A Study Of Animal Metaphors In Coetzee's Works

Most of John Maxwell Coetzee's works are rooted in the post-colonial era and the context of apartheid in South Africa.They discuss such issues as racial exploitation,imperialism,cultural invasion,ecological colonization and gender differences.It is worth noting that when he explores various issues in his works,he often incorporates a large number of animal images with metaphorical connotations into them.This paper takes five works of Coetzee,Shame,Iron Age,Waiting for Barbarians,Michael K's Life and Times,Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons as the research objects.On the basis of the classification and analysis of animal images in the text,this paper combines the plot and details of the work to explore the possible metaphorical connotation of animal images in Coetzee's works.Chapter one reveals the metaphorical function of Coetzee's works on the basis of classification and analysis of animal images.Animal images in texts can be classified into two categories: concrete and abstract.Representational animals directly participate in the plot development,which is an important part of the text narrative unit,such as sheep,horses,cats,etc.The Abstract animals are mainly presented in detail,which often reveals the meaning of the text narrative,such as snakes,crabs,foxes and so on.In Waiting for the Barbarians and Michael K's Life and Times,people shaped by instrumental rationality,imperial ideas and oppressive systems are compared to animals.Animal metaphor has become an important means of revealingpeople's situation in Coetzee's works.The author demonstrates the process of human being's gradual animation in order to refer to the nature of human nature and moral relationship.The second chapter focuses on the body.It analyses the metaphorical connotation conveyed by Coetzee's animal narrative.The body is closely related to the connotation of specific social,historical and cultural values.The difference of body signs is used to classify different values and social status levels.Coetzee metaphorically describes the transformation of human body to non-human body in his works,revealing its complex connotation.Animalization of human beings has two manifestations in his works,that is,the animalization of the strong and the animalization of the weak.The former shows that the animal impulse in human subconscious conceals rationality and logic,and goes to the extreme of brutality,while the latter shows slavery and dependence after being spiritually castrated.Both are tragedies of self-degradation of human nature.In Shame and Iron Age,the protagonists,inspired by animals and transformed in mood,reveal the relationship between the animals enslaved and the people enslaved.The third chapter elucidates the metaphorical connotation of Coetzee's Animal Narrative in a larger socio-political context,namely the post-colonial context.The animal narration in Coetzee's works ultimately points to the transformation and reconstruction of social relations in the post-colonial context.As the object of human empathy,animals constantly adjust the relationship between animals and humans in the text.Poultry,livestock and wild animals slaughtered by violence in the animal empire are metaphors of the animalized others slaughtered by human violent machines.The political domination and conquest of the strong often resort to the form of violence.Under the discipline of violence,the other is forced to be silent and dumb animal state.Coetzee's animal Narration implies the author's inquiry and inquiry about the paradoxical operation of reason and system under the domination of European civilization.Coetzee's interest in animals involves not only the de-allegorization of animalimages,but also the questioning of the boundaries between human beings and non-human beings.Coetzee uses the common animal metaphor in the colonial narrative,takes the silent post-colonial animals as the starting point,and ultimately excavates the essence of the relationship between human and non-human,as well as the truth of the collapse of rationality and knowledge in the human world under the crisis of modernity.