On Traumatic Writing And Redemption In Waiting For The Barbarians

John Maxwell Coetzee, an honorable contemporary author, has elaborately made his contribution to the study of western civilization and humanity. Coetzee’s novels are always related with the colonial and apartheid history in South Africa, displaying his contemplation on the history, reality and tough situation in South Africa. As a white born in South Africa, he witnesses the sufferings of the locals in the evil Apartheid and knows clearly the trauma of the people there. Waiting for the Barbarians, the first book that has brought him international reputation, deals with the issue of trauma by depth. Researchers have made great efforts for the study of the novel. However, the present study mainly focuses on the miserable suffering of the oppressed, short of intensive and systematic classification of various traumas and detailed exploration of the causes.Waiting for the Barbarians is an outstanding example of marvelous combination of Coetzee’s intellectual power and stylistic poise in which the author’s concern about humanity and morality is fully displayed. With the help of Judith Herman and Sigmund Freud’s traumatic theory, this thesis starts with the analysis of Coetzee’s complex of trauma and the general features of his traumatic writing, and then gives a relatively intensive and comprehensive analysis of the collective and individual trauma of perpetrators, victims and witnesses, attempting to excavate the literal, political and religious redemption strategies concealed in the context of the novel. Moreover, in order to penetrate into the topic, this thesis delves into the speculation on the relationship between historical crimes and individual responsibilities, and between the moral principle and western utilitarianism.Coetzee is not only a writer with profound thinking but also a white with sense of responsibility, conscience and morality. He touches upon human suffering and denounces the social evils in the modern western civilization in his writing. In displaying human spiritual struggle and providing his contemporaries with redemption recipe, Coetzee expresses his concern for human suffering and calls for people to be well aware of the pervasive trauma and the oppressed in the world.