The allegorical text and history: J.M. Coetzee'sWaiting for the Barbarians

Abstract

Summary This article attempts to move beyond what are perceived to be the limitations of both Lukacsian Marxist and Deconstructionist accounts of J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. If a Lukacsian Marxism has correctly introduced the category of “history” into the analyses of the novel, it has done so only to berate Coetzee for its absence. Teresa Dovey's Deconstructionist analyses have helpfully focused attention on the novel's intertextual critique of the South African liberal novel. However, her criticism is deformed by its inability to confront the complexities of the text's meditation upon its relationship with “history”. The linguistic theory of Saussure, and Walter Benjamin's theory of allegory, are used to analyse that relationship. While the allegoric form acts as a critique of “classic realist” writing, this does not signal the text's refusal of “history”. Rather, it affirms its location as a signifying “interpretation” of the real that recognises its discursive specificity. The novel exa...