A Foucauldian Reading Of J. M. Coetzee’s Life & Times Of Michael K

J. M. Coetzee is a prominent South African novelist and Nobel Laureate whose oeuvre exerts great importance and influence on South African literature. Life & Times of Michael K is one of Coetzee’s representative works which utilize his technique of "political allegory" to depict those silent, marginalized, oppressed images in South Africa. Some realist critics condemn that Coetzee is passively eschewing South African politics and history, holding his elusiveness or obfuscation conveys his irresponsibility as a South African writer. Most studies on Life & Times of Michael K are from the perspective of postcolonialism and postmodernism to describe what the protagonist suffers in those institutions and from the ecological perspective to analyze the protagonist’s behavior of gardening while escaping the system’s segregation. This thesis, through a Foucauldian reading, focuses on the classification, freedom-deprivation, and dehumanization of the system, on the resistance from the oppressed by means of silence and gardening, and on the possibility of reconciliation, power-sharing between the oppressor and the oppressed. Thus, this thesis determines to argue that Coetzee is not passively eschewing South African reality; however, he emphasizes the oppression and injustices of the whole human world rather than the mere immorality of South African politics and history.The oppressor from the system exerts disciplinary power and punishment on the oppressed, in order to make them docile and useful for the effective working of the system. Huis Norenius school, Jakkalsdrif camp, and Keilworth camp are all institutions serving the totalitarian power governed by the white majority. The protagonist resists being classified and disciplined by the system no matter in body or in mind. The protagonist’s resistance, from Foucault’s perspective, is not negative but positive, in the light of "self-formation". The protagonist’s resistance on one hand raises the conscience and moral reflection of the dominant whites such as the Medical Officer; on the other hand, it prompts the protagonist himself to directly confront what he has experienced throughout life, deeply realize the darkness of the system, and figure out his identity as a gardener. The protagonist’s eventual return to Cape Town denotes the failure of living a life totally isolated from the reality and history; however, the protagonist raises the hope for a new life as a gardener through envisioning gaining water independently in the farm. In this light, Coetzee conveys that a new South African history of freedom and peace through mutual respect and inter-dependence could be possible.Coetzee’s "political allegory" greatly assists him with dealing with South African politics and history more tactically instead of being in bondage to South African reality. Through a Foucauldian reading of Life & Times of Michael K, this thesis attempts to argue that only under the prerequisite of abolishing apartheid and totalitarian violence, on the premise of a system with conscience, justice and dignity, and through mutual respect, personal power, human interdependence, could a new South African history with peace become possible.