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Silence As Insubordination: Friday And Michael K’S Wordless Weapon, A Post-Colonial Approach Toj.M. Coetzee’S Foe And Life And Times Of Michael K, Cody C. Mullins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

While most critics of J.M. Coetzee’s fiction focus on silence as a weapon of imperial oppressive forces to subjugate representations of the "other," this thesis argues that, on the contrary, characters representing the traditional colonially oppressed use their silence as a weapon to in turn oppress the representations of imperial power. Through close reading explication and the use of the post-colonial theories of both Homi Bhabha and Edward Said, I focus on the inverted oppression, the shifting of identity, and the role of authorial authority within the novels, Foe and Life & Times of Michael K. By engaging in this …