The Silent Others: The Others In Waiting For The Barbarians And Disgrace

John Maxwell Coetzee, the owner of Nobel Literature Prize in2003, is a very famouswhite novelist in South Africa. Because of his particular growing background and many yearsof studying in aboard, Coetzee has a more deep understanding about the binary oppositionrelationship between the black and the white, self and others. Waiting for the barbarians andDisgrace are the most two representative works of Coetzee, and the former firstly brings himthe worldwide reputation while the latter wins him the Nobel Literature Prize which solidifieshis unshakable position in world literary arena. These two allegorical novels happen indifferent history frames: the former novel narrates a story that an invented Empire will launcha war against the nomads which maps out the colonization history in South Africa. The latternovel Disgrace happens in the post-apartheid time of South Africa which the black becomethe real owner of the country. It seems that Disgrace depicts the plot about the Eros, ethic orthe black’s revenge on the white. But what it wants to express to audience is that: in thepost-apartheid time, we could not ignore a fact that the black’s position is raising on thecontrary the white’s declining. In terms of the depiction of otherness, Waiting for theBarbarians and Disgrace contrast mutually and within which a great tension is formed. Theauthor of this thesis compares the otherness of these novels which can make the entire courseon otherness from different times.The thesis combines the Other theory of the post-colonialism with some plots in thesetwo novels to analyse how the otherness is presented in them. The paper has five parts. Thefirst one is the introduction part which has a brief introduction about Coetzee and his majorworks, the background of Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace, and the research situationboth in domestic and in aboard. Chapter two is concerned about the theoretical foundation.Firstly, the author defines what is self and others. Then the author has a further discussionabout the otherness in the colonial time and in post-colonialism time respectively. Chapterthree pays attention to the others construction in Waiting for the Barbarians and the result ofoperating the otherness. Chapter four is concerned with the others construction in Disgraceand the following results. Chapter five is the conclusion part: everyone is inevitablyconsidered as others in the eye of another people. The world is in a state of oppositionrelationship between self and others, so if we treat other culture by using an inclusive attitudeand accept other culture, the racial confliction will be decreased and the time peopleunderstand each other and live in coexistence will be around the corner.