Slow Men: A Disabilities Studies Case for the Novels of J. M. Coetzee (second section)
II) Where Disabilities Studies Shares Coetzee’s Reading of Truth
While representations of disabled bodies is important, at the core of the discourse of disabilities studies is an interpretation that goes beyond fiction, into the analysis of determining the construction of identity and meaning. When looking at the novels of Coetzee and its post-colonial nature, how he addresses the colonizers resembles very much Thomas’ critique of the heteronormative societal structure. Thomas incorporates this in her analysis of disabled bodies and how they are both based on a societal relationships as well as how they attempt to destabilize those relationships, writing, “In accordance with postmodernism’s premise that the margin constitutes the center, I probe the peripheral so as to view the whole in a fresh way” (Thomas 6). The center she addresses applies to the able-bodied majority as well the role of the colonizers. With its role bringing into questions societal relationships, it then expands the discourse of disabilities studies into a discussion of how and where disabled bodies and the lens of disability studies develops its context. She then writes,
In a world increasingly seen as free from divine determinism and subject to individual control, the disabled figure calls into question such concepts as will, ability, progress, responsibility, and free agency, notions around which people in a liberal society organize their identities. (Thomas 47)
In a very poststructuralist manner, what the goal for disabilities studies is has more to do with questioning the structured order oppose to making determinations of what is absolute, or true. Post-Colonial studies also has an approach to language and discourse involving truth or the absolute when looking at contributions of the colonizers. In his essay, Colonialism and the Novels of J.M. Coetzee, Stephan Watson attempts to bridge the gap between Coetzee’s take on truth and meaning while also exploring what Coetzee is trying to accomplish regarcding Post-Colonial studies as follows:
If, for instance, one searches inside [his novels], examining their structure, one discovers little more than an artfully constructed void. At the heart of Coetzee’s heart of the country, there is nothing. The solid core to his work lies elsewhere, outside the works themselves, in something that is effaced, implicit, barely alluded to. (Watson, 377)
The outside, suggesting the margins. For Coetzee, establishing the center is not as important listening to the voices on the margins. Characters like Michael K and Paul become the voice of the silent, the marginalized, focused on finding meaning in a world where they are not accepted. To investigate what their identity politically signifies, a closer of analysis of their relationship to the outside world will help show how their role as the marginalized provides a case for a critique of “the center” seen in disabilities studies, slightly alluding to Post-Colonial studies as well. In this section, a closer analysis of the characters will attempt to show how Coetzee’s novels, as well as his characters, become representative of marginalized voices, as in the case of disabled bodies, which focus on criticizing the established order and questioning the role of truth in the way that disabilities studies does with the hegemony of an able-bodied society.
Referring back to Thomas, she writes,
My purpose here is to alter the terms and expand our understanding of the cultural construction of bodies and identity be reframing “disability” as another culture-bound physically justified difference to consider along with race, gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. (Thomas 5)
What this establishes when looking at Coetzee’s characters is a type of agency that allows the lens of disabilities studies to focus on their role against the outside world.
Looking back at Coetzee’s Foe, questioning what constitutes truth and the authority of books, or knowledge, has in the world becomes a large factor in Coetzee’s attempts to question the authority books knowledge have over people. In a discussion between Susan Barton and a character named Cruso, she suggests to him the importance of sharing his story with the rest of the world. He responds by saying, “the booksellers will hire a man to set your story to rights, and put a dash of colour too, here and there…their trade is in books, not in truth” (Foe, 40). This allusion to truth, more accurately targeting history books, challenges the role of the knowledge that is being passed down from reader to reader as well as calls into question what is the purpose of such books. When applying a disability studies lens to this, it suggests that this manipulation of truth, knowledge and information may be responsible for creating the hetero-normative hierarchy everyone subliminally follows. Watson essay takes this one step further when looking at the role of the colonizers and truth. He writes,
If colonialism, at its simplest, equals the conquest and subjugation of a territory by alien people, then the human relationship that is basic to it is likewise one of power and powerlessness: the relationship between master and servant, overlord and slave. It is this aspect of colonialism that receives the most extensive treatment in Ceotzee’s fiction. (Watson, 370)
The relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is subject to becoming one that makes the call of who is in power and who is not, wielding the authority of what must be for the sake of those in power. The able-bodied, the authors oh history and the colonizer all develop what is to be determined as how things will be in order to maintain to power distribution in order. It is why Coetzee writes the way he does; to subvert those power relations in order to directly show how people live the way they do.
When looking at the role of Michael K and how Coetzee challenges what is considered truth, his reading of marginalized people becomes essential as he looks at how those people have been placed in the world. This further explored Coetzee’s play in truth as it tries to bring voices of the unheard to light. He describes seeing the bodies of people as follows: “Now they have camps for children who run away, camps for people who kick and foam at the mouth, camps for people with big heads and people with little heads…Perhaps the truth is that it is enough to be out of the camps at the same time” (Life and Times, 182). The role of Michael K, when it comes to making claims about who is on the outskirts and who in at the center, is not that of the arbiter who makes decisions but of someone who can see those divisions as problematic or disenfranchising to people. He then decides to subvert this by choosing to refuse to be a part of any type of division. Watson, in his essay, also explores where meaning lies when it comes to be coming subjugated by labels. He writes, “If indeed there is a dominant moral impulse at work in Coetzee’s novels, it is to be found in the insatiable hunger of all his protagonists for ways of escape from a role which condemns them as subjects to confront others as objects in interminable, murderous act of self-division” (Watson, 378). Looking at this quote and applying to the role of Michael K, it suggests that Michael K, along with other characters, become avatars for challenging the authority of rules which thereby divides people based on arbitrary decisions. It is not just something that is a part of them, but, as Watson suggests, is a duty Coetzee assigns that makes characters like Michael K to question boundaries in his works.
When it comes to Paul and the interpretation of truth, it is not so much what he does with truth, but how, and from whom, he receives it and chooses to follow it. A character named Elizabeth Costello plays a significant role when it comes to him learning about what it means to make meaning of the world. He is assisted and directed by her to represent what is good poetry and how he can accomplish this goal. At the end of the novel, when Elizabeth Costello proposes to Paul to move in with her in order for her to take care of him, he suddenly refuses. Whether or not this was the best choice for Paul, what makes this act so significant is its potential to become a chance for Paul to rid himself of her control and rules. She stands in as not only the normate, someone for Paul to work with to highlight his difference, but also as a source of what is considered to be knowledge and someone to establish the set of rules to live by. His dismissal of her becomes Paul’s dismissal of the need to have a set of guidelines to live by in order to hopefully assimilate back into his status as a normative person. In Watson’s essay, he further reads into Coetzee’s characters and how they choose to be. He writes,
[…]It would seem to be part of the essence of their position that they often cannot decide in favor of one or other mode of being. If they choose contemplation, history will not cease to remind them of their irresponsibility or guilt. If they decide to act, to enter history, the world of being that they have necessarily left behind will continue to be present to them in the form of an inner hollowness. (Watson 385)
When applied to Paul, this passage tries to capture what Paul desires, which is to not be forced to make a decision, but to be able to openly question through opinion or action the role of truth and why he must abide by the conditions truth establishes. Paul did not choose to be in an accident, but with his state of being, he gains the opportunity to make whatever he wishes of it by having him decide what to do after leaving Elizabeth for however long it takes. For Coetzee, Paul becomes a character who finds solace in the absence of truth since his experience with the incident and with Elizabeth Costello are his to deal with, and it is up to him to grant those events as significant based on the assertions he makes.
When looking at how Coetzee challenges the conventions of truth, pairing it with disabilities studies seems so appropriate since they try to accomplish the same goal: to question the process of determining what is acceptable or not when it is practiced by the masses and challenging those notions with figures or representations of characters who are from the place where those deemed inappropriate among those who abide by the boundaries are made present and have their opinions heard. Friday becomes essential when looking at his role as the silent marginalized voice as well as a character of difference. However, Paul and Michael K insert their opinions about what it is to make meaning of their lives while not participating among those who see them as inferior. It is these types of interpretations that make Coetzee’s work not only worth reading, but beg to be analyzed and applied to the individual, proposing the questions that are rarely asked. In relation to these characters as disabilities studies, they are as important to study as representations of disabled bodies as they to challenge the normative type. When looking back at Thomas and her claim of where meaning resides from a post-modern perspective, that the truth is in the margins, and at Coetzee’s disabled bodies, it makes the margins the best place to situate meaning.
Works Cited
Coetzee, J.M. Dusklands. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1974.
—. Foe. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1986.
—. Life and Times of Michael K. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1983.
—. Slow Man. New York: Penguin Publishing, 2005.
Davis, Lennard J. “Who Put the ‘The’ in ‘the Novel’? Identity Politics and Disability in Novel Studies”. Duke University Press 31.3 (1998): n. pag. Web. 9 Dec 2011
Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Watson, Stephan. “Colonialism and the Novels of J.M. Coetzee”. Indiana University Press 17.3 (1986): n. pag. Web. 10 Dec 2011.
Slow Men: A Disabilities Studies Case for the Novels of J. M. Coetzee (first section)
I) Coetzee’s Representations of Disabled Bodies
When looking at Eugene Dawes from J.M. Coetzee’s Dusklands, a historian who spends his days behind a desk, it is very likely to come across his character and dismiss applying a disabilities studies read solely because he has no physical or psychological trait that suggests that he is disabled. That is precisely one of the strongest issues theorists of disabilities studies confront when it comes to characters as representations in literature and culture. Readers must go beyond the boundaries of the normal and abnormal bodies in order to read into characters in order to search for their role among the able-bodied and dis-abled. During the process of writing, Eugene suffers from the pressure of deadlines and perfection, becoming subject to the anxiety his body is producing. His description of the feeling reads, “The ropes of muscle that spread from the spine curl in suckers around my neck…If this inner face of mine, this vizor of muscle, had features, they would be the monstrous troglodyte features of a man who bunches his sleeping eyes and mouth” (Dusklands, 7). What is happening to Eugene is beyond an attitude of difference, but of how he perceives himself, connecting that feeling to his physical being. With his diminished state of exhaustion, it is then projected to the body, reflecting his attitude towards himself onto his physical appearance. This directly connects the physical with identity; his interpretation of himself begins internally, and manifests itself into an image he sees of himself. This is then further explored when looking at what he feels to be the driving force of his creative potential. He describes it, saying, “I need peace and live in order for my work. I need coddling. I am an egg that must lie in the downiest of nests…I brood, I am a thinker, a creative person, one not without value to the world” (Dusklands, 1). His connection to his physical self and his creativity has as much to do with the ability to produce work as it does with producing ideas, further engaging the read of Eugene through the lens of disabilities studies. The ability to produce work has become a staple to determining the able-bodiedness of a person, mainly due to the role of The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (See Thomas’ The Disabled Creature in Culture). It is claims that determine who is disabled and who is not that disabilities theorists, such as Rosemarie Garland Thomas and Lennard Davis, criticize when it comes to the discourse of disability studies.
The discourse goes beyond from what the body is, into what are the perceptions of the body. In his essay, Who Put the The in the Novel: Identity Politics and Disability in Novel Studies, Lennard Davis discusses how the best examination of the body and its politics has nothing to with appearance, but more to do with the construction of identity. He writes, “…disability is somewhat different from other identities and subjects them to a kind of scrutiny. Disability is an identity divorced from family, nation, ethnicity, or gender…In some sense, disability is more like class, which is constructed but is not biologically determined” (Davis, 321). This suggests that someone does not have to be born with a disability or have some type of physical impairment in order to be determined disabled, allowing an analysis of a character that is not disabled into the discourse of disability studies. Eugene is a very useful example because although he is not physically disabled, his plight is constructed by his environment, yet affects the corporal. Whether a character has a physical disability or not, the role of the body when analyzing a character becomes essential when discussing disabilities since it focuses on the able-ness of the body as well as its ability to perform work. In this section, the lens of disabilities studies will be applied to the characters of J.M. Coetzee, reading them as disabled bodies.
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When looking at the role of bodies of difference play in the texts of Coetzee, what it established quite quickly is the comparison of those bodies and others which are not considered different. In her book, Extraordinary Bodies, Rosemarie Garland Thomas writes,
Cultural dichotomies do their evaluative work: this body is inferior and that one is superior; this one is beautiful or perfect and that or grotesque or ugly. In this economy of physical difference, those bodies deemed inferior become spectacles of otherness while the unmarked are sheltered in the neutral space of abnormality. (Thomas 8)
One of the first actions this passage tries to accomplish is the significance of the body of difference when it is contrasted to one that is, according to Thomas, “normative”. The body of difference can only have its difference established if it has a body with no difference to compare itself with. While some of Coetzee’s characters have a characterization that involves the discovery of their role as someone who is different, Friday, from Coetzee’s Foe, becomes representative of bodies of difference due to his role as the marginalized as much as it does with his physical appearance. His physical description instantly makes him a disabled body by having Susan Barton playing the role of what Thomas calls the “normate” (Thomas 8). Thomas explains the process of determining who is disabled when people who are considered “normate” make that distinction. She writes,
This neologism names the veild subject position of cultural self, the figure outlined by the array of deviant others whose marked bodies shore up the normate’s boundaries…Normate, then, is constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them. (Thomas 8)
Friday, however his appearance may be, is subject to the prejudices Susan has for anyone that does not look like her. When she describes how she felt around him, it instantly becomes a play of power as it does with identity, saying, “…I had given to Friday’s life as little thought as I would have a dog’s or any other dumb beast’s” (Foe, 32). Thomas contributes to this argument with showing how the construction of disabled bodies has as much to do with identity as it does with the body and markers of difference. She writes, “…disability is a representation, a cultural interpretation of physical transformation or configuration, and a comparison of bodies that structures social relations and institutions” (Thomas 6). As soon as the difference of Friday is established by Susan, the power is presumably adopted by her since she sees herself as the normate in their relationship. This becomes more evident as she assumes the position of care-taker and educator for Friday. Friday, however, is more of a representative due to his inability to articulate his own thoughts and opinions, while donning characteristics of stereotypical representations of the exotic, colonized people. Thomas also explains how this is typical with disabled-bodied characters in fiction. She writes, “Disabled literary characters usually remain on the margins of fiction as uncomplicated figures or exotic aliens whose bodily configurations operate as spectacles, eliciting responses from other characters…” (Thomas 9). In order to further explore which of Coetzee’s characters present a perspective that suggests a disabilities studies read, the identity needs to be as valued as what makes the character different.
Two characters that offer an introspective examination into their motives as well as deal with the corporeal are Paul Rayment, from Slow Man, who loses most of his right leg after a car accident, and Michael K, from Life and Times of Michael K, who uses his body to express his rejection of the outside world. These two may have contrasting opinions and attitudes when it comes to themselves as Thomas’ read of disabled bodies, yet these two offer the most subtext when looking at the role of their marker of difference. The narrative of Paul Rayment is very dependent on his disability for many reasons. The very first action in the story is the incident where he gets hit by a car while riding his bicycle. While the story makes references to his past life, pre-incident, Coetzee gives us the life of Paul only after the incident. This type of construction communicates only the thoughts of Paul after the incident, rather having a character the reader can get to know and witness his tragic fall from able-bodied to disabled. With this structure, Coetzee is making the effort to only have a specific amount of information to the reader that is solely from Paul after the incident. This further suggests that the entire novel is attempting to prevent the motif of a cure narrative; the reader only knows Paul as a man who lost his leg, instead of a character who must become “whole” again. Michael K is also instantly marked as different, having been born with a cleft lip, but his story has a very bildungsroman feel, as the reader learns about Michael from his birth to his self-induced exile. The role of the body is not one like Paul, where there is a physical impairment that marks him as different, but becomes tied to his identity as he learns to utilize his body as a canvas for his feelings towards a changing world and the social conditions enforced by the colonizers. Being able to tie the identity of these characters to their disability becomes the first step when it comes to applying Thomas’s interpretation of the disabled body, since the focus is on how the characters are read as, as well as influenced or affected by, their marker of difference. Thomas’ further explores this concept as she explains why this examination of the identity is essential when enacting a disability studies read. She writes, “…the contemporary theory most suited to examining disability fuses identity politics with the poststructuralist interrogation of identity, truth and knowledge” (Thomas 30). A disability studies read of Coetzee’s characters must involve a type of understanding of identity, whether it is to introduce a perspective that challenges the institution of reality or to subvert the social conditions around them.
Paul Rayment is a character that could easily lend himself to disabilities studies when looking at what is the marker of difference signifying to those who can see it as well as to himself. As mentioned earlier, even the construction of the narrative becomes significant to the reading of Paul as a disabled character. Because of the fact that the incident is the very first act in the story, it is not possible to know Paul without the incident being absent of his identity. Therefore, the incident affects the constitution of his character as much as the incompleteness of his leg. Throughout the text, Paul is concerned with how he feels in accordance to the situation in front of him or his new circumstances, be it either specifically about him not having a leg or regarding the fact he is seen as someone who is disabled. The discussion of a prosthetic helps reveal the contrast between how people regard his disability and he himself does. When Madeline, his physiotherapist, suggests to Paul about getting a prosthetic leg, it helps better represent how people see his disability and how much it differs from what Paul thinks. As she is suggesting, she tells Paul, “There are people all around the street who you could not even tell they are wearing prostheses, it’s so natural the way the y walk” (Slow Man, 59). He responds by saying, “I don’t want to look natural…I prefer to feel natural”. What this signifies for Paul, as well as for how the Madeline, in this case, the “normate”, responds to his marker of difference. According to Madeline, it does not make sense for Paul to not have one since he obviously wants to regain his status as someone who was once not disabled. Paul see the situation much differently; even if he did not consider himself disabled, at this point of the text, he clearly does, what matter more to him is how he feels about himself. That matters much more than making everyone feel less uncomfortable when they see his physical form. Thomas explores Robert Murphy’s ethnography piece on the public receiving a disabled person, in this case, Murphy is the disabled body, called The Body Silent. In it, he explores the discomfort people have when coming across someone who is seen as physically different. Thomas assesses his findings, describing the type of emotions people have when they see disabled bodies by writing the following: “Like the poor, Murphy asserts, disabled people are made to signify what the rest of Americans they fear will become” (Thomas 41). This shows the significance behind appearance and how it is playing a more important role than just making the disabled body look more normal; the goal for the prosthetic and for Paul to look natural will help ease the discomfort others have regarding his disability, helping them feel more secure about their own physical self. Even if Paul wanted the prosthesis, it would ultimately not be for him, but for the rest of the world to feel better about themselves.
A lot of definition by negation happens in fiction when it comes to disabled bodies. The dichotomy of abled/disabled is highlighted by characters who contrast each other, specifically when it comes to the body and more so when their character is concerned. For Paul, his character has much more context when coupled by someone who is not only physically able, but can illustrate a character that has no inference of Paul’s new interpretation. Drago, son of Marijana, his house nurse, becomes that figure for Paul. Drago is not only simply someone that qualifies as normate, but is very likely a foil Coetzee introduces to further highlight Paul’s new state of being. Drago is, arguably, the representation of Paul before the incident, or, more so, who Paul was before the reader was introduced to Paul. Drago is young, drives a motorcycle, and is on the cusp of turning to a lifestyle of illicit behavior, and most of all, a physically astute individual; he’s a good-looking twenty-year-old male that has nothing preventing him from riding a motorcycle. Where Drago is young, willing and able, Paul is old, getting used to his new physical form, and disabled. The two also share a likeness through contrast in their vehicles; where Drago rides his motorcycle, hinting at his able-bodied masculinity, Paul was injured while riding a bicycle, suggesting a type of passivity in life. Paul even recognizes it as he talks to Marijana about him, saying “He is testing himself. You cannot stop young men from exploring their limits. They want to be the fastest. They want to be the strongest. They want to be admired” (Slow Man, 41). In this response about Drago, Paul alludes to his physical aptitude as well his willingness to explore, which is something he no longer possesses. This contrast of able-bodiedness is another issue addressed in disability studies, involving the determination of an able-bodied individual. Part of the celebration of able-bodied individuals (in mostly American representations) comes from the role of texts such as Emerson’s Self-Reliance. Thomas brings out the criticisms of his work from a disabilities perspective as well as his response to the criticism. She writes, “Scholars have noted that Emerson’s elaboration of liberal individualism as a neo-Platonic, disembodied form of masculinity depends upon his construction of and flight from a denigrated, oppositional femininity upon which he projects a fear…of dependence” (Thomas 42). What she begins to argue both highlights the binary Emerson sets up between the able-bodied and the disabled, while also showing how this read of people who are disabled quickly become deemed as inferior, marginalized, and excluded from the world Emerson envisions that qualify for it. This type of read of Emerson’s work shows the role of Paul in the discourse of disabilities studies; he becomes a representation of the marginalized, further becoming the voice of a people that needs to be heard in order to better understand what constitutes normalcy in literature.
While the marker of difference Paul has on his body can be considered a disability, Michael K, from Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K, becomes a play on the role of the body and identity as he utilizes his body in a way that better expresses how he feels about the outside world. The very first line establishes Michael as different, as in Slow Man, yet the utilization of it differs very much as the text uses a series of associations that make the marker go either as a positive or negative physical trait. Coetzee illustrates this as follows: “The first thing the midwife noticed about Michael K when she helped him out of his mother into the world was that he had a hare lip…To the mother, she said, ‘You should be happy, they bring good luck’” (Life and Times, 3). The hare, or cleft, lip becomes a signifier for positivity, suggesting that Michael looks different but is not seen as inferior. This does not last long, however, as Coetzee describes his mother’s reaction to it. He describes her emotions as follows: “She shivered to think of what had been growing in her all these months” (Life and Times, 3). Michael’s mother, with her reaction and sympathies, instantly labels Michael as a disabled body as she looks upon her son as not only disabled, but establishing a type of stigmatization on his person. This becomes the first incident where Michael K goes through a process of having his fate determined, although his identity has more to do with trying to circumvent the prophesized future as a disabled person. Because of the nature of the narrative, which attempts to capture almost the entire lifespan of Michael K, the novel as whole requires an examination as a text that is applied to disability studies. When looking at Davis’ essay, where this is most evident is when looking at the entire context of the novel. The plight of Michael is shared with that of what Davis suggests the novel must accomplish under the lens of disability studies. He writes, “The novel must be as effect of power in the same sense that identity is both the result of power and a resistance to it” (Davis, 324). Both Michael and the whole novel must try to accomplish the same goal, which is to establish themselves as admirable opponents to when it comes to power relations. They, Michael and the novel, according to Davis, are trying to communicate how they come to be in regards to and because of the people who receive them.
Like Paul, what helps establish Michael as a disabled body mostly is when he is compared to able-bodied individuals. When Michael takes shelter in a ditch under a damn, he watches the soldiers on the other side on stand-by, analyzing what their role as people are compared to himself. He describes the reading of the soldiers as follows: “The stories they tell will be different from the stories I heard in the camp, because the camp was for those left behind…whereas these young men have had adventures, victories, defeats, and escapes” (Life and Times, 109). This shows how Michael recognizes himself as one that is not in the center, as the marginalized. Also like Paul, he alludes to their able-bodiedness that grants them the ability to accomplish such physical feats of wartime. There is also, like in the case of Paul and Drago, a type of valuing when it comes to the enabled and the disabled. The stories, as Michael puts it, will most likely have more importance to the rest of history since they are the stories of soldiers, as able-bodied men, instead voices that have been subject to marginalization.
Further along the text, it starts a second book that is from the perspective of a doctor who is overlooking Michael. Upon examining Michael’s health, which at this point has been deteriorating, he gathers information from reading his body as well as listening to what Michael K has to say. After reviewing what he knows, he makes a claim, saying, “Perhaps I do indeed believe too many of his stories. Perhaps the truth is simply that he needs to eat less than other people” (Life and Times, 144). The role the doctor plays is one who follows the rules that are established among the healthy and the sick, or, more appropriately, the able and the disabled. What his interpretation suggests is where he places value when it comes to determining if someone is in need of assistance or not. This line suggests that, according to him, the body is what has more authority when it comes to assessing Michael’s health, oppose to what Michael says and how he feels. This suggests the role the body has when the physician, or anyone else making a judgment, makes a claim about health. Instead of conversing about symptoms with Michael, the patient, the doctor is granting authority over the individual. When looking at the significance of determining who is disabled or not according to a type of consensus, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) plays a significant role. Thomas further investigates the findings of this legislation and applies her vision of a disabilities read. She writes,
The notion of compensation that characterized disability policy before 1990 implies a norm, the departure from or loss of which requires restitution. Seen this way, disability is a loss to be compensated for, rather than difference to be accommodated. Disabiltiy becomes a personal flaw, and disabled people are the able-bodied gone wrong. (Thomas 49)
Like the doctor, the policies in place before ADA has more to do with making judgments based on how different the person claiming to be disabled is. What this suggests for Thomas is a method that puts a well-defined line between able ad disabled, and having everyone who is disabled receive some type of government assistance. This becomes a problem since, according her, it also suggests a personal flaw with the individual instead of the law accommodating their needs. What is essential to both the doctor and to legislation prior to ADA is placing the markers of difference as that which determines the identity of the individual.
Where Michael differs from Paul is in his ability to gain a resourcefulness of his body, seen in his attempts to practice gardening. While Paul practices writing poetry, there is a much more immediate connection to what Michael is doing to seek meaning and the body. Coetzee describes the feeling he has when looking upon what he has accomplished, describing it as follows: “All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating the food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to tend the soil” (Life and Times, 113). This shows a utilization of his body, transgressing the rules of what he should or should not be able to do due to his physical aptitude. With this kind of interpretation, instead of becoming un-disabled, he actually becomes one with it, making the most of himself with what his body has to offer. Unlike Paul, he is determined to have the construction of disability be stripped away from his personal identity.
When looking at how Coetzee places the context of his characters in relation to the outside world, such as with Michael and Paul, the goal is not to make claims regarding who is disabled and who is not, but to question the determinations used to make those claims. Like disabilities studies, Coetzee attempts to question the rules and regulations of the boundaries between the able-bodied and disabled, making the reader investigate the claims themselves as well as the characters that have chosen a side.
(For Works Cited, see “second section”
Agency and Disabled Bodies in Coetzee’s Slow Man
“Don’t take it personally, Margaret. You asked me a question, I am trying to give a truthful answer”
But Margaret does take it personally. “I’ll be on my way now”, she says. “Don’t get up, I’ll let myself out. Give me a call when you are ready to for human society again.
In this small instance, Paul Rayment, the protagonist of J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man, has the unique opportunity to regain his sexual prowess and prove to Margaret that he is still the man she made love to when they were lovers in his post-amputee chapter of his life. What this represents for Paul is twofold- it can represent for Paul the possibility of assuring himself that while he is considered “disabled”, his sexual potency are very much what they were before the accident, assuring himself that he is still very much his hetero-normative self, while also giving him the agency to not have to prove it to himself or to Margaret, who represents his sex-life before the accident while also being a member of the able-bodied population, making his decision-making process, as oppose to what others expect from him, define his fate and how he will live.
The story of Slow Man reveals its ideas through both the construction of the text as well as the plot. It makes so much sense for the story to begin with the accident that debilitates Paul, making him lose his right leg. The whole narrative is not about an able-bodied man who loses an element of himself that soon makes him dis-abled, then regains his status as able-bodied, but more about its opposite; it’s about man who has his own convictions, flawed as they may be, and live by them, even though the identity that was placed one him by others in regards to his appearance has now changed from able-bodied, to non-able bodied. This is most evident when we see Paul not only embrace his authority as a man who possesses a body, regardless of its condition, but demands to be heard. This act of making his voice heard represents an agency that he possesses and is making that he does not lose since it now that he, according to everyone, is not the man he once was.
A big issue in the disabled community is the significance and value of the prosthesis- a term known as “Super-crip” is used to signify someone who is disabled but has been placed or paired with a type of extension of the body that allows him/her to not only have something to compensate for what is lacking according to the able-bodied physiology, but also gives a type of ability that does more than make up for it. Several examples include the cochlear implant, prosthetic legs designed for track and field athletes, and bicycles with pedals designed to be operated by the arms. When Paul is presented with the opportunity to have a prosthetic leg, his response is “I would prefer to take care of myself”. This type of phrasing allows Coetzee to open up the possibility of Paul either wishing to reject the notion of becoming what the doctor’s what him to be or embracing the new politic of his body; whichever the case, it is Paul making the decision.
We also see how the relationships between Paul and female characters explore where his agency is present regarding him new form. The process when finding a day-nurse becomes demeaning as it is exhausting. It is Marijana who not condescending, not belittling, and especially not disrespectful. Also, When Elizabeth Costello, yes, that wonderful character Coetzee like to use again and again, offers Paul to come live with her. His decline is not out of spite, out of bitterness, or anything of the sort. It is out of Paul’s dedication to himself and his understanding of what it is to live, even if it means not having two legs, just like everyone else. His admission to Elizabeth when he says, “No…this is not love. This is something else. Something less” signifies Paul’s embrace of what is ahead of him as who he is, instead of being supported by someone who feels prepared to be his metaphorical nurse.
With the lens of disabilities studies, it is not about what Paul sees when instances of dependence are placed on him, but his perspective as someone who will live with the decisions he will make; whether or not he has his new condition in mind is not relevant, nor should we expect it, since it is Paul who will decide to live with those decisions. Instead of seeing Paul recover, he must rehabilitate his new body so he can live with it, rather than in spite of it.
A Conversation between J.M. Coetzee and I
(disclaimer: this is entirely fiction. I am in not any way connected to J.M. Coetzee nor have I ever met him. This is a completely made up instance about my introduction and encounter with his novel, Disgrace.)
Me: You know, John, I got to be honest. I read Elizabeth Costello, and, you know what? I really didn’t like it. It was just so bland and pedantic. I felt like I got to know who Elizabeth was, but there really wasn’t a type of storytelling going on. It just kinda seemed like I was reading words on a page. It didn’t really feel like I was reading a novel.
Him: I see, so you want things like prose, drama, rising action, and the like, right? Is that what you’re saying.
Me: Well…um…yeah.
Him: Okay. (reaches into his satchel, and hands me a copy of Disgrace) Here you go, and you’re welcome in advance.
The End
Elizabeth Costello and the Passage that Shook My Bones
The first boat leaves after breakfast. The approach to the landing is difficult, through thick beds of kelp and across shelving rock. In the end, one of the sailors has to half help her ashore, half carry her, as if she were an old woman. The sailor has blue eyes, blonde hair. Through his waterproofs she feels his youthful strength. In his arms she rides as safe as a baby. ‘Thank you!’ she says gratefully when he sets her down; but to him it is nothing, just a service he is paid dollars to do, no more personal than the service of a hospital nurse. (pg 55)
After reading this passage, with the context of the previous material, this passage made me stop reading. I was not confused, not driven to decipher this prose, nothing of the sort; it serves as a microcosm for human relations in post modern world.
Elizabeth Costello asks, not with grace, but while being stuck in a metaphorical subway of ideas, what is the role of reason in the 21st Century. The text challenges the status quo, its importance and why we have it in the first place, metanarratives, or stories that use as histories of the world in order to make sense of it, and the space that exists inside groups of people and towards others, such as between race, gender, and educational background. While this quote does not necessarily address these issues, what struck me was how, in such a short moment, two people can be introduced to each other in such an intimate way, learn about each other, than, as both readers and in the way characters do, the situation is dismissed without consideration of the situation. My question is this: What does this say about us?
As Coetzee addresses how literature and literary studies fit in our present time, mentioning canonical writers such as Kafka and Faulkner, there is also the question of where what those writers tried to represent in their time and its relevance today. What does literature look like in the 21st Century? Are ideals and values like chivalry and universal truths authors wrote about centuries ago really dead, or did we choose to do away from them. The situation between Elizabeth and the sailor presents an opportunity where values like compassion and goodwill can be present, but instead. it becomes a transaction instead of an act of kindness. Is that what post-modernity has brought us?
I think about this, and contrast it to Coetzee’s other works, like the ambivalence of Magda in In the Heart of the County, and the destructive environment that tries to empower Michael K. What kind of world is Coetzee trying to paint? If this is what he thinks is left of us?
In regards to nurses, nursing is one of the top ten careers where people are the happiest, according to the most recent Forbes list of The 10 Happiest Jobs in America. Does Coetzee think that nursing is also very much a career where people just do their job and is absent of any type of interpersonal value, and/or is it simply like any other job that people do solely to make a living? Donna Cardillo, a Registered Nurse (RN) and keynote speaker for nurses, coined the phrase, “Nurses are the heart of healthcare”. I remember trips to the doctor- nurses play a vital role when it comes to consoling a patient or trying to get them at ease. Is that non-existent?
A lot of this is based on how we., essentially, view ourselves and how we treat others. That’s really where change or signs of humanity exist in the first place. Of course there will be nurses who aren’t as good as others, but does that mean we must accept it for what the worst shows us? If there needs to be change, in a post-modern world, where it affects us the most is not in books, but in the way we treat each other, because, really that’s all we got. We live in a world of the “written word”, meaning summation and history has permeated in every opinion that exists; the new is simply a product of the referenced world. What we are left with are the simplest of human interactions. This, ultimately, leaves us with the ability to change how things operate through our daily actions.
Did I go off on a tangent? Maybe, but then again, in a postmodern world, pattern is solely a construct that we made; what we can effectively change lies with that thing that defines humanity.
Where is it? I don’t know yet, but, then again, I haven’t finished reading all of Coetzee’s novels either.
How We Apply J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals
“If you had wanted someone to come here and discriminate for you between mortal and immortal souls, or between rights and duties, you would have called in a philosopher, not a person whose sole claim to your attention is to have written stories about made up people”- from the “lecture” given by Elizabeth Costello
After reading J.M. Coetzee’s The Live of Animals, and while this opened up the very new, very budding, discipline known as Animal Studies, this line stood out to me the most as it addresses the value of poets and philosophers. What this soon led to was the discussion between the actual disciplines of philosophy and literature. Does one do a better job of either asking the right questions or giving the right answers? This really struck a chord since I myself have friends who are philosophy majors and have had hour-long debates regarding truth, life, etc., yet my background is certainly not as relative to dealing with moral dilemmas. Looking at Coetzee’s quote and how both writers and philosophers treat knowledge, I must ask- which discipline asks better questions or giver better answers?
Before anything else, anyone from either case can make a really good argument for their own side, and years of context will have to be at the start of each case, making me admit that I don’t think I’ll be able to answer this question within this post. (Anyone dare me too?)
I think about that question, and I think about Animal studies. What is it? Does answer philosophical questions? Is it presented and applied like literary theories? Which application is better suite for this concentration?
The works of criticism that follow the Coetzee text in my edition (Princeton University Press; edited by Amy Gutmann), include a literary theorist, Marjorie Garber, a philosopher, Peter Singer, a religious scholar, Wendy Doniger, and a primatologist, Barbara Smuts. Not only is philosophy and literary theory present, but also biology and religious studies are also present. The question is then raised- Which study can this theory be best applied to?
The text itself challenges and criticizes readers by discussing both how people make assessments and judgement calls on how animals are treated and if animals have a rationale. Questions regarding the role of reason in our lives and how/why the role is so vital in our decision making, from as early as Plato’s Republic, and still continue to be asked.
After thinking about this, I think about how the actual study can be applied to almost any type of discipline, supported properly, and that does have to be a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very popular, very post-modern, way of thinking- to allow the discussion to continue without end or determination. If that is the case, that suggests that anyone can both work on Animals studies, while also not be either a poet or a philosopher to begin with; there is a type of democratization happening here.
I do not know how to discuss this topic solely because there is so much that can be brought to the conversation, however, I am really looking forward to how Animal studies rattles the cages of academic studies and fiction. There’s not much left to say, except that I am looking forward to the next Animal studies work.
What is J.M. Coetzee like so far?
Hello Everyone, bloggers, readers, lovers of Coetzee,
It has been two months and five novels deep into studying author, thinker, and somewhat of a bad person, J.M. Coetzee and his works. What makes his work so unique lies in the treatment of language for both the prose he writes and the characters he comes up with. Language tells us so much people- how they live, what/who influenced them, and how they make sense of their surroundings. After so many novels, me and a few of my colleagues decided to share and jot down what we thought of his books (the ones we’ve read so far) collectively. Do we like them? What do they all have in common? How do they contrast? This is what I wrote- hope you enjoy
When looking at the first five texts, what stands out the most is how their narrative structure becomes less and less unconventional. Dusklands has an elaborate construction that captures a series or perspectives, moments, in history, and what Coetzee tries to invoke in us. In the next two, the structure relies more on plot and an individual at ends with him/herself. What this may suggest is a transition Coetzee himself is going through as a writer as he reexamines the relationship between the protagonist and the text’s thematic issues. A book like Waiting for the Barbarians is heavily invested with its characters, even though there is a strong sense of addressing political issues. It is also, however, set up in chapters and has a plot with a linear progression. It is very possible that Coetzee tries to engage in the avant garde then comes into the conventional way of storytelling, but a claim like this is too early to tell. Coetzee’s prose, however, is very much alive in this text. The use of long sentences, or on one specific moment while brushing over years worth of events is present in all five novels. Also, in a Faulknarian manner, there is a sense of being born or brought into an environment that is already a broken world, going beyond the scope of the novel having to be either a positive or negative read. Setting also plays a strong role, trying to communicate a type of tone for the text while also measuring the relationship between man and his environment. Coetzee’s representation of nature also has strong sense to civilization; is it the role of people to come into a new world and make meaning through their development, or should man respect the past and previous by concentrating on having their influence their environment the least amount as possible? Most of his novels also have a semi-appropriate use of the temporal, concentrating on events the second-half of the twentieth century, including Apartheid in South Africa and the Vietnaam war. This type of looking back serves almost as the opposite of nostalgia- is Coetzee doing that on purpose? Based on the readings of his texts, probably (sad-face).
My Day Through the Eyes of Magda
Hey Everyone, bloggers, readers, Coetzee lovers,
I partook in a small exercise that engaged me so much, I decided to share this with everyone through my blog. I was given a task to see the world through the eyes of one of Coetzee’s beloved characters and write out my day as if I was them.
Any In the Heart of the Country fans out there? I decided to write a passage as if I was Magda, the lonesome, heartbroken, at-times neurotic, but sweet in her own way, Magda, and reimagined my day. Hope you guys like it.
October 5th, 2011
Today was too wet. I walk outside and hear nothing except why the rain is so awful, It’s not so bad. The old leaves make some kind of collage. I don’t know, really- nobody cares enough to notice. As soon as I arrived to campus, it was like I woke up again, hearing nothing but complaints about the rain. Nobody did what they were supposed to do, including myself, making the rain the culprit for their actions. I sit in class and see lips moving, producing sound, but all I could hear is whether or not it will rain tomorrow. Their bitterness tries to spite me. I pick up my things and go, trying to leave this negativity. Wait a second- I can’t. My day isn’t over. The rain isn’t either. There is a warm bed waiting for me to crawl into, but not just yet. Maybe a biscuit can make my sorrow go away. Now even trying to eat becomes too laborious, since anything that is under shelter is taken. There’s an empty table, but I don’t like the look on the faces of the people next to it. I eat as I walk. I try to move beyond today, eating the rain. Tomorrow is another day. Hopefully, it won’t rain tomorrow.
There is a serious lack of emphasizing style and meaning, but, for Magda, that is how she sees the world. We desire rich prose and serious thinking; she is trying to get by in a world that barely makes sense. I am not saying we should all love Magda (I certainly don’t), but she has a voice, and she has every right to use it.
Sigmund Freud once said, “It is not sin to be neurotic”……..okay.
(No) Man is an Island: Reader Response to J.M. Coetzee’s “Foe”
I am on your island, Mr. Cruso, not by choice, but by ill luck…I am a castaway, not a prisoner. – from Susan, to Cruso, in Foe
“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”
-from John Donne’s No Man is an Island
From my first impression of this text, both the theme from Donne’s poem and the constant theme seen in castaway novels (novels that deal with the thematic elements of castaway stories) that deals with survival and introspective questions that one would hypothetically ask if one was a castaway on an island.
The question when reading Foe poses is this: How is this different from most castaway novels?
The book situates Susan Barton onto an island that is cohabited by Cruso, a man who has spent years shipwrecked onto this island, a mute man that is his servant named Friday, and a cast of animals that pose a threat, including apes and wild birds. She is than rescued, and confronts “Foe”, the man she has been writing to the whole time. Other significant events include her rescue, the death of Crusoe, meeting another Susan Barton, who presents herself as her daughter.
How this stands is not in its content, however, but in the questions it asks. A book like Robinson Crusoe and other books are being composed as the reader gets to know the characters and their preceding events. Foe has some type of consciousness that the events will be, in turn, turned into a story. As this happens, the question of truth and what books do with truth come into question. When Susan asks Crusoe about the importance of writing, and she goes over why writing is important, saying, “All shipwrecks become the same shipwreck, all castaways the same castaway”, there is an emphasis on why their story needs to be different. Instead of writing their story for what it is, she is trying to play up their experience. This is put into a context that examines why it is important to be different in terms of marketing, possibly capitalizing, when the ship-master that rescues Susan tells her about why her story is important. He says, after mentioning how the story of a female castaway would be a rare opportunity to write about, “their trade is in books, not in truth.” What this suggests is, for the reader, how “true” the story is is not as significant as the story itself. If that is the case the book presents, why read castaway stories in the first place, since the reader can never possibly what happened, since the process of writing that story cannot be documented, which, therefore, cannot be printed as a true story.
Do we, then, read for pleasure or to learn about our history? If we read for pleasure, what is the point of telling the truth if the truth may not sell? Why should we learn about our history, if they are essentially stories weaved together with some facts and barely credible sources, only to be littered with text that is prose at its center? Why read Coetzee?
This is the same question the castaway asks himself/herself- What is my role on this island if it is very possible that I will die here, never to be heard of again?
The text itself puts the reader on a metaphorical island, making them decide if this story is worth reading, since there have been so many like it. Also, if the reader can predict what will happen, is it worth this story since it will turn out like the rest?
Because, the story have happened once, or something like it, to someone they may know. Because this story was written by a person who may plagued with the same questions about living and survival the reader may have. Because any representation of people living and interacting is no different that the interactions people in one way or another.
Because we do not read to know the truth- we read to learn more about ourselves.
Postmodern guilt
“‘It would be best if this obscure chapter in the history of the world were terminated at once, if these ugly people were obliterated from the face of the earth and we swore to make a new start, to run an empire in which there would be no mor injustice, no more pain”- from J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians
I want to concentrate specifically on this passage for many reasons. The subject of this passage is a colonel who is in the process of torturing other groups of people known as “barbarians”. This quote speaks to me, not because I believe in it, but because it is a byproduct of what happens to the human condition after subjecting innocent people to a treatment that is not only undeserved, but also inhumane. Where do you draw the line with torture? In our post-9/11 world, the world torture has changed, developed, progressed, or whatever have you, in a way that questions both those who implement it and those who are treated with it. This passage is trying to seek reparations for the treatment he has caused to these people, who represent humanity in its entirety, so he can feel better about himself. This notion strikes me as post-modern in the way that the Vietnaam war has been considered post-modern- how are we expected to believe and support the system when it is working against us, or, in a broader sense, in a way that cannot be trusted. As this quote serves the colonel help him feel warm and cozy, what is left out is why he is seeking this and for whom will his new world be for. Within this context, there is also an attempt to connect with the people who were afflicted by his actions. The question we must pose, since we live in a time when our authoritative figures have come to represent private interests, is who is he doing it for and for what purpose?
“I look into an eye. Am I to believe that gazing back at me she sees nothing-my feet perhaps, part of the room, a hazy circle of light, but at the centre, where I am, only a blur, a blank?” (same character, while trying to care for another one who has been alienated by his superiors).
When he looks to her, he tries so desperately to see himself. how can he see himself when the eye looking back at him has been broken by him?
THIS BLOG IS FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE STUDIES OF J.M. COETZEE AND WHO ARE WILLING TO BROADEN THEIR HORIZONS ONLY
That has always seemed to me one of the stranger aspects of literary fame: you prove your competence as a writer and an inventor of stories, and then people clamour for you to make speeches and tell them what you think about the world.
J. M. Coetzee
This quote is but a sample of what Coetzee’s work reflects- brutal honesty, unapologetic opinions, and a sense of identity that is concerned with anything but itself. His texts have been called inspirational, controversial, Faulknerian- all kinds of praise. Starting today, this blog will begin a project that will gain more understanding of what Coetzee is about through entries based on readings on his texts, along with multimedia found that can help shape our understanding on his work as well.
The picture in the header is a clip of a sunrise of the coast of South Africa- this picture is two-fold as it first offers a glimpse into the beauty of South Africa, the kind of natural aesthetics of its sunsets, mountainsides, and beaches; at the same time, there is binary opposition of light and darkness between the sky and the mountain, signifying the ugly truth of apartheid. The country itself has become a hyper-segregated community, with roots of racism that may be impossible to eradicate. Coetzee’s work reflects how this issue has begun to define South Africa, as well as the plight of South Africans that must deal with it. For some, it’s a social plague; for others, it works.
For the next few weeks, this blog will be open to anyone that wants to engage in the discourse of J.M. Coetzee and his work. Feel free to share an opinion or ask a question. The main purpose of this blog is to raise the understanding of Coetzee and his work- it does not make sense to not allow questions.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot…….
Coetzee/Rubalcava 