Coetzee’s belief that patriarchy is a deeply unjust institution is evident in In the Heart of the Country. The story consists of Magda, an isolated Afrikaans woman living on a remote sheep farm in the Karoo. Left without a mother early on, Magda is almost completely isolated except for her father and the few workers that are employed. She has only been surrounded by the complete and absolute power that her father has enforced upon her and his workers. Since her father makes no effort to be a companion to her, Magda considers herself as “an absence all of her life” (2). Enveloped and formed in the web of patriarchy, Magda believes that her father sees her as “zero” and sees herself as one of many such subjected women, “The land is filled with melancholy spinsters like me, lost to history” (3). Being a woman under this complete reign of patriarchy, Magda’s value has been determined only by the domestic roles she can fulfill on the farm, one that oversees the house and its workers.
Magda feels incomplete and uses the metaphor of a hole which she sees as a result of her isolation from romantic love as well as the world. She is “not unaware that there is a hole between [her] legs, leading to another hole that has never been filled either” (41). Magda is forced to fill this hole by forming an identity and a world out for herself. Her story consists of both her ruminations on her plight and the fantasies of action in which she attempts to restructure herself and her workers, Henrik and Klein-Anna. Magda imagines killing her father when she catches him with Klein-Anna. However, the institution of patriarchy is so ingrained in her that she has no ability to replace him. She struggles to bury him and take on the “manly” duties on the farm, but her attempts are almost impossible. Desperate for companionship, Magda attempts to alter the relationship she has with Hendrik and Klein-Anna, but she cannot overcome the strong influence by patriarchy. She instead imagines herself raped by Hendrik and taken advantage of by both him and his wife. Their actions are based on what the “coloreds” are assumed to do, to steal and then desert her. The novel ends with Magda who is completely alone with her father who is now senile and totally dependent on her. The reader is left to ponder whether if this is either a fantasy that overthrows patriarchy or another way of giving into the confines of what value patriarchy allows for a woman.
In the Heart of the Country strongly indicates that Coetzee is capable of addressing the problems that arise in a patriarchal colonial settlement that oppresses the natives, the “coloreds”, and women alike. Similar to the workers who succumb to the rule of the patriarchy, Magda’s failed fantasies are a result of a role she cannot overcome. Unfortunately, like many marginalized groups, Magda has internalized her verdict as being inferior.
3 comments:
Joanne,
I like the connection you made that Magda equates herself to an empty hole. Thus, Magda parallels her sexual inexperience and emptiness with her emotional and physical emptiness, all of which are summed up in the imagery of the empty hole. Her life is in such lack, sort-to-speak, that she reinvisions a life for herself that is the complete opposite of her actual life.
What I view as really interesting in the novel (aside from all of this) is the way in which Coetzee is able to imagine two worlds which are so drastically different. Perhaps this is a commentary on the various dualities in the world (Coetzee's South Africa being one place that it's represented). The dualities between male/female, white/black, oppressor/oppressed all seem to be addressed in Coetzee's "In the Heart of the Country".
Lastly, what I find interesting is Coetzee's ability to take on the voice of a female narrator, and a female oppressed narrator. I question if he is suggesting that this sense of emptiness equates to a sense of gender discrimination.
Overall, I thought you wrote a great post and did a good job of relating the issues in Coetzee's novel.
Hi Joanne, I completely agree and also think Magda has internalized her feelings as being inferior to her father. The novel depicts a woman who is caught in the effects of a patriarchal colonial settlement on a farm away from civilization. Magda’s oppression stems from a father who is not only in control of his land, but also ignores his daughter. Being ignored for so long and seeing her father have an interracial affair with one of his servants causes Magda to lose her mind. To the protagonist, she felt alone in the world and did not exist. It was only when her father took her back to her room when Magda expressed, “I have spoken and been spoken to, touched and been touched. Therefore I am more than just the trace of these words passing through my head on their way from nowhere to nowhere,” (56). It was her father that allowed Magda to feel like she matters and has a place in this world. At this point of the novel, if it had been Klein-Anna who had spoken to her, Magda would still feel lonely. She needs her father’s attention to make her complete. Even though the protagonist repeatedly states, “I am I,” Magda is still unsure who “I” is. This conflict provides Magda with a feeling that she needs Hendrik and Klein-Anna towards the end of the novel because she feels alone and she longs for human interaction.
Hi Joanne,
Patriarchy, as you mention, is both a very important and controversial aspect of the novel. It is very interesting how you incorporate, Coetzee the author, and attribute to him a sense of awareness for the injustice of “the other,” in this case Magda, or in more general terms, women. You state, “She has only been surrounded by the complete and absolute power that her father and the few workers that are employed.” This sentence is a powerful one because in addition to the rejection Magda feels from her father and her feelings of deep solitude, we might also explore her placement by her father as a “second-class citizen”; he equates her to the same level as the servants by making her do the same chores. In patriarchal terms, though she is the daughter of the “master,” the farm owner, she is still a woman, the “male’s” binary opposition. Also, she wants to be cared for by her father, maybe not in the same sexualized way he cares for Klein-Anna, but she wants that attention, even if it means reducing herself to mere infantile behavior. For instance, knowing that her father is in the room with another man, she knocks at his door and says, “Daddy, can you hear me...Daddy, I’m feeling strange. What shall I do” (Coetzee 54). Considering how the “I” is not identified as Magda till later in the novel, it leaves the reader attempting to guess her age.
You also bring up the concept of history in relation to patriarchy. This can then open up even another different realm of thought. In this sense, it might even go beyond the historical aspects of patriarchy and delve into language ideology. Magda is repressed not only in the sense that she is a woman, but also that she is trapped in a linguistic arena of authority, one that she partially does not want to be a part of. In this sense, we can look at Magda, the oppressed, oppressing the servants based only on the historical placement of her status. Stemming from what you said, it would then also be interesting to explore whether Magda can “internalize her verdict” as both the oppressor and the oppressed.
Thank you for sharing,
Norma Perez
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