Human Plight In J.M. Coetzee’s Early Works Waiting For The Barbarians And The Master Of Petersburg

This thesis applies the theory of Existentialism provided by French philosopherJean-Paul Sartre’s to the analysis. According to the study of Coetzee’s two earlynovels Waiting for the Barbarians and The Master of Petersburg, this essay intends todo a study on the plight faced by the protagonists in those two works with the maintheory of Sartre’s Existentialism and discusses the solution to plight.The thesis is divided into three parts:Part one is the introduction. This part introduces Coetzee’s life and literary career,the theoretical frame work and concludes the central argument of the essay.Part two is the main body which is made up of three chapters:Chapter one discusses the dilemma between “I” and “others” in Coetzee’s twoworks Waiting for the Barbarians and The Master of Petersburg and points out thenature of the conflict occurred in the interaction between different subjectivities. Byintroducing the pathetic suffering of the protagonist old magistrate in Waiting for theBarbarians and the protagonist Dostoyevsky in The Master of Petersburg, theirdilemma is explained through the theory of Sartre’s Existentialism.Chapter two mainly expatiates on the origin of that dilemma and points out thatthe absurd nature of this world which is explained by Sartre’s Existentialism theorycauses the disaster of those two protagonists, analyzes how the absurdity embedded inthis world leads to their personal tragedy.Chapter three explores the way of salvation for the protagonists who pains at theabsurdity of the world in the form of self-deception, anxiety and sense of alienation.Now the solution for their plight, as is defined by Sartre, is making free choice andtaking responsibility. Facing the hostility of the social environment, the protagonistsbravely make their own choices and embrace salvation and emancipation.Part three is the conclusion which reviews the protagonists’ difficulty, the cause oftheir dilemma and the realization of their self-salvation.All in all, this thesis adopts the approach of combining of Sartre’s Existentialismwith close reading in J.M. Coetzee’s early works from which J.M. Coetzee’s reflectionand deep concern on the issue of human plight are explicitly seen.