The worm in the apple

Wretched bonds in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7559511
AutoresHossein Keramatfar (0000-0001-8980-5507, University of Tehran), Maryam Beyad (University of Tehran, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume16
Fascículo3
Páginas318-332
Data de publicação2018-07-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAfrican Identities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1472-5843 • E-ISSN: 1472-5851
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14725843.2018.1439731
OpenAlexW2792702449
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas32

Coetzee’s novel Disgrace addresses the question of dysfunctional interhuman relationships and explores the themes of domination, subjection, and character distortion in the context of the post-apartheid South Africa. In fact, this paper holds, Disgrace fictionalizes Coetzee’s concerns about the social deformation that springs from distorted relationality. According to Erich Fromm’s social thought, the apartheid regime represented an insane society based on sadistic domination and masochistic submission. It systematized sadomasochistic patterns of interpersonal relatedness and excluded horizontal relationships based on love and mutual care. Disgrace shows that how the same dynamics of intersubjective relationships still feature in the new South Africa. A parallel is, therefore, drawn between Coetzean ideas about deformed relationality and social deformation and Frommian symbiotic relatedness and sociocultural insanity. The apartheid’s spirit of insanity lingers in the post-apartheid period since its modes of human interactions persist. The transition from the earlier racist system to a genuine democracy, the novel suggests, sounds impossible unless love replaces sadomasochistic relationality

African cultural and philosophical studies · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · South African History and Culture