In the Heart of the Country: A Deconstructive and Postmodern Analysis of J.M Coetzee’s Novel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70670/sra.v4i2.2324Keywords:
Deconstruction, ‘Play’, Centre, Structuralism, Colonialism, PostmodernismAbstract
This study explores Coetzee’s portrayal of the colonial mindset that unmasks the hidden internal representations which were used as a pretext to colonize Africa. All Western thought is organized and founded on the idea of a centre – an Orgin, a Truth, an Ideal Form, a Fixed Point, an Essence, a Presence – that serves as a guarantee of all meaning. Coetzee’s characters as European colonizers judge the African people and their culture through the norm of European civilization. For them Western culture and civilization are the standard norms and they see anything different as an aberration that they deride as something lacking in originality and authenticity. They betray the mindset of a structuralist who in Derrida’s opinion focus on the ‘autonomy and idiosyncratic balance’ of the colonial system that the European colonizers have imposed on the cultural mosaic of South Africa. They think they are civilized and the African people are savages who live a life of debauchery; they consider themselves to be the descendants of a civilized European race but consider Africans to be living in a state of nature that has seen no evolution towards culture. However, the deconstructive analysis of the novel reveals that the European colonizers are more brutal and savage than the African natives.
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