Postmodernism Reading Of J.M.Coetzee’s Fiction In The Heart Of The Country

J.M.Coetzee(1940-)is the first writer that has won the Man Booker Prize twice in the literary history and the second laureate of Nobel Prize in South Africa following the step of Nadine Gordimer.His novels,which possess certain similarities with those of British writer Julian Barnes,are all-inclusive with variable styles and diversified meanings.Coetzee was born in the era of apartheid in South Africa so that his creation has been greatly influenced by the colonial environment and his works mainly treat apartheid political system as the point of penetration.As the early work of Coetzee with strong experimentality,In the Heart of the Country is not only distinctive in the form,but also perplexing in the content with erratic speculation and fantasies.Meanwhile,it has depicted the theme of main characters fighting against disgrace and making redemption under the experimental style.The novel proceeds with the colony white female Magda as the first-person narrative perspective and tells the story among Magda,her father and the black couple,Hendrik and Anna in an unconventional form of diary.The whole plot takes ’patricide’ as the main body,Magda who makes a sharp contrast with the traditional woman Anna has showed clear feminist consciousness;also,the subject consciousness of servant Hendrik has gradually revealed as the plot progresses.It has subverted the traditional binary opposition on gender and race and such a subversion has definitely achieved in the process of fighting against disgrace.Confronting with double disgrace on the level of individual and history,Magda acts out of traditional behaviors trying to make redemption on body and mentality.It has been revealed in languages,forms as well as contents.In the course of individual redemption,cultural redemption and historical redemption,the texts demonstrate its diversification.The formation of Coetzee’s multicultural identities makes him an unconventional image in South Africa and this temperament exactly tallies with the post-modernity in In the Heart of the Country.As a kind of epochal spirit,post-modernity was thought to be ideology and behavioral pattern by Lyotard and Foucault,it is an explosive release of heterogeneity.Although postmodernism has broad categories and numerous types,they have some similarities:criticizing modernity and rationalism,pursuing differences and multiple thoughts,which has made up post-modernity ultimately.In this novel,Coetzee has utilized many postmodern elements such as language’fragmentation,story’s montage clippings,irony,paradox and so on,those features have demonstrated a revolt to traditional literature writing mode shaped under South Africa colonial environment and deconstruction to traditional values.Coetzee’s thoughts of eliminating hegemony,clearing up authority,collapsing center and breaking marginalized pattern could be deeply dug out in the subversion to traditional gender and race order during the process of main characters’ resist to disgrace and the postmodern diversification showed from the redemption in the level of individual,culture and history.Meanwhile,it can reveal that Coetzee tries to subvert and clear up all oppressed ideology with his own creation and then construct independent literature nature apart from mainstream European culture by analyzing the text in the perspective of postmodernism.Coetzee’s revolt to traditional values and his construction to the plot that white colonist and blacks coexist peacefully reflect his expectation to establish the relationship of equality and mutual benefit between different races,it presents the text’s positive guidance.Coetzee’s creation differs from the mainstream literature in history to some extent.He speaks for the weak in the works.He observes the world in the perspective of ’the other’ like women,ethnic minorities and animals as giving them prominent places.By this means,his works has infused new thoughts to literary field.Analyzing the text in the perspective of postmodernism does not only offer new viewpoint for this novel,but also make a comprehensive understanding of ’gap man’ Coetzee’s cultural concept influenced by dispersed culture from his subversion to tradition,so that we can learn more about the culture of South Africa and fully grasp Coetzee’s thoughts.