On The Image Of The Old Man In The Novels Of Coetzee's Australian Period

John Maxwell Coetzee is the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003 and also a academic writer.He has the life experience in many countries including South Africa,the United Kingdom,the United States,Australia,and etc.His multiple cultural identities and observations of life endow his works with philosophical implications.After moving to Australia,the thought of society in his novels is worthy of attention.This thesis selects his two works Slow Man and Diary of a Bad Year as a point of entry and analyzes the life attitude and metaphor of old man.This paper is divided into three parts: The introduction,main text and conclusion,in which the main text is divided into three chapters.Introduction includes Coetzee's achievements,life experience,and major works.the trend of the content of research at home and abroad,the key points of the thesis research as well as the reason of the selected topic.The first chapter introduces the images of the old men in Coetzee's two works during the period of Australia and their thinking after they are disabled and old.The first part analyzes the state of life of Paul Rayment,a accident made his body fall into disability and due to the change of narrative means.The second section is about Se?or C,an old man with a declining body.Coetzee explains the mental state of the characters after being trapped in an inevitable state by their story.The second chapter is about the life and mental status and social relationship of the old men.The first part is about the loneliness of the old men under the circumstances of old age and disease.The second part is about loneliness and neglected dignity.The third part is about the humiliation of them when it comes to gender role and citizenship.The third chapter also related the previous two chapters,tells how the old men find their new ways as human beings.The first part explains the old men can't have a say and don't have a high social status in the old traditional cognition.However,in the writing way of Coetzee,these characters can destruct the traditional binary opposition,turning from the marginal position to the equal position.The second part tells that these old mennever had their own children,yet they can put themselves in the acceptive and inclusive position as a father when there are children in need.Children depend on them,at the same time,they can fulfill their wish of being as a father.The third part describes that the old men are seeking for the home of their hearts and the new self,whether it's the real space or their mental space.In the final part,both Coetzee and the characters are seeking new living state and rethinking life experiences.They keep caring for people and express his own thinking and understanding of history,country and society through the old men.