A Deconstructionist Interpretation of J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians
Noora Mazin Shakir
English Department-College of Education for Women- Tikrit University
Ansam Riyadh Abdullah Al-maaroof
English Department-College of Education for Women- Tikrit University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/jls.5.2.19
Keywords: Coetzee, Barbarians, Deconstruction, The Magistrate, The Barbarian Girl
Abstract
Deconstruction is a postmodern theory that was propounded by, Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher to fathom the connection between text and its meaning. It is a form of literary and philosophical analysis derived from his work which began in the 1960s. In this work, he questions Western philosophy through a close examination of the language of literary and philosophical texts and their logic. Although it was applied by many critics in the 1970s, he is considered the pioneer of this approach. This paper analyzes J.M.Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians as a postmodern, deconstructionist text or novel. By choosing this text, the paper attempts to prove that Coetzee is a postmodern novelist who followed Derrida's thoughts in deconstructing his text. It tries to answer the questions: firstly; how Coetzee depends on some sources written before not by rewriting them from the beginning till the end as other writers do, but by adapting a single event, a title, or a verb? By demonstrating and answering this question, the paper will prove that deconstruction does not only occur by rebuilding a previous text but also occurring within the text itself. Secondly; how he employs the techniques of deconstruction to prove an essential notion of deconstruction that each text fills with ambiguous ideas. Thirdly; how those ideas are interpreted according to the readers' points of view? The paper has five parts. It begins with an introduction. The second part discusses the Methodology. The third gives background of the novel and the novelist. The fourth analyzes and examines the novel as a deconstruction text and conclusion sums up the findings.
