Allegories of power in the fiction of J.M. Coetzee

Bibliographic Data

ID20156409
AuthorsLois Parkinson Zamora (University of Houston, corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume2
Issue1
Pages1-14
Publication date1986-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387
PublisherUnisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA)
DOI10.1080/02564718608529780
OpenAlexW1987700754
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited1

It is suggested that allegory is a prominent literary vehicle for political dissent in contemporary literature of dissent, as can be illustrated especially in J.M. Coetzee's novels. This suggestion, however, requires a redefinition of our conventional sense of allegory's nature and purpose. Medieval and renaissance allegory is discussed as the background to the doubleness of the allegorical mode which emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Allegory has only recently been used for the purpose of explicit social and political criticism, as is indicated in a discussion of Coetzee's novels, as well as references to works of Buzzati, Kafka, Calvino, Borges, Donoso, Allende, Kundera and, within the South African context, Paton and Stockenstrom. It is ironic that allegory has become a mode particularly suited to the novelistic expression of fragmentation and injustice, and has become an effective medium of protest against the simplifications of absolute power

Allegory · Art · Dissent · Injustice · Literature · Physics · Political science · Politics · African cultural and philosophical studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · History · Law · Philosophy · South African History and Culture

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