Abstract
This paper deals with the treatment of tense forms as styles distinguishing between narrative and subjective commentary modes in literary discourse. Focus is on the stylistic exploitation of simple and aspectual (perfect and progressive) present tense in Coetzee's first person novel In the Heart of the Country. Tense contrast plays a part in highlighting the difference between the central narrator-character's hypothetical autobiographical world she creates through her fiction, and her experiential commentary, or ‘mind diary’ which frames her story. Accompanying the contrast of tenses, and therefore the contrast of the two worlds of Magda's existence, is the switching of languages — English being the one of commentary and Afrikaans that of her fiction.
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