Textual solipsism in J.M. Coetzee's Dusklands

In this dissertation I examine through a close reading of J.M. Coetzee's Dusklands (1974) the textual dymamic that impels the two narrator-protagonists toward the solipsist position - the ground of the true Cartesian. I show how Eugene Dawn and Jacobus Coetzee are presented as products of Western print culture and children of René Descartes: literate and acutely self-conscious. I note how each conceives himself according to Descartes' mind-body dualism as primarily a thinking thing. I argue that this self-conception is reinforced by their paradoxical presence-as-absence as figures in a fiction.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Powers, Donald

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Knox-Shaw, Peter

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8090

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8090