Question:
Take the works of J. M. Coetzee and Jose Saramago, the award winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, to discuss how they treat the theme of violence and how their reading of violence though specific to their culture.
J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 while Jose Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. I am going to discuss how they treat the theme of violence through their works, Disgrace of Coetzee and Blindness of Saramago. In their literature, we can more or less reflect get known with their specific cultures and growing environments.
Coetzee was born and growth up in South Africa. South Africa seems never to be blessed and is always suffered from violence and brutality. The race policies, i.e. apartheid, were set up on the inequality status quo between the whites and the blacks as well as different tribal groups. The Black and the White had absolute unjust social status and rights. An individual was classified by race. Race determined every individual’s work, live, pray and learn. The political instability is slowly improved until Nelson Mandela won the presidential election in 1960s. The racial problem has become a little bit better by several years of Mandela’s work since 1990s.
Disgrace is exactly the literature which reflects the living environment of South Africa after the racial segregation policies were removed. However, violence still exists everywhere. The university professor David is charged by the sexual harassment toward a Melanie, a black university student. He remains superiority over Bev, a black woman. Hatred is prevalent between the whites and the blacks. David’s daughter, Lucy, regards her suffering as if the revenge of the blacks. She was raped while David was injured seriously by the three black men. Yet, she believes it may be her “fate” to compensate what had terrible done by the whites toward the blacks. Violence and brutality appear in the whole novel while Lucy seems to be suffered the most.
Lucy is threatened by violence and living in the shadow of fear everyday. It is no more than usual in her daily life. She mentions few times that she lives with ‘animals’ only. She is working in farm. Animals may merely refer to her countryside living environment. However, she has neighbours who live nearby. Why doesn’t she mention her black neighbours? Does she just ignore them or she has been experienced from their inhumanity as if animals?
Coetzee never denies or covers up the violence in Disgrace; neither has he suggested the way to tackle it. He may be understood so well that violence cannot be solved. The attitude of Lucy may represent his treatment towards violence. In the novel, she knows too much about her position. She understands that she lives in South Africa, a country of black people, a place where policemen cannot help. She has no choice. After she was raped, she never admits to police even her father. She agrees to marry Petrus, who is direct or indirectly responsible to what had happened to her., after she is pregnant. Lucy never goes up to against it. She tolerates and endures violence. She negotiates with violence so as to live relatively stable and peacefully.
Saramago was born in Portugal. Same as Coetzee, he grows up in a political instability environment. His country was ruled by military regime. Then, the dictator Salazar ruled the country for almost forty years by fascism. Revolution was carried out in 1974 and democratic trend has begun. Saramago worked for the administrative civil servant in Social Welfare Service, publisher and newspapers’ editor. Unluckily, he was unemployed due to the political reason at least twice. It may be a clue to explain why there is no any specific information about where is the background of Blindness is set up.
In contrast, at the beginning, Blindness does not share the violence environment as Disgrace does. In Blindness, society is relatively stable. Most of the people can maintain their morality in normal situation. Here, violence can not be found as frequent as those happened in Disgrace. Morality is deteriorated only when the social system break down.
In Blindness, a city is hit by an epidemic of “white blindness” and no one can escape from it except a doctor’s wife. The first few groups of infected people were confined to an empty mental hospital. Everyone is blind implies that no one can see even you do something wrong. Later on, crimes, violence, fights, stealing food, assaulting women etc, all happen within the blind. People no longer have to responsible for what they do. They are out of control at this stage. It seems that what they behave now is their genuine nature. A wife of doctor witnesses and suffers from all these violence. She may never imagine human can behave like that. She is shock and in horror.
How does a doctor’s wife able to bear all these tragedy? It is mainly due to her love toward husband. She loves her husband and stays along with him. The magic of love strengths her, allows her to overcome all difficulty. She has advantage over the blind since she is not blind. Yet, she never makes used of this to gain power or privilege status over others. All she wants is to take care of her husband. Thus, when the gangsters keep the food and ask for sex in exchange, she and most of the women give in. She first negotiates and tolerates being raped. But, at last she chooses to take revenge. She stands up and fights against the violence by mean of violence. This is her way to face violence and may be the attitude of Saramago as well.
Both of the Nobel Prize winners, Coetzee and Saramago, depict the element of violence in their novels. Both of them focus on the female images which are very unconventional. Females still suffer the most from the violence. At least they can make their own choice. In two novels, Lucy and the doctor’s wife try their best to endure all the sufferings in life. Their most intimate males, Lucy’s father, David, and the doctor’s wife’s husband, cannot help them. The two males are incapable to protect their lovely females. Lucy insists on her thinking and never agrees with David’s opinion. The blindness husband cannot take care of his wife and shelter her away from violence.
A doctor’s wife is superior to the offenders while Lucy is powerless. Thus, they employ different means to survive. Yet, they both work hard for their lives. Both Coetzee and Saramago are born and growth up in unstable countries. They also face different degree of violence, and they go on their living. This is their ways to treat violence. They negotiate everyday violence without provoke further violence.
Violence never vanishes in history. It appears in different places and various forms. Even in my own culture, racial problem and sexual violence do happen a lot. My culture seems relatively similar to the setting of Disgrace. The mainstream voice and teaching are to tolerant and endure violence. Pass it to the hands of those who are in power such as policemen, teachers or government. To me, neither the responses of Lucy nor a doctor’s wife to violence persuade me. However, it is slightly easier to accept Lucy’s endurance than a doctor’s wife taking revenge. Taking revenge is not suggested while killing is totally unacceptable. Negotiating seems to become a ‘peaceful’ and most popular mean to treat violence. Being optimistic and compromise may not be the best way to overcome violence, yet it is the way how Chinese as well as many other victims all over the world survive.
Remarks: Essay of Year 2
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