Colonial Diaspora And Identity Pursuit On J.M. Coetzee’s Autobiographical Trilogy

J.M.Coetzee,the white South African writer,has won the Nobel Prize in Literature,the Booker Prize and many other important international awards.He has published many novels such as The Life and Times of Michael K.and Disgrace,which are well-known in the contemporary literary world.His works have also been gradually translated and studied in China since he won the Nobel Prize in 2003.Coetzee’s works reflect his thoughts on reality,history,culture,philosophy and many other aspects.His multiple mixed identities and cultural backgrounds,as well as his novels filled with multiple postmodern factors,provide researchers with rich and abundant research space.With the publication of his autobiographical trilogy--Boyhood,Youth and Summertime,Coetzee’s own idea of autobiography has been continuously discussed by researchers.This thesis focuses Coetzee’s autobiographical trilogy based on Coetzee’s colonial diaspora experience and explains the marginality of the colonial diaspora in his autobiographical writing and the pursuit of his identity.This thesis is divided into six parts.The introduction briefly introduces Coetzee and his works,and then combs and analyzes the research of Coetzee at home and abroad by using the method of Cite Space and documentary sorting.Then this thesis discusses the definition of autobiography by Phillipe Lejeune and compares it with the concept of “autre-biography”composed by Coetzee,which was proposed under the influence of postmodern historicism,so as to better understand and analyze the concept of “autre-biography”.Meanwhile,the definition and characteristics of colonial diaspora are briefly discussed to enrich the theoretical framework of the paper.Finally,the academic significance and practical significance of this paper are explained.The first chapter analyzes Coetzee’s childhood identity confusion and dilemma.By sorting out the migration history of Coetzee’s ancestral family and the general situation of its family members,we can understand the development process of Coetzee’s family and trace back the historical origin of Coetzee’s identity issue.The novel Boyhood revealed that John was confused about his own identity and grew up in a situation of self-identity marginalization due to the influence of family,school education and social environment during his childhood.In the face of identity conflict,the young John once chose to compromise or even betray,but he could not get rid of the fate of marginalization.John grew up confused about her identity in a society where power was defined by race and color.The second chapter analyzes the dual contradictory identity of the colonial diaspora at the center of the empire.South Africa and London,where Coetzee grew up and longed to find his roots separately,did not bring any sense of belonging to Coetzee.In the heart of London’s empire,he could only feel the western culture shock and the hypocrisy of imperialism in Youth.Being a marginal person in London was the result of his difficulties in the collision and fusion between the Western colonial culture and the local culture of South Africa.The third chapter analyzes Coetzee’s writing and reflection on identity after his return from colonial diaspora.Summertime consists of five interview segments about the life of the great writer Coetzee,who returned after searching for identity in the colonial empire,was ambivalent about the uncertainty of identity and homeland.Faced with the identity dilemma of diaspora,as a diasporic writer,his third-person writing and multiple narrative techniques construct the identity of the Other,which further outlined Coetzee’s writing of marginal identity and the discourse power of marginal people in the diasporic process.The fourth chapter explores the relationship between diasporic individual and the nation.National identity is an important part of diaspora theory.Combining the autobiographical trilogy and Coetzee’s essay on Eliot speech,this chapter analyzes Coetzee’s reflection on the identity of colonial diaspora by defining nationality.Meanwhile,the conduction as “the other” makes Coetzee objectively criticize South Africa’s politics and cultural civilization.Coetzee’s immigration and diaspora experience gradually formed his dual cultural identity.The influence and impact of imperial culture and the subtle influence of South African culture both endowed Coetzee with in-depth thinking on the “Other” and the marginal identity in the diaspora and formed his eclectic writing style and the perspective of bystander observation.The study of Coetzee’s autobiographical trilogy from the perspective of diaspora fills the gap of current research on Coetzee’s identity to a certain extent.At the same time,the authenticity of autobiography can better provide a reference for the identity construction and identification of exiles in the era of globalization.