Representation Of Alterity And Reformation Of Ethos: A Study On The Major Novels Of J.M. Coetzee

"Alterity"is a significant concept established by the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas, which mainly concerns individuals'reflections on the relationship between self and the Other. One of the most striking features of traditional ontological thinking lies in its persistent pursuit of"the Same". Individuals usually attempt to find out certain universal theory to explain and perfect the world they live; they want to transcend the historical legacy and accomplish eternity. To achieve unification, individuals are supposed to go beyond mundane experience and attain the transcendental."The Same"is usually taken as the fundamental framework to understand and change the world; it is believed that the universal theory is necessarily built up upon this framework. While as a matter of fact, the real world is not constructed in this idealistic way; it is often preoccupied with countless differences and irregularities. On the one hand,"the Same"does bring the advantages like unification and progress; however, from another angle it also arouses essential limitations and confinements. To look at the world in terms of"alterity"can offer people brand-new perspective to understand both the world and themselves.In this dissertation, the major novels of 2003 Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee are studied in terms of the philosophical theory of Emmanuel Lévinas in which ethics is put before ontology. Given the radical skepticism of the poststructuralist agenda, can we still conceive of ethics in the traditional forms of transcendence, universality and humanism? Lévinas totally abandons Western rational tradition and deems that ethics essentially is supposed to come from the Other. Lévinas's ethics is concerned primarily with respecting and being responsible for the alterity of the Other. Another way of putting it is that the Other's material need is my first spiritual demand– there is no system or methodology which would allow the Other to be reduced to"the Same".Reading Coetzee in terms of Lévinas's typical concepts like the saying, the said, middle voice and fecundity etc., the author of this dissertation intends to highlights the alterity of the Other as an indispensable means of ethos reformatting process. The literary works studied in this dissertation are all Coetzee's representative novels, including Disgrace, Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, The Lives of Animals, Slow Man, and Foe etc.. These novels are usually read from the perspectives of poststructuralist skepticism. In carrying through the"ethical readings"of these novels, this dissertation inquires what conception of ethics could persist in the context where supposedly little or nothing can be affirmed. It is argued that, in spite of their disparate skeptical poststructuralist stances, each of these works affirms a minimal conception of ethics founded on the traditional conceptions of metaphysical transcendence, subjectivity and humanism. The predominant poststructuralist orientation in these works does not eliminate the radical ethical significance; it does bring about a reformatting of them so that they could recast in more self-critical forms. For instance, the poststructuralist critique of humanism in Coetzee's works does not lead to an extreme anti-humanist stance but affirms the pursuit of a more self-examining, self-critical ethos. The common goal of various"ethical readings"in this dissertation is unified by seeking a conception of ethics that values the tenets of poststructuralism yet simultaneously still attemps, in one way or another, to depart from them. Coetzee's novels are not just superficial delineations of the images the Other; Coetzee always tries to return the Other's own voice to itself, so that the alterity of the Other could be regained– he casts his eyesight towards the sensitive marginal area, providing the reader with all kinds of possibilities to break up confinement and regain subjectivity. This dissertation consists of five chapters between the introduction and the conclusion.The introduction provides a general review of the commentaries of J. M. Coetzee and his novels both in China and around the world, analyzing his controversial position and pointing out that people's criticisms of Coetzee are closely related to his representing alterity of the Other in his literary creations. Meanwhile, it also traces the evolution and implications of the concept alterity in light of Lévinas, establishing the basic theoretical framework of this study. Coetzee self-consciously prioritizes the text's relation to the alterity beyond history and consistently follows the principle that literature should be grounded in representing alterity that is radically exterior to the world of subjective possibility and actions.Chapter One primarily enquiries what conception of ethics is possible in the prevailing poststructuralist paradigm where everything is put into question. Coetzee's opus is strikingly characterized by its poststructural propensity; in this sense can we find any ethical significance in his works? It is argued that the skeptical nature of poststructuralism itself could give rise to certain persistence of ethics; in the novels of Coetzee, it is further possible to formulate conceptions of ethics which go against or beyond poststructuralist skepticism. Therefore, the ethical readings of Coetzee's text would enable the reader to find out his persistent lingering of traditional ideas like the concepts of metaphysical transcendence, of subjectivity, and of humanism. It is also pointed out that these ethical readings offer no unified conception except for their consistent adherence of respecting the alterity of the Other. In Coetzee's work, an overlapping land can be found between the skeptical poststructural philosophical theory and orthodox ontological conventions.Chapter Two analyzes the reason of choosing"ethos"as the study orientation of this dissertation."Ethos"is a broadened sense of ethical implications; the comprehensive exploration of the ethical significance presupposes a radical foundation in something utterly beyond itself– something that transcends the collective"text"of all human interactions and discourses, something founded on remaining the differences and retaining the alterity instead of consistently seeking for the Same. The ethical concern in light of Lévinas mainly concentrates on the care as well as respect towards the Other. Many representative characters of the Other appear in the major novels of Coetzee, usually as members of a subordinate group perceived from the standpoint of a predominant"first-world"culture. As a responsible public intellectual, Coetzee sets himself the ethical task of revealing the resistance of these characters to the discourse of the ruling culture and simultaneously finding a means to represent the claims they made upon the culture they live in. Coetzee himself has also entered the long-running and expansive debate about the ethics of intellectualism like authenticity of writing and the authority of the writer etc.. By providing us hermeneutic possibilities, Coetzee protects his texts from being presupposed or confined by one unified singular interpretation. Coetzee consistently refuses any kind of categorization and identification; his novel always insists on the possibilities of exposing a false history and exhibiting an alternative story. As a result of the reconsiderations of the interpretative process, Coetzee leads his reader towards a more responsible, ethical, and finally authentic way of reading. Coetzee firmly holds that a more accurate human history would transcend the"authentic"historical reality and the will to power; the outcast voices as well as ineffable images ought not to be excluded. The public intellectual is supposed to illuminate the historical legacies of centuries of contests and demonstrate the need for change.Through detailed reading of Coetzee's typical novels Waiting for the Barbarians, Disgrace and The Lives of Animals, Chapter Three intends to represent the alterity of the Other in its different forms. By highlighting alienated"the Other"in dichotomies like female / male, animal / human and colored / white etc., Coetzee invites the reader to experience the alterity of the Other that can never be domesticated. A series of narrative strategies have been adopted, including the performance of narrative displacement and alienation effect, the reinterpretation of traditional notions of allegory etc.. Through the representation of alterity, Coetzee declares that the process of breaking conventional dichotomies is just the process of breaking the"essential core"of the ontological tradition, also the process of regaining subjectivity for the Other. The marginalized identities, who appeared in Coetzee's works in forms of female, the colored or even non-human animals, always try to regain their subjectivity in their own ways. By representing their alterity, Coetzee tries to break the boundaries of stereotyped paradigm and retrieve the concept of sympathetic imagination to think across the lines of gender, race, and species. What Coetzee remains in doubt, is whether individual's ethical awakening will do much to change the world, especially when it leaves the individual so marginalized.Chapter Four explores Coetzee's consistent"autonomous"writing engagement concerning the problem of border. Through detailed analysis of Slow Man, it is pointed out that Coetzee always chooses to do the"autonomous writing"which opens the inexhaustible hermeneutic possibilities rather than"committed writing"being merely didactic. Dichotomies or boundaries always prescribe difference which separate one entity from another with the certainty of conviction; and the process of unsettling the certainty makes for the constructedness of these divisions– it produces ambivalence, a"neither yes nor no", a"both / and"instead of an"either / or". Negating authority, dissolving absolutism and coexisting with the Other are the striking features of Coetzee's works– Coetzee opens his works to the reader to cross all kinds of conventional borders and boundaries. Furthermore, Coetzee subversively topples down the borders and boundaries which can be taken as a proceeding process of a trope: by actively engaging with the productive instability of the imagined borders of text and reader, Coetzee successfully questions the discourses of certainty that set up material and imperial borders. Through analyzing Slow Man, this chapter tries to explore Coetzee's writing techniques in applying postcolonial metaphorical border theories in the novel creation. In Slow Man, the borderlines between the real and the fictive, the reader and the writer, are often blurred. It is pointed out that the process of crossing the border is the process of breaking dichotomy and facing weakness of our ego.Chapter Five, drawing on Emmanuel Lévinas's existentialistic ethical theory, highlights that Coetzee is a marvelous author who maintains a sense of ethics as absolute, transcendent and universal within the poststructuralist context. The previous detailed readings of Coetzee intend to share a similar orientation with the philosophy of Lévinas. Even as Lévinas's ethical philosophy privileges a conception of alterity that is beyond all manners of subjective apprehension, it continues to imply a strong conception of subjectivity, of which we frequently find resonances in Coetzee's opus. According to the philosophical medications of Levinas, the disinterested"for-the-Other"implicates the responsibility for the Other. The responsibility Levinas calls for usually occurs in the sense of inter-subjectivity, mainly concentrating on the unattainable quality of the individual towards"the Same". Therefore, Levinas's responsibility is supposed to be the ethical responsibility, which is prior to all kinds of social regulations. This is exactly what Coetzee tries to convey through his works: the individuals are supposed to live under the guidance of ethical responsibilities; we should not only restrict ourselves ethically but also be responsibly for the Other.The Concluding Remark briefly summarizes the route of representing alterity and the process of reformatting ethos in the process of analyzing Coetzee's major novels. On a theoretical level, the writing stance of this dissertation is manifested by a vivid discussion of ethical alterity in terms of Lévinas's speculation. It is argued that Coetzee's work and Lévinas's theory have similar bearings in the interest on ethics which has challenged the very foundations and roots of ontological thinking. By taking into account of the radical skepticism, Coetzee still contends the tenability of traditional concepts like humanism and predominant values like equality and justice. It is pointed out that the determinism of traditional rational totality runs the risk of totalitarianism and that rational justice is usually compromised when it encounters with the alterity of Other. Between purely rational justice and injustice, there is an appeal to the"wisdom"of the individual. Coetzee has no intention to build up a set of ethical standard to regulate the people; he only attempts to investigate the essence of individual's ethical behaviors. He is eager for a harmonious society with no oppression on the alterity. Therefore, Coetzee's writing ecstatically deprives his characters of controlling subjectivity– consistently spoken and still speaks of impartial justice and caring affections.