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International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848, p- ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 2, Issue 05, May 2015 Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org

Rehabilitating & Divulging the Whiteness in the Post – in J.M.Coetzee’s

Prof Manminder Singh Anand Asstt. Prof. in English, Punjabi University Neighbourhood Campus, Jaitu. 151506 Pb. India. Mob: 919876808966

ABSTRACT The present paper attempts to analyze the Individual in Society, and the Nobel Prize for uncanny perspectives of the racial literature in 2003."When some men suffer discriminatory movement “Post Apartheid” unjustly . . . it is the fate of those who witness which stormed . J.M.Coetzee’s their suffering to suffer the shame of it." This Disgrace is the major platform which observation by the Magistrate in J. M. unearthed the myth of Afrikaner. This paper Coetzee's 1980 , Waiting for the also figures out the radical elements in the Barbarians, may well serve as an epigraph. Post – Colonial world which are carried out in Stephen Watson Observes That “ All Europe” Europe as well as in South Africa. An attempt Has Gone Into The Making Of Coetzee.He has been made to focus on the radical elements acknowledges the impact of Ezra pound , like alienation , anxiety , nostalgia , William Faulkner , Sameul Beckett on his acculturation , hybridity , creoles and also to work.Coetzee forcefully asserts that these compare and contrast their specific writers “ taught me to hear , feel , write”. Franz preferences. Kafka too has a telling and profound influence on Coetzee which shaped his works - he Keywords: himself adds “ As a writer I am not worthy to Post Colonialism ; Post – Apartheid ;South loose the latchet [ strap] of Kafka‟s shoe”. For Africa ; Diaspora ; Acculturation ; Blacks ; Coetzee Afrikaner means white settler . In his Whites ; Corruption; Hybridity ; Creoles ; work boyhood Coetzee feels repelled from the Nostalgia ; Afrikaner Afrikaner culture .Speaking afrikaans for him is like speaking like “ a whipped slave”.This is John Maxwell Coetzee is the the second book by this author (after "Life and most towering novelist , literary critic as well Times of Michael K") where man is broken as a translater who won the down almost to nothing before he finds some Twice and was awarded the 2003 Nobel prize tiny measure of redemption in his forced in literature . Coetzee was born in Cape Town, acceptance of the realities of life and South Africa, on 9 February 1940. He was a death.Taking a line from Coetzee‟s own son of a sheep farmer .J.M COETZEE has reading of Dostoevsky - “ true confession carved a niche from himself on the ….comes from faith and grace” international literary scene . Writing in a Atwell exclaims the word “GRACE” – is a country where banning and exile was a word that evidently shadows a novel called common reality for writers till recently , disgrace. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee is the Coetzee‟s work unites the aesthetic and the winner of the 1999 Booker Prize award which political dimensions. He is an iconoclast and is a bleak tale of human and animal misery in his work epitomizes that how a novel could be post-apartheid South Africa. Written with modern , post modern ,avantgarde , meta austere clarity , Disgrace explores the downfall fictional and at the same time political and of one man and dramatizes with unforgettable, historical. He was the recipient of numerous almost unbearable vividness the plight of South awards, including the Booker-McConnell Prize Africa-a country caught in the chaotic (making literary history by winning twice), aftermath of the overthrow of Apartheid. Central News Agency (CNA) Literary Award, Disgrace is Coetzee's first book to deal the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa, and

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International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848, p- ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 2, Issue 05, May 2015 Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org the picture it paints is a cheerless one that will Coetzee's fiction the stark and beautiful South comfort no one, no matter what race, African countryside has always played a half- nationality or view- point. allegorical role as both a destructive and a In both books a man is broken regenerative environment. down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced J M Coetzee‟s novel powerfully portrays the acceptance of the realities of life and death. devastating aftermath of colonialism and Disgrace was made into a film in 2008, apartheid in South Africa . Apartheid stood for directed by Steve Jacobs and starring John a policy between the governing white minority Malkovich .Disgrace is written in the present population and the non white majority tense and its title denotes a continuing population . After the national party victory in condition .Disgrace continues and so do the the 1948 elections ,apartheid became the characters lives .The book remain unresolved governing political policy for South Africa and unfinished. until the early 1990‟s . The inequalities as well as hostilities between the white and the black DISGRACE AS A POST COLONIAL south Africans continue to exist . The novel NOVEL responds to the Oppressive practices that have pervaded s-A life for 100 of years . Viewed in the light of post – apartheid era of DISGRACE is set in post apartheid South South Africa – the term “post colonial” Africa . It is a poignant tale of a white woman signifies “ the post independence period”in the who lives an independent life , she rejects the history of a colonized nation as it “deals with conventional gender role by renouncing effects of colonization on cultures and heterosexuality but she becomes the victim of societies”. Post Colonial Literatures seek to the gang rape . DISGRACE is the first explore the interaction between the European significant statement from an establishes South nations and the people they colonized . “POST African writer on this flaming aspect of post- COLONIALISM” as a theory referred to set apartheid 1994 south Africa . It obliquely deals off “theoretical approaches” focusing on the with the iconic experience of the 1990‟s aftermath of colonization . Post Colonialists Contextual reconciliation , its dilemmas , seem to suggest a concern only with the compromises. A 2006 poll of "literary national culture after the departure of " by The Observer newspaper named imperial power . Post Colonialism is an “ the work as the "greatest novel of the last 25 ideologically Emancipatory" concept in the years" of British, Irish or Commonwealth present era of several “post” because it makes origin in years between 1980 and 2005 [2] us interrogate many aspects of the study of literature that we were made to be taken for Coetzee casts doubt on the possibility of ever granted”. achieving close on a painful past of ever in a secular society and in language – adequately DISGRACE AS A POST - APARTHEID saying sorry . Disgrace highlights the NOVEL brutalities of the long oppressed blacks against According to Adam Mars-Jones, writing in The the once authoritative white . Lucy and David Guardian, "[a]ny novel set in post-apartheid Lurie represent the whites who are helpless in South Africa is fated to be read as a political the face of the cruelties and bestialities of the portrait, but the fascination of Disgrace is the black community. Coetzee writes: 'Human way it both encourages and contests such a society has created language in order that we reading by holding extreme alternatives in may communicate our thoughts, feelings, and tension. Salvation, ruin."[1] intentions to each other.' His own opinion, Disgrace is a troubling work, of which he does not air, is that the origins of troubled people in troubled times. Ill-equipped speech lie in song, and the origins of song in or unwilling to face the new realities of post- the need to fill out with sound the overlarge apartheid South Africa, Lurie and his daughter and rather empty human soul.[3] nevertheless try to find their place in it.In

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International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848, p- ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 2, Issue 05, May 2015 Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org

APARTHEID was the policy of racial makes it counter the ruthless “ arbitrariness of discrimination and segregation against blacks history” . during the white regime in south Africa. It was institutionalised by law and subverted the very Ariel Dorfman Chileannovelist remarked “ idea of democratic governance .As a result of it Coetzee strips bare the human contemporary , the blacks proclaimed an end to apartheid condition . He explores the very bleak with the release of the African leader Nelson landscape of the human soul in our times and Mandela from the prison and the legalization of does so with .. black African political organizations. Though radiance , luminosity, tenderness”. the novel is sparse in style, it covers a number The rape of Lucy represents the chaos and of topics: personal shame, the subjugation of turmoil of the Post Apartheid South-Africa women, a changing country, animal rights, and where all values are shifting .Coetzee‟s romantic poetry and its . [4] response has been to expose and subvert national myths of history , The novel deals with the problems and as well to create alternative narratives , stories difficulties confronting the white community in to hold up against the nightmare of south South Africa African history. , a community that remained that supreme authority for several decades and stands Avoiding the authoritative voice of History , marginalized in the present context. Coetzee presents us with a story whcih gives us an elusive , ambigious , yet melodious account Disgrace is a terribly dark book. of South-Africa. Coetzee‟s novel responds to The rape is discreetly handled, but there is a the discursive practices of South-Africa. Those great deal of unpleasantness that is described practices in turn are influenced by a complex quite closely. Any novel set in post-apartheid mix of material realities , psychological states South Africa is fated to be read as a political & metaphysical beliefs. Coetzee‟s novel rests portrait, but the fascination of Disgrace - a on the possibility of exposing a false history somewhat perverse fascination, as some will and exploring an alternative story. feel, is the way it both encourages and contests Contemporary South has such a reading by holding extreme alternatives been produced within historical practices that in tension, salvation, ruin.[5] In the new South more would agree are obviously unjust and Africa, violence is unleashed in new ways, and oppressive , publically immoral . South-Africa Lurie and his daughter become victims. The „is a country whose history can be deliberately novel presents a bleak look of the country.This constructed to maintain white supremacy. sentence also describes Coetzee's notion of life in the new South Africa, where, as he portrays Coetzee‟s Disgrace emerges as a powerful post it, brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal apartheid text lucidly about the problems faced anarchy."One gets used to things getting by the whites in South-Africa with portraying harder; one ceases to be surprised that what how virtues like individual dignity , self respect used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder , honour – freedom are trampled . yet,"[6] The core concern of the Disgrace is the delineation of “Human Pain”, “ weakness” and CONCLUSION the inevitable torture ”.In Post Apartheid South Africa, the blacks have started turning hostile . Racial Discrimination surfaces where people of It is because the decolonisation is not an easy different races live together but “ South Africa process . Being “ violent” , “ difficult” and is the only place which has the terrible and “ugly” Coetzee lucidly and powerfully depicts unique distinction of proclaiming racial “ the plight of the marginalised in the society segregation as a fundamental doctorine by exposing human cruelty and enforced by legislation”. “South-Africa Is A insensitivity.[7]Coetzee through disgrace White Man‟s Country” became the dictum of stretches human predicament to its limits and Apartheid . Apartheid breeds a climate of intolerance and a social system that turned out Available online:http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/ P a g e | 862

International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848, p- ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 2, Issue 05, May 2015 Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org to be an economic disaster. Coetzee in “ Books.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-06- Doubling The Point” describes the South- 06. African Literature as “ a less than fully humam literature , unnaturally pre – occupied with [2.] Robert McCrum (2006-10-09). "The power and torsions of power” The Observer poll of ". London: Books.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-06- dehumanizing effect of apartheid forms the 06. crux of his ficition and non – fiction .In coetzee‟s work Race exists as an absent [3.] Coetzee, J.M. (1999). Disgrace. Penguin. signifier . He does not present the binary pp. 3–4. ISBN 0-670-88731-5.New York division of black and white but focuses on the Times Review'The Trouble with J.M. psyche of the oppressor as well as the Coetzee', review of Disgrace in the oppressed.His novels repeatedly emphasizes Oxonian Review"Postmetaphysical the Physical and Psychological trauma Literature: Reflections on J. M. Coetzee's generated by apartheid. Its physical Disgrace"; in Perspectives on Political Manifestaton is the brutal maiming [ Science 33, 1 (Winter 2004), 4–9. wounding ] of the victimized.

REFERENCES [4.] "A Moderated Bliss": J. M. Coetzee's 'Disgrace' as Existential Maturation"; in [1.] Adam Mars-Jones (1999-11-25). J. M. Coetzee: Critical Perspectives. "Guardian review of Disgrace". London: Edited by Kailash C. Baral. New Delhi: Pencraft, 2008. 161–169.

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