the island do not exist separately from Friday. In addition, until the very last page, the ambiguous narrator continues

explaining his experience with the body of Friday and its relation to the island. He says,

His mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interpretation. It flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island… (Coetzee 157)

The final moment of the book illustrates Friday’s own body language and

communication, which is understood in terms of the voices and images of the island. The narrator cannot keep a distance from his or her anthropocentric western discourse that binds the island’s voice with Friday, as they remain to exist ‘in their own signs’.

Another simile between the island and Friday is created through the animal references attributed to Friday in the novel. As a matter of fact, Friday’s mutilated tongue and his inarticulateness resemble the animals that can’t tell of their

manipulation by humans. Susan suspects that Cruso cut Friday’s tongue out with his

knife, another phallocentric object, just like pen of Foe (Coetzee 84). She even

explicitly compares Friday’s condition to that of animals:

[t]he tongue is like the heart, in that way, is it not? ...To that degree we may

say the tongue belongs to the world of play… Yet it is not the heart but the

members of play that elevate us above the beasts: the fingers with which we

touch the clavichord or the flute, the tongue with which we jest and lie and

seduce. Lacking members of play, what is there left for beats to do when they

are bored but sleep? (Coetzee 85)

Just as an animal whose destiny it is to die, to provide meat for humans, Friday’s

condition as an inarticulate slave is to submit himself to the manipulation of the slave

magpie (Wright 20). Wright consequently claims that, “Animal reference functions to represent the body devoid of language, unable to ask for or give anything, and,

expecting nothing that it can vocalise, yet tell worthy of respect”(Wright 22). In other

words, the animal reference stands for the dehumanisation as a result of colonialist

discourse in Foe, for both Friday and Susan. Hence, Friday’s condition shows that

Friday is made into an animal, an inferior kind to western men who exploit his

service.

Moreover, the island is constructed according to the desire of Foe and Cruso,

which reveals the power of colonial male desire and male stories. For example, Cruso encloses the land of the island for cultivation. Just like the enclosed terrains of the island, Friday is shaped by the white male discourse, for cultivation of the western

civilisation. The reason why Cruso encloses the island is because he wants to leave

the island ‘cultured’ for the next generation of traders and master arriving on the

island: “The planting is reserve for those who come after us and have the foresight to bring seed. I only clear the ground for them”(Coetzee 33). Similarly, when Susan asks Cruso why and how Friday’s tongue is cut, Cruso answers, “Perhaps they wanted to prevent him from ever telling his story: who he was, where his home lay, how it came about that he was taken” (Coetzee 23). So, Friday’s mutilation is comparable to the mutilation of the island for the future colonialist who will come to the island. Susan answers, “Robbed of his childhood and consigned to a life of silence. Was Providence sleeping?” Cruso concludes,

For the business of the world to prosper, Providence must sometimes wake and sometimes sleep, as lower creatures do…. (Coetzee 24)

Here, Cruso reveals how the truth or word of God, another western invention, justifies the colonialism of the island and the bodies of the native. In addition, the reason why

Friday is subjected to an eternal silence is a similar incentive. For the ‘cultivation’ of masters and white power holders in the future, slave traders cut out Friday’s tongue. As long as Friday cannot tell his misery and story, the world won’t hear of his experiences, and slave traders will continue their exploitation. As ‘Providence’ is a western male constructed ideology, Friday’s appropriated position as a slave in the island is also a subjectively constructed idea in Cruso’s mind.

In conclusion, Friday and Susan share a similar fate in Foe, as they can’t fully represent their individual selves in their own story, but are shaped and constructed according to the desire and preference of Mr Foe, an author with the valid authority. Although Susan describes how she fights against the dominant power structures in her story, she can’t escape being altered and appropriated by Mr Foe. On the other hand, Friday can’t even articulate his story and how he became a mute slave. Unable to express himself, his underrepresentation shows the unwritten history of the life- human and nonhuman- on the island. Stigmatised as a slave, the figure of Friday shows how colonist discourse renders others mute for the ‘cultivation’ and

‘civilisation’ of the island, which creates a division between nature and culture, slave and master, male and female. To add, the motif of the moan of the wind associated with Friday recurs in the novel, which points at the existence of individual

representations where ‘bodies are their own signs’ (157), yet which cannot be looked at without a western gaze in the novel. Such binaries as the outcome of patriarchal values reflect a social hierarchy in which marginalised characters lack authority and validity of their voice. Therefore, the narrative succeeds in portraying the patriarchal colonist discourse that intimidates the woman and the native, as well as the

nonhuman. Also, as my analysis shows, the narrative depicts the double bind condition of the white woman, both as a master and a slave. Hence, even though

Susan herself suffers from lacking agency in her own story, she also contributes to the ways in which the west imagines Friday as a slave and an inarticulate, nonhuman. All in all, Friday’s silence, in the image of a mutilated tongue, is a metaphor of the impossibility of representation or speaking up for the other, as it is always constructed through phallocentric subjectivity.

CHAPTER THREE: PATRIARCHAL AUTHORITY IN REPRESENTING DISGRACE: THE POSITION OF WOMEN AND NON-HUMAN NATURE IN

DISGRACE.

J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace has been a subject of debate of postcolonial analyses due to its striking depiction of the post-apartheid period in South Africa. The stunning plotline resembling a bildungsroman sequence shows readers how David Lurie, a prominent Modern Language professor in Cape Town, gets engaged with problems of the earth: country life, animals and the ownership of the land. In the plot of his maturation and his getting to know the African land, the resistance of his daughter and the dogs at the clinic challenge the way David sees the world. Their resistance illustrates the broader effects of post-apartheid politics, and how these patriarchal politics disregard the consequences of colonialism in the experiences of Lucy, the dogs and the land. For this reason, this part of my thesis aims at exploring the consequences of post-apartheid politics and how these politics depend on

disallowing agency for women and nonhuman nature in Disgrace. This representation highlights the silence of dogs, native politics of land and women. Consequently, the chapter argues that the authorial voice of David Lurie, from whose perspective readers experience the incidents in the story, is alienated from the alternative perspectives of animals, land and women. Moreover, in light of the scholarship of postcolonial and ecofeminist studies, this chapters shows how Lurie’s daughter Lucy, and the dogs he gets to know after he’s left the city, as well as African farm life challenge his narrow white male perspective since they refuse to be represented in David’s normative, anthropocentric voice. Through the depiction of the silence of these metaphorically disabled agents, one discovers the multi-faceted nature of

post-apartheid politics and the contradictory results of Eurocentric, male-centred and anthropocentric point of view, as represented by David Lurie in Disgrace. Consequently, depicting them as the silenced, the narrative reveals how these marginalised and often neglected subjects cannot be truly represented by a Eurocentric, patriarchal narrative voice. First, I will discuss the politics of representation of animals and the land, and colonial women in the introductory framework. Next, I will talk about the representation of the land, and secondly the animals, and lastly the woman. Finally, I will compare the silences of the

marginalised subjects to show how they resist a master narrative in Disgrace.

To start with, gender is not the only societal difference one should be aware of while reconsidering inequalities in postcolonial societies and their depiction in

literature. Indeed, male-centred values and approaches have their broader effect in the way land and animals are perceived and imagined in society. Therefore,

socio-political incidents in society are not limited to humans. As a matter of fact, it is the speciesist approach that separates the sufferings of animals and nonhuman nature from the suffering of humans in the colonialist history. Hence, Lawrence Buell reminds readers of “the inseperatability between natural history and human history”(Buell 7-8). This statement highlights how the violence inflicted on each party is inseparable from the violence they inflict on animals and the environment in a politically chaotic setting. Post-colonisation, then, does not only hint at the

consequences of the colonisation at the expense of the native, but also the land as one understands it, and also animals, and women. About this Eurocentric and speciesist perspective Fatima Muhaidat and Shadi Neimneh say, “Western culture has often subsumed people of colour and women into the category of the non-human other, that of animals and nature, and simultaneously dominated nature in its imperialist

endeavour” (Neimneh and Muhaidat 13). So while Eurocentric ideals dehumanized women and natives, they also created binaries and of master-slave relationship - also towards nature. In this chapter, I will analyse how this self-centric anthropocentric approach is shown to damage and have damaged ‘minorities’ in Disgrace’s society. In this dualist approach, power-holders treat nonhuman nature and women in an inferior way, and they categorise them according to their self-centric ideas and experiences. Val Plumwood articulates the construction of these so-called inferior characters as follows:

In dualistic construction, as in hierarchy, the qualities (actual or supposed), the culture, the values and the areas of life associated with the dualised other are systematically and pervasively constructed and depicted as inferior… But once the process of domination forms culture and constructs identity, the inferiorised group … must internalise this inferiorisation in its identity and collude in this low valuation, honouring the values of the centre, which form the dominant social values. (Plumwood 48)

Therefore, David’s words shaping the world and reality of ‘the other’ is a matter of backgrounding the identity and agency of non-human nature and women in Disgrace. The domination of patriarchal values then, does not only manifest itself physically but also internally and psychologically.

Instead of imagining the land as a space of intra-action of animals, plants, farm life and humans, David conceives the farm life as a space restricted to his desires and ends. Nonetheless, his spiritual development of David Lurie shows how he becomes more attuned to the politics of nature and how he shows awareness of animal suffering and her daughter’s humiliation. However, the empathy David shows to these often neglected agencies also reveals the very fact that his empathy is nothing more

than a banal approach to others to be accepted in society again. Lorie Gruen states that “…empathy reduces to a kind of ‘narcissistic projection’ of our own interests and desires onto others, particularly non-verbal others” (Gruen 27). So, even though it might seem innocent, David still implements his patriarchal and even colonialist ideas on the farm life, suffering animals and humiliated women in his life. In fact, it is David and his desires that create the alienation from others around him, which reveals itself through exclusion and ‘backgrounding’ the agency of others.

David and His Construction of the Farm

J.M. Coetzee depicts the clash between city and the farm life as a site of resistance, political chaos and pressure in Disgrace. David’s involvement with the land is marked by his disgraceful act at the university. Looking for an escape and to be redeemed, David idealizes the farm life, and imagines it in the shape of his desires. However, his simplifying the village into an escape kicks back when he and his daughter get assaulted because of land –ownership issues. Early on the novel, David explains how he thinks about the life his daughter is living on the farm: “This is how she makes a living: from the kennels, and from selling flowers and garden produce. Nothing could be more simple”(Coetzee 61). David idealizes the farm life as a simple life, and a place where he can relax, and contemplate and redeem his sins. Here, the hectic and monstrous city life where he was expelled is in opposition to this natural and simple life. The farm becomes an idealised place where he finds an escape. For example, when Lucy mocks David as a scapegoat for what he has done, David explains,

Scapegoating worked in practice while it still had religious power behind it. You loaded the sins of the city on the goat’s back and drove it out, and the city was cleansed…. Then the gods died, and all of a sudden you had to cleanse the

city without divine help. Real actions were demanded instead of symbolism. The censor was born, in the Roman sense. Watchfulness became the

watchword: the watchfulness of all overall. Purgation was replaced by the purge… having said farewell to the city, what do I find myself doing in the wilderness? Doctoring dogs. Playing right-hand man to a woman who specializes in sterilisation and euthanasia” (Coetzee 91).

Here, I would argue, David clearly shows his motive to come to the countryside in, which is because he wants to purge his sins ‘outside’ of the city. The countryside, consequently becomes another space on which je projects his desires. In other words, he sees himself as a scapegoat in a modern sense, and he convinces himself that he is redeeming his sins by helping the dogs. The countryside then becomes a space where he reconstructs himself for his desire to be cleansed. Graham Huggan calls this type of Eurocentrical construction of Africa as a n example of “Western cultural

constructions of a mythicized Africa that has historically been manufactured as a projection-screen for European anxieties and desires”(Huggan 719). Hence, one can observe how David conceives the farm life as a place to get rid of his sins, and have a simple life. However, after the gang rape, his traumatic experience reshapes how he thinks on the farm.

Thinking that this place is ‘the purge’ where he depoliticizes himself from the complexities and problems of city life, David realizes that the idealisation of the farm proves him wrong. Furthermore, being engaged with the earth introduces him to the politics of the land and animals, which he has ignored all his life in the city. Indeed, Neimneh and Muhaidat clarify how the farm life is the place where Eurocentric desires and apartheid problems meet, in a stark contrast to idealisation of the farm as a pre-lapsarian place. They state, “nature is not simply a passive alternative to the realm

of political actions but rather a questioning of the moral foundations of the crooked apartheid politics”(Neimneh and Muhaidat 14). After the rape, realizing the hardships of farm life, David shows his selfish attitude towards the land:

It is a burden he is not ready for: the farm, the garden, the kennels. Lucy’s future, his future, the future of the land as a whole- it is all a matter of indifference, he wants to say; let it all go to the dogs, I do not care. (Coetzee 107)

The previously idealised farm life- as a place of purgation- becomes his hell. As another example, David sees the country life as a place of sin, after the rape. David says,

A peasant, a paysan, a man of the country. A plotter and a schemer and no doubt a liar too... like peasants everywhere. Honest toil and honest cunning… country life has always been a matter of neighbours scheming against each other, wishing on each other pets, poor crops, financial ruin, yet in a crisis ready to lend a hand (Coetzee 116-7).

He changes the meaning of the farm life according to solely his experience there. Therefore, farm life becomes whatever he experiences there, regardless of the

complex relationship between the land, animals, Lucy and Africans. Hence, he lacks a non-anthropocentric perspective to understand why Petrus, Lucy and animals are acting the way they do. However, his phallocentric identity in the novel renders him a selfish man in pursuit of his desires and interests, also in the meaning-making process of the others. Lucy articulates this phallocentric approach when she says, “Stop calling it the farm, David. This is not a farm, it’s just a piece of land where I grow things- we both know that” (Coetzee 200). Here, Lucy resists against the way David reshapes and gives meaning to the farm life according to his point of view.

Patriarchal Constructions of Animals and Women

Similar to his phallocentric meaning-making of the farm, David attempts to represent and take control of the lives of animals and Lucy in the novel. However, Lucy, whose character harks back to the silent position of Susan in Foe as a ghost narrator, refuses to speak in David’s terms. Similarly, the animals that are used as watchdogs and companions cannot even speak about their painful experiences, which resemble the eternal silence of Friday in Foe. Yet just like Susan and Friday, these animals and Lucy mirror each other’s situation in the post-apartheid society as non-representable, silent, and wronged by the complications of master-slave politics in the South African society of Disgrace. Hence, the similarities between women and animals symbolise the impossibility of speaking up outside a discourse of patriarchy in the novel.

The Silence of Animals and Lucy

The exploitation of animals resembles the exploitation of women in the novel, because animals and women are similarly used by patriarchal power constructions. On the exclusive approach of this hegemonic approach Val Plumwood states, “This perspective constructs these others by exclusion (or some degree of departure from the norm or centre) as some form of nature in contrast to the subject, the master, who claims for himself both full humanity and reason” (Plumwood 44). Contrasting its position as a centre to the others around it, the discourse of anthropocentric patriarchy isolates itself from the other gender and other species. Hence, the suffering of animals figuratively represents the suffering of others that are not a part of patriarchal order. For example, one of the dogs, Katy, is abandoned and left alone to die by her owners. When David asks about the dog, Lucy says “Katy? She’s abandoned. The owners have done a bunk. Account unpaid for months. I don’t know what I’m going to do