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.
