Outremização e revide de colonizado e colonizador em The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee (1974), de J. M. Coetzee

Abstract

An analysis of the second part of Dusklands (1974), by South African author J.M. Coetzee, called The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee, is provided by post-colonial theory, focusing on the theory of alterity and intervention. In its three versions the novella narrates the fictional expedition of Jacobus Coetzee, a Dutch farmer and explorer, to the unknown hinterland of 18th century South Africa. An analysis of the three versions on the same event reveals that each one has been written from different ideologies underpinning subjectivity and ficcionality in the narrated historical events. The alterity theory reveals the strategies used to other the colonized subjects and the degrading stereotypes employed to subject the colonized and usurp their land. The intervention theory reveals the manner the colonial subjects react through mimicry, parody and sly civility, albeit without violence, against the European colonizer. So that he may reinstate himself in the position of subject, the latter's reaction on being decentralized is always limited to violence and vengeance. Results show that the colonial subjects were indeed autonomous before the arrival of Europeans who objectified them and drastically changed their lives and their environment. Moreover, the violence used by the colonizers shows their radical refusal of decentralization and the loss of their subject status. Colonial encounters always smack of tragedy.