White Male Masculinity in Coetzee's Waiting for Barbarians

Abstract

This article will investigate how Coetzee's white male characters confront their pasts that revolve around the abuse of power in both familial relations and the community. Most importantly, I will examine how masculine identities in the novels fit in the wider society and how they respond to changing power structures because they influence their behavior. My objective is to investigate whether Coetzee ascribed to the patriarchal Boer societal values that marginalized both women and servants into silence. Since masculine discourse is recurring in his other works, it is both an ideological and political discourse representing oppression and colonialism.