A Study On The Truth Of Self In Coetzee’s Autobiography

As an South African-Australian writer who has won the Nobel Prize in Literature,the Booker Prize,the Jerusalem Prize and other important international awards,J.M Coetzee has became one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated author in the English language.His more recent work has pushed outward the boundaries of fiction,blurring the line between author and characters with a proliferation of semiautobiographical "fictioneering",which arouse a lot of controversy about the genre of these books.However,most autobiography researchers were constrained by the authenticity requirements of autobiography,and could only continuously demonstrate from multiple perspectives that fictionality is employed in the service of truth,which has obscured the uniqueness of Coetzee’s literary creation.This papaer attempts to focus on the four autobiographies of Boyhood,Youth,Summertime and A Dairy of a Bad Year,which basically cover most of Coetzee’s life,to explore the truth of the self in Coetzee’s autobiography.This thesis contains three chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion as follow:The first chapter starts from the astonishing event of Coetzee’s autobiography,and uses event theory to expound the uncertainty of the truth of the self in Coetzee’s autobiography.What makes Coetzee’s autobiography an event is that it points to a fact that autobiographers refuse to admit:autobiography cannot determine the truth of the self.First of all,autobiography cannot speak of a complete self.The self in Coetzee’s autobiography is in endless movement of divisions.These divided selves are incompatible with each other and cannot be unified under a more authentic self.We also lack evidence that a certain self is superior to the other,and no matter how much one speaks of oneself,there is always a part of the "remnant" of the self that cannot be represented.Secondly,autobiography is not a transparent tool for expressing the truth of the self.Coetzee and the reference of the self are also divided.The transcendental self that the traditional autobiography theory assumes does not exist.The second chapter explain Coetzee’s way of speaking the truth of the self on the basis of the uncertainty of the truth of the self.Coetzee’s self is constantly divided because of the existence of the other in the self.Coetzee found a way to speak the truth of the self from the division of the self,that is,to speak the other of the self.However,there is an internal contradiction between the other and speech.Language will inevitably cover up the other,in other words,the other is originally covered.Therefore,Coetzee resets the rules and ways of telling the self,and he takes two methods to speak the truth of self in his autobiography:He took two circuitous paths in his autobiography:First,creating in repetition to speak the Other.Second,speaking of the Other between giving away and gaining the authority of the autobiographer.The third chapter analyzes the deep reason why Coetzee speaks the unspeakable self in such a tortuous and circuitous way,which is to take responsibility for the truth of the self.Although Coetzee knows that the truth he speaks is not an absolute truth,it is an irreplaceable truth that belongs to him alone.Only by taking responsibility for the truth at the cost of"blindness" can we open up the possibility of expressing ourselves and gain independence.Coetzee’s autobiography assumes responsibility in two ways,one is self-sacrifice in the tortuous crab journey,and the other is self-repentance in the process of eternal waiting.The conclusion is a summary of the full text.This thesis begins with the uncertainty of the self-truth in Coetzee’s autobiography,then points out the way in which Coetzee’s autobiography speaks of the self under the circumstance of the uncertainty of the truth of the self,and finally shows the deep reason why Coetzee speaks of the self in the way of speaking of the other,and concludes Point out that Coetzee established a unique self through this autobiographical action.