Coetzee's own experience of living in apartheid South Africa provides the backdrop for novels infused with sardonic irony and rich metaphoric systems. In modes of metafiction that emphasize the destructive and violent nature of language, he optimizes his unique oeuvre to interrogate global, national and domestic power relations. This dissertation relies on psychoanalytical theories that examine microstructures of power within the individual, and in his domestic domain. Each of Coetzee's chief protagonists carries a secret related to a dysfunctional mother/son relationship. This hampers their psychosocial dynamics, their masculinity and sexuality. As they respectively strive toward an elusive new life they confront patriarchal power structures that speak on behalf of individuals, '[whose] descent into powerlessness [is] voluntary' (Coetzee 2007: 4-5). Coetzee's constructed white males perform their several identity roles in milieux that span divergent phases of colonial history. His critique points to white patriarchal hegemonic ideological discourses that bespeak the self/other dichotomy in a postcolonial world where the language of dominance supports an oppressive status quo. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Ce travail tente d’établir, à partir de la pensée et de la vision que développe Edouard Glissant dans ses essais, une nouvelle approche, ou du moins une approche différente de la littérature comparée. Cette approche a pour fondement les concepts clés tels que le chaos-monde, le tout-monde, la créolisation et l’opacité. La relation surgit de ce que Glissant nomme le chaos-monde, cette rencontre, ce choc de cultures toujours à l’oeuvre dans notre monde. Cette confrontation, ce contact avec l’autre ne peut que produire de la relation. Nous vivons depuis toujours, et aujourd’hui bien plus que jamais, dans un espace pluriel caractérisé par la participation-confrontation, selon des modes variés, hétérogènes, voire conflictuels, de multiples cultures; quand bien même nous n’aurions jamais vu ces autres peuples, le fait d’avoir connaissance de leur existence contraint toujours déjà et nécessairement à l’instauration d’une relation. Cette relation, qui, chez Glissant, est avant tout à l’oeuvre dans le monde des hommes, comporte tous les éléments d’une approche comparatiste en littérature : mettre en relation des ouvrages différents mais néanmoins équivalents, analyser un ouvrage en gardant à l’esprit la multiplicité d’oeuvres existantes, comparer tout en respectant les différences propres à chaque oeuvre, telle est, semble-t-il, la tâche du comparatiste. Il s’agit, à partir du chaos-monde perçu comme confrontation de tous les ouvrages de notre corpus, de révéler une relation au sens glissantien du terme. Les termes de déclinaisons, inclinations et déclins nous engagent dans la description des trajets de lectures en montrant autant les capacités que les limites de cette approche. / Building on the theory developed by Edouard Glissant in his essays, this work attempts to draw up a different approach for the analysis of compared literature. This method is based on the key concepts developed by Glissant. All relationships are the offsprings of what Glissant calls the chaos-world, which is this encounter, this clash of cultures constantly at work in our world. This confrontation with the other cannot but give rise to relationship. Since time immemorial, we’ve been living and today we, more than ever, live in a plural setting, the defining characteristic of which is the cooperation and confrontation of multiple cultures on varied, heterogeneous and even conflictual modes; even if we have not seen these people who are so different and come into direct contact with their cultures as such, the very fact that we know of their existence always compels us to start some kind of relationship. In the works of Glissant, this relationship, which is at work in the world of human beings, comprises all the required elements for a comparative approach in the field of literature. Indeed, it would seem that the task of the comparatist consists in bringing together different but comparable works, in analyzing a piece of work while having in mind the multiplicity of works existing at the same time, and in comparing everything whilst respecting the differences exclusive to each work. Starting from the chaos-world perceived as a confrontation between all the works of our corpus, the whole point for us is to lay bare a relationship the way Glissant understands it. The concepts of declension, inclination and decline commit us to a description of reading journeys during which we show the scope as well as the limitations of this approach.

The farm in South Africa is an ideologically laden but also ambivalent concept, associated with pastoral ideals and the hierarchy of the colonial past; but also with fear and insecurity. The representation of the farm in the South African farm novel has been subjected to larger processes of development, dissolution and replacement in accordance with changing socio-historical contexts. Accordingly, the farm novel's contribution to the conceptualization of space, place and identity within the South African and postcolonial literary context, needs to be traced and related to the pastoral tradition as well as its mutations and deviations. This dissertation investigates how Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) as anti-pastoral farm novels, in different ways and degrees, rewrite and transcend the pastoral farm novel tradition by rejecting and subverting the inherent ideological assumptions and pastoral values exemplified by this genre. Specific focus is given to the role of space and place in the identity formation of the female protagonists and the conceptualization thereof in a postcolonial society. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005

The farm in South Africa is an ideologically laden but also ambivalent concept, associated with pastoral ideals and the hierarchy of the colonial past; but also with fear and insecurity. The representation of the farm in the South African farm novel has been subjected to larger processes of development, dissolution and replacement in accordance with changing socio-historical contexts. Accordingly, the farm novel's contribution to the conceptualization of space, place and identity within the South African and postcolonial literary context, needs to be traced and related to the pastoral tradition as well as its mutations and deviations. This dissertation investigates how Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) as anti-pastoral farm novels, in different ways and degrees, rewrite and transcend the pastoral farm novel tradition by rejecting and subverting the inherent ideological assumptions and pastoral values exemplified by this genre. Specific focus is given to the role of space and place in the identity formation of the female protagonists and the conceptualization thereof in a postcolonial society. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis interrogates the relationship between body, subjectivity and space in three antipastoral novels. The texts which I will be discussing, Karel Schoeman’s This Life, Anne Landsman’s The Devil’s Chimney and J.M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country, all foreground the female protagonist’s relationship to a specifically South African landscape in a colonial time-frame. The inter-relatedness between the body, subjectivity and space is explored in order to show that there is a shifting interaction between these registers in the novels. Arising from this interaction, the importance of perspective as a way of being in the world is foregrounded. The approach adopted in this study is based on the assumption that our experience depends upon how we make meaning of the world through our bodies as we encounter people, places and objects. The lived, embodied experience is always a subjective experience. The conceptual framework is derived broadly from psychoanalysis and phenomenology. My primary concern in this study is how marginal subject positions are explored in the space of the South African farm, which, traditionally, is an ideologically fraught locus of Afrikaner patriarchy and oppression. The novels are narrated by distinctive female voices, each speaking differently, but all having the effect of undermining and exposing the hegemony of the patriarchal farm space. In all three novels the question of genre is involved as forming the space of the text itself. The novels speak to the tradition of the plaasroman and the pastoral and, in doing so, open up a conversation with the past. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word die verhouding tussen die liggaam, subjektiwiteit en ruimte ondersoek in drie romans wat teen die pastorale literêre tradisie spreek. Die betrokke romans is This Life deur Karel Schoeman, The Devil’s Chimney deur Anne Landsman en In the Heart of the Country deur J.M. Coetzee. Die romans speel af in ‘n koloniale tydperk waar die vroulike protagonis se verhouding met die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap op die voorgrond gestel word. Die verwantskap tussen die liggaam, subjektiwiteit en ruimte word ondersoek om die interaksie tussen hierdie drie konsepte ten toon te stel. Wat vanuit hierdie interaksie voortspruit is die ontologiese rol wat perspektief speel as wyse om met die wêreld te verkeer. Hierdie studie benader die romans vanuit die siening dat die mens se ervaring afhang van hoe hy/sy die wêreld verstaan deur die interaksie tussen die liggaam en ander mense, ruimtes en objekte. Die beliggaamde ervaring is dus ‘n subjektiewe ervaring. Die konsepsuele raamwerk van hierdie ondersoek is afgelei van psigoanalise en fenomenologie. Die kern van hierdie studie is om te ondersoek hoe die posisie van die randfiguur in die ruimte van die Suid-Afrikaanse plaas ten toon gestel word. Die plaas is tradisioneel ‘n ideologiese bestrede ruimte van Afrikaner patriargie en onderdrukking. Die romans word verhaal deur drie kenmerkende en verskillende vroulike stemme wat dien om die hegemonie van die patriargale opset op die plase te ondermyn en ontbloot. Die vraagstuk van genre is in al drie romans betrokke aangesien genre die ruimte van die teks self uitmaak. Die romans spreek teen die tradisie van die plaasroman en die pastorale roman en tree sodoende in gesprek met die verlede.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / The notion that the post-colonial text stands in direct opposition to the canonical European text, and thus acts as a kind of counter-discourse, is generally accepted within post-colonial theory. In fact, this concept is so fashionable that Salman Rushdie’s assertion that ‘the Empire writes back to the Centre’ has been adopted as a maxim within the field of post-colonial studies, simultaneously a mission statement and a summative description of the entire field. In its role as a ‘response’ to a dominant European literary tradition, the post-colonial text is often regarded as resorting to a strategy of subversion through inversion, in essence, telling the ‘other side of the story’. The post-colonial text, then, seeks to address the ways in which the western literary tradition has marginalised, misrepresented and silenced its others by providing a platform for these dissenting voices. While such a view rightly points to the post-colonial text’s concern with alterity and oppression, it also points to the agonistic nature of the genre. That is, within post-colonial theory, the literature of Empire does not emerge as autonomous and self-determining, but is restricted to the role of counter-discourse, forever placed in direct opposition (or in response) to a unified dominant social order. Post-colonial theory’s continued classification of the literature of Empire as a reaction to a normative, dominant discourse against which all others must be weighed and found wanting serves to strengthen the binary order which polarises centre and periphery. This study is concerned with ‘rewritten’ post-colonial texts, such as J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Marina Warner’s Indigo, or, Mapping the Waters and Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest, and suggests that these revised texts exceed such narrow definition. Although often characterised by a concern with ‘political’ issues, the revised text surpasses the romantic notion of ‘speaking back’ by pointing to a more complex entanglement between post-colonial and canonical, self and other. These texts signal the collapse of binary order and the emergence of a new literary landscape in which there can be no dialogue between the clearly demarcated sites of Empire and Centre, but rather a global conversation that exceeds geographical location. It would seem as if the dependent texts in question resist offering mere pluralistic subversions of the logic of their pretexts. The desire to challenge the assumptions of a Eurocentric literary tradition is overshadowed by a distinct sense of disquiet or unease with the matrix text. This sense of unease is read as a response to an exaggerated iterability within the original text, which in turn stems from the matrix text’s inability to negotiate its own aporia. The aim of this study, then, is not to uncover the ways in which the post-colonial rewrite challenges the assumptions of its literary pretext, but rather to establish how certain elements of instability and subversion already present within the colonial pretext allows for such a return.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Socially responsible writing has been a feature of South African literature for many years. Under apartheid, many novels dealt with apartheid, as it was one of the main features of our social landscape. The end of apartheid did not however bring about the end of a need for socially responsible writing. South Africa is still faced with many problems, one of which is reconciliation. This thesis investigates whether reconciliation may have become a new theme in South African novels, and whether these novels could playa role in assisting the process of reconciliation in the country. For this purpose, three South African works are analysed, namely Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog, Smell of Apples by Mark Behr and Disgrace by J .M. Coetzee. The introduction attempts to explain the psychological discourse surrounding reconciliation, especially Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and parallels that may exists. The main body presents detailed readings of the three works, with the focus being on the presentation of reconciliation in the works, and the role that the individual works could play in assisting the reader in coming to terms with his or her feelings of guilt. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Vir baie jare was apartheid die onderwerp van baie Suid Afrikaanse skrywers aangesien dit die mees problematiese element van Suid Afrikaanse samelewing was. Die einde van apartheid het egter nie die einde van alle probleme beteken nie. Een van die belangrike probleme is versoening. Hierdie tesis ondersoek die moontlikheid dat versoening die nuwe tema in Suid Afrikaanse letterkunde geword het en ofhierdie werke 'n bydrae kan lewer tot werklike versoening. Vir hierdie doel word drie werke behandel, naamlik Country of My Skull deur Antjie Krog, Smell of Apples deur Mark Behr en Disgrace deur J .M. Coetzee. Die inleiding poog om die sielkundige diskoers om versoening te verduidelik, veral rondom posttraumatiese stres, en die ooreenkomste wat mag voorkom. Die hoofdeel van die tesis bestaan uit 'n diepgaande bespreking van die drie werke, met die fokus op versoening in die werk, maar ook die rol wat die werke kan speel om die leser deur sy ofhaar skuld gevoelens te help.

This thesis provides a detailed consideration of the family in Shakespeare’s canon and the engagement therewith in three South African novels: Hill of Fools (1976) by R. L. Peteni, My Son’s Story (1990) by Nadine Gordimer, and Disgrace (1999) by J. M. Coetzee. The study is divided into an introduction, three chapters each addressing one of the South African novels and its relationship with a Shakespeare text or texts, and a conclusion. The introductory chapter provides an analysis of the two strands of criticism in which the thesis is situated – studies of the family in Shakespeare and studies of appropriations of Shakespeare – and discusses the ways in which these two strands may be combined through a detailed discussion of the presence of power dynamics in the relationship between parent and child in all of the texts considered. The three chapters each contextualise the South African text and provide detailed discussions of the family dynamics within the relevant texts, with particular reference to questions of authority and autonomy. The focus in each chapter is determined by the nature of the intertextual relationship between the South African novel and the Shakespearean text being discussed. Thus, the first chapter, “The Dissolution of Familial Structures in Hill of Fools” considers power dynamics in the family as an inherent part of the Romeo and Juliet genre, of which William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is but a part. Similarly, the impact of a socio-political identity, and the secrecy it necessitates, is the focus of the second chapter, “Fathers, Sons and Legacy in My Son’s Story” as is the role of Shakespeare and literature within South Africa. These concerns are connected to the novel’s use of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, King Lear, and Hamlet. In the third chapter, “Reclaiming Agency through the Daughter in Disgrace and The Tempest”, I expand on Laurence Wright’s argument that Disgrace is an engagement with The Tempest and consider ways in which the altered power dynamic between father and daughter results in the reconciliation of the father figure with society. The thesis thus addresses the tension between parental bonds and parental bondage

The aim of the thesis is to examine the way in which J. M. Coetzee employs animal imagery in his three fictional works - the novel Disgrace, the novella The Lives of Animals and the short story "The Old Woman and the Cats". A historical overview of the development of the human-animal relationship is provided as the theoretical basis for the practical part, along with an explanation of the term speciesism. The overview will help to comprehend why and how has the relationship of humans to animals changed throughout time and what is the reason of its contemporary shape. It will also serve as a theoretical basis for the interpretation of the portrayal of animals in the selected works. A description of the author's life and the analysed works will be given along with a brief presentation of the situation in post-apartheid South Africa and its historical events which will serve as a basis for a later analysis of the portrayal of animals in connection with political issues. The analytical part will therefore be based on the interpretation of the role of animals in the selected works and will examine its connection with both ethical and political issues, and its function as a language and educational tool. KEY WORDS literature, South-African literature, Coetzee, speciesism, human-animal relationship, human...

A museum has to care for the objects in its collection to the best of its ability. The concept collections management emerged in the 1960s, when accountability for collections became a strong incentive for museums to develop modern collections management practices. In the process of establishing accountability (the effective implementation of practices to ensure adherence to collections policies on the accessioning, care and disposal of objects in a museum collection) many museums encountered problems such as the lack of access to detailed information about the objects in collections, a proliferation of accession numbers and inadequate location control. These problems were also encountered at the National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria. This research reveals the way in which the historical, anthropological and archaeological collections at the Transvaal Museum, predecessor of the National Cultural History Museum were managed from 1913 to 1964. This period was chosen for the following reasons: -- J W B Gunning, the director of the Transvaal Museum, was succeeded by H G Breijer in 1913. The year 1913 is thus a clear starting point for research and a new beginning, a watershed, at the Museum. -- The year 1964 marked the inception of an autonomous museum, the National Cultural History and Open-Air Museum, and the discontinuance of responsibility, after a period of 60 years, for the anthropology, archaeology and history collections at the Transvaal Museum. The development of the Transvaal Museum as a natural history and a history museum, is traced. In 1953, for the first time, a trained professional officer was appointed for the history division at the Museum. After 1953 there was an increased awareness (from a professional point of view) that historical, anthropological and archaeological collections require specialized curatorial care. Modern collections management principles, although they were not called by this name, featured effectively in the handling of the historical collection in particular, for the first time in more than 50 years. Aspects such as departmental organization, the staff, expansion of collections, policies, documentation and conservation are investigated. An evaluation of the factors that played a decisive role in collections management practices for the historical, anthropological and archaeological collections shows that a combination of aspects has to be considered in order to understand the practices that were followed and the changes that were made. / Thesis (DPhil (Museology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted