Factual Fiction And Fictional Factuality-Self And Truth In Coetzee’s Novels

The thesis aims to examine the whole of Coetzee’s oeuvre with emphasis on its query on the novel as a traditionally fictional form in aspects of language,narrative and style,and thereafter probes into the coexistence of fabrication and factuality as well as the question of whether and how truth of the self could be told in novels.As a scholar novelist familiar with modernist and post-modernist theories,Coetzee’s conception of novel writing is reflected in his literary criticism.His investigation in nonfictional writing of language,narrative style,as well as the self and truth in confessional writing is the foundation of his fictional writing.Although the questions discussed in his literary critique are complex,whether and how truth could be told through language is one of the central issues.Coetzee’s thinking about language and truth as well as factuality and fiction are in accordance with his concerns in fictional writing.By investigating Coetzee’s breakthrough of restrictions of rational language,and the narrative features of his novels,the thesis therefore focuses on analysis of how Coetzee’s writing pushes the limits of language in order to manifest factuality and fabrication in the textual world.Through detailed reading of his fifteen novels up to now the thesis also analyzes Coetzee’s endeavors in revealing complication and uncertainty of self and truth captured by language and text.The novel as a literary form that mixes fabrication with factuality poses rivalry against historic discourses,according to Coetzee.The textual world of Coetzee’s novels is therefore permeated with poetic imagination and freedom like the limbo between Heaven and Hell which implies human salvation.His pursuit of poetic salvation in fictional writing serves as Ariadne’s thread because such quixotic imagination in literature gives us strength and power against the dark reality.