Papers by Gamal A B D O N A S S E R Al-Dhamari
International Journal of Advanced Research in Literature and Education , 2014
ABSTRACT— J. M. Coetzee is one of the most accomplished writers and novelists of South Africa who... more ABSTRACT— J. M. Coetzee is one of the most accomplished writers and novelists of South Africa whose imagination helped him to write his novels to project silence that was present in South Africa. In other words, one of the striking features in most of his novels is the theme of silence which is conveyed in graphic details in many of his books. In this paper, I will discuss the various instances where silence speaks volumes affecting anyone opposing the whites in one of his popular novels Dusklands and how silence has played an important role in the power dichotomy.
KEYWORDS: Silence, Power, Colonialism, Oppression, Dichotomy
The Criterion an International Journal in English, 2013
Humans are "social animals." Despite the outstretched lands open to habitation, people still tend... more Humans are "social animals." Despite the outstretched lands open to habitation, people still tend to build their homes closer to each others. Whatever their language, culture, origins or backgrounds, human beings have an innate desire to be together. This desire to be together is a desire to survive because the human race can only survive if its individual members survive, and the individual needs the group to enhance its own odds of surviving. Further, at the most basic level, human beings are drawn together for reproduction. Built into every human being is the need to reproduce other humans. This need and the means to do it are inborn instincts. When these two instincts are disturbed, the outcome is the destruction of the individual and by extension the whole society. This paper argues that the frustration and the final collapse of the central character in J. M. Coetzee's novel In the Heart of the Country are caused by the unfulfillment of these two desires. It argues that Magda's mental conflict is the outcome of her desire to be a human being, to be recognized as a human being particularly a woman. Throughout the novel Magda struggles to fulfill this desire. As all the events narrated in the novel take place only in her mind /imagination, the question that really matters is what happened to her mind. This paper attempts to tackle this question in double-forked way: first, Magda is a female whose basic need is a male counterpart, and second, she is a human being whose life and property depends on his communication and interaction with other human beings in the society. In the Heart of the Country is J. M. Coetzee's second novel. This novel is set in one of South Africa's remote and isolated farms. Written in the first person's narrative style and in the form of journal entries with numbered paragraphs, the novel tells the story of Magda, an old and psychotic spinster, living in her father's isolated farm. Magda is a white European woman living in South Africa. She is an intelligent, bitter, unattractive, spinster daughter of a European sheep farmer. Magda, in other words, is not an original Boer colonizer. Rather, she is the daughter of a colonizer. Her ancestors are the conquerors of South African people. But those ancestors have left her with the responsibility of continuing their oppression. So, she represents a people who have replaced the native culture with their own. Having grown up as a member of the ruling elites, Magda should feel comfortable with this role. She should feel powerful and proud of her ancestry. But this is not what happens. She appears unsatisfied with her role. Being the daughter of the colonizer, a white European woman in an alien land, Magda feels separated from the larger society in which she lives. There is clearly a wall between her and other humans living in the farm. Magda is also a human being in need of other humans around her. The isolated life in the farm has made life so boring. It seems that she spends all her time in her room with her dairies and imagined heroes and heroines in which she attempts to create and populate her own world.
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Papers by Gamal A B D O N A S S E R Al-Dhamari
KEYWORDS: Silence, Power, Colonialism, Oppression, Dichotomy
KEYWORDS: Silence, Power, Colonialism, Oppression, Dichotomy