Spiritual and material dimensions of home in J. M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron
Kinga Jęczmińska
Jagiellonian University in Kraków, PolandKinga Jęczmińska received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Warsaw and a PhD in Medicine from the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow. She is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at the Jagiellonian University, focusing on the presentation of the mind-body relation in fiction by Samuel Beckett, J. M. Coetzee and Ian McEwan. She is interested in the 19th–21st century English novel, history of medicine, philosophy of mind, cognitive science and psychiatry.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6975-9002
Аннотация
The aim of the article is to analyse the living conditions presented in J. M. Coetzee’s novel Age of Iron with reference to differences between the white and black communities of Cape Town in South Africa. It argues that differences in the conditions of living related to social and racial divisions are also reflected in the visions of the afterlife. The protagonist of the novel, Mrs Curren, portrays white people as living in comfort and dying in old age due to natural causes. The moment of their death constitutes a transition from earthly life to spiritual or incorporeal existence. In contrast, black people die young in apartheid fights. The dismal portrayal of the destruction of black people’s housing corresponds to Mrs Curren’s naturalistic descriptions of the dead bodies of young black activists. Their death does not involve a transformation into a spirit that has shed its body; death offers no relief, since their bodies and souls remain in “African hell”.
Ключевые слова:
J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron, home, house, spirituality, materialism, naturalismБиблиографические ссылки
Attridge, D. 2004. J. M Coetzee and the Ethics of Reading. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.
Belgacem, O. 2021. The Body, Desire and Storytelling in Novels by J. M. Coetzee. New York (NY): Routledge.
Bimberg, C. 2005/2006. Perversions and reversals of childhood and old age in J. M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron. Connotations 15(1-3): 58–90.
Clarkson, C. 2009. J. M. Coetzee: Countervoices. Basingstoke/New York (NY): Palgrave Macmillan.
Coetzee, J. M. 1990. Age of Iron. London: Secker & Warburg.
Coetzee, J. M. & Attwell, D. (eds.). 1992. Doubling the Point. Essays and Interviews. Cambridge (MA)/London: Harvard University Press.
Dooley, G. 2016. “Hades this place, and I a fugitive shade”: classical cultures and languages in J. M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron. English in Africa 43(1): 101-108.
Gugelberger, G. M. 1995. “Heralding” the new “Age of Iron”: J. M. Coetzee, homelessness, migrancy, and nomadology. Christianity and Literature 45(1), Special Issue: Third World Literature, Postcolonial Studies, and Christianity (Autumn 1995): 129-136.
Hayes, P. 2012. J. M. Coetzee and the Novel: Writing and Politics After Beckett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hoegberg, D. 1998. “Where is hope?”: Coetzee’s rewriting of Dante in Age of Iron. English in Africa 25(1): 27-42.
Minford, T. (ed.). 2018. Fodor’s Essential South Africa: with the Best Safari Destinations. New York (NY): Fodor’s Travel.
Tegla, E. 2012. Age of Iron: The collective dimension of shame and of responsibility. Journal of Southern African Studies 38(4): 967-980.
Uhlmann, A. 2020. J. M. Coetzee. Truth, Meaning, Fiction. New York (NY)/London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Vice, S. 2010. Truth and love together at last. Style, form, and moral vision in Age of Iron. In: A. Leist & P. Singer (eds.), J. M. Coetzee and Ethics. Philosophical Perspectives on Literature, 293-315. New York (NY)/Chichester: Columbia University Press.
Wilm, J. 2017. The Slow Philosophy of J. M. Coetzee. London/New York (NY): Bloomsbury.
Woessner, M. 2017. Beyond realism. Coetzee’s post-secular imagination. In: P. Hayes & J. Wilm (eds.), Beyond the Ancient Quarrel. Literature, Philosophy, and J.M. Coetzee, 143-159. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Worthington, K. L. 2011. Age of Iron (1990). In: T. Mehigan (ed.), A Companion to the Works of J. M. Coetzee, 113-131. Rochester (NY): Camden House.
Zimbler, J. 2015. J. M. Coetzee and the Politics of Style. New York (NY): Cambridge University Press.
Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
Kinga Jęczmińska received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Warsaw and a PhD in Medicine from the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow. She is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at the Jagiellonian University, focusing on the presentation of the mind-body relation in fiction by Samuel Beckett, J. M. Coetzee and Ian McEwan. She is interested in the 19th–21st century English novel, history of medicine, philosophy of mind, cognitive science and psychiatry.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6975-9002
