The paper explores J.M. Coetzee's position as a writer of the works of identity, isolation and discrimination. Identity and isolation is a recurrent theme in his works. . He was a spokesperson of the oppressions of the white government.  The paper deals with a few of his significant works- In the The Life & Times of Michael K (1983). Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997) and Scenes from Provincial Life II (2003) all highlight the role of identity and discrimination. The protagonists of these works are lonely and frustrated beings because they face acute and abject discrimination in their lives. Therefore, the paper attempts to discuss discrimination in the lives of the characters of the selected novels and how it can be a quest for identity.

Objectives are the specific aims behind doing something. The present study is a serious exercise in the study of the select novels by Coetzee. This study has been undertaken with the following well-defined objectives.

1. To examine the socio-political and economic factors of apartheid in the novels by J. M. Coetzee.

2. To study the social, political and economic aspects of the life of the characters affected by Apartheid in the select novels by Coetzee.

3. To explore the pains, sufferings and humiliation meted out to the characters in the select novels by Coetzee.

4. To examine the paradigm shift in the Apartheid system underlying the narrative of select novels.

5. To examine the implied tone of the author regarding the Apartheid system.

A review of literature or research works related to Apartheid system in J. M. Coetzee’s writings has largely helped the researcher to formulate the objectives and hypotheses. It has helped the researcher to adopt the right perspective of the theoretical framework. Some research scholars have pursued the topic of Apartheid system and its effects on the socio-political, economic and domestic life of the people of South Africa. These scholars have largely focused on the various aspects of the effects of Apartheid on the lives of both the White and the Black. The following major and relevant research studies on the Apartheid system in J. M. Coetzee’s fiction have been reviewed.

He had experienced in two different countries. This made his path for future works such as Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997) and Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002) that discussed in thesis. This was related to his identity quest. The first memoir described his days of childhood; time spent most of his early life in Cape Town and Worcester. His first fictionalized memoir reflected his experiences in Cape Town. However, the second one is more mature, dealing with his life in London and he was against to the apartheid-era. So, Coetzee’s works are mainly concerned with the search of meaning in life. He couldn't forget the memoirs of Cape Town. His works described maturity and understanding about the apartheid-era. Therefore, Coetzee’s memoirs are quietly praiseworthy because he was grown up in the tensed environment. He grew up watching all the tortures of the white government. It left a deep scar on his mind. He cannot able to forget those bitter memories of the apartheid-era. Thus, he described all his experience in his memoirs. He married Philippa Jubber in 1963. They had two children Nicolas and Gisela. His personal life was not very satisfied even as he becomes famous as a great novelist. So, Coetzee possessed highly influential academic career. His works speaks the reality of apartheid era. He is the first white who had opened his heart in his works.

Coetzee’s memoirs Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997) and Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002) along with Life & Times of Michael K (1983), are famous because both describes his own life but our attention rests on Life & Times of Michael K which is booker prize winner because here is no political hero or leader but a simple ordinary coloured man. He stands nowhere in the society because of his cleft lip. He is a silent creature. He spends his whole life in finding meaning in his life. Fortunately, in the end he gets success. He restarts his life as a gardener. The society understands him as a passive being but he is not passive. He understands everything and knows the reality of anti-apartheid. This novel is set in anti-apartheid era. During 1984, the situation gets uncontrolled and the blacks start revolt against white government. The first two texts, Boyhood (1997) and Youth (2002) are based strictly upon the racial issue of the apartheid-era.

Life & Times of Michael K (1983) is set in the anxious environment of the post- apartheid-era when the revolts are started by blacks against the whites. In this novel, Coetzee pay his attention on the struggle of Michael K, trying to find significance of his life in the post-apartheid days. This work also highlights the apartheid-era. The search for meaning in life is the main concern of this novel. The protagonist Michael K had a cleft lip. He faces so many problems but he defeat and he remains silent, throughout the whole text. As a reader, one observes, the way Michael K struggled since he had been given the status of a silent spectator in the society.The novel’s protagonist is also a passive recipient of the disastrous civil wars. The situation of war forms the backdrop of K’s struggle that serves a special reason. The civil war catches the attention of the readers. It occupies the theme of the novel. How the innocent people are shot to death in the apartheid-era who also picked weapons to defend themselves. It is a story moving from darkness to dawn. No one knew that this revolt would lead to a disastrous result for the white government. They get panicked and helpless. They realized that now the black mob was uncontrolled. Michael K is determined to live life on his own terms. He does not afraid of rules and regulations. He defies all those shackles of slavery. Gardening is the main eye-catching theme of this novel because here we see the protagonist who doesn’t fight for the country but for himself. He possesses no weapons but use his own strength. For Michael K war destroys the humanity but gardening revives hopes in the human beings. It spreads life and happiness. Here, gardening makes the life of Michael K. He said that it was because he was a gardener, I thought, because that was my nature (181). Michael K explores life as he passes through various problems. He starts taking life in a different way when he is isolated.

Coetzee’s protagonists don’t belong to any special class or any political leader. They are simple and ordinary human beings. They are spokes-persons of the entire community. However, Dominic Head observes about Michael K as: “the absence of any overt reference to Michael K’s racial identity or appearance is a denial of apartheid’s obsessive system of classification. He is equally resistant, however, to all social and political affiliation” (56) .Coetzee’s writing style is spare and powerful. There’s very little extreme brutality or shock. He conveys the inhumanity of Apartheid through almost banal acts of violence, neglect and disregard. Life & Times of Michael K completely lives up to the hype and deserves every award it had received both corporeally and allegorically which is as deep as they come; it isn’t just about the slow thinking Michael K trying to survive; it is about inner strength, our perceptions of others, individuality in a world in which we are alone; it is about how we view meaning, and the depths one can reach through those meanings when they are extensions of one’s true self. Though this path was not easy, yet Michael K decided to follow it and he was treated as animal for not having proper identity documents. During 1980, the white government made compulsory to have all identity documents for the blacks. Consequently, the blacks were put behind bars who failed to provide proper identity documents but K also knew about these hardships. He decided not to run away from the situation. He got able to understand that the meaning of his life resides in living the life of freedom. Michael K was considered as a mute creature in the world of exploitation. He also knew about the hardships of the apartheid era. Still he continued his journey of self quest. He wanted to give meaning to his life through gardening.

Coetzee, through the character of Michael K touched the human side by showing the impact of civil war on common man and it uprooted the power from his own native place. Michael K who got displaced leaving everything related to his motherland and became alone after his mother's death. He also became sensible due to adverse circumstances and he started his journey; to fulfil the desire of his mother by burying her ashes was the rural fields. The main focus of Coetzee was identity concern of common blacks in apartheid and post apartheid rule. He described that blacks had to pay heavy price for freedom and they had no voice. They need identity proofs as well as travel document to move in their own country. Michael K was the example representing the person who was treated the other was the societal order. He became a puppet in the hands of corrupt political systems.

Coetzee’s beautiful prose that tackles great emotions and ideas in the simplest of ways embodies the theme of this novel. By choosing to have a protagonist who isn’t a part of the war and doesn’t choose to be, Coetzee portrays the atrocities on the innocent. Although Michael K’s decision to quit society and live in the mountains doesn’t exactly rise from the destruction that the world pushes on him, it is depended on the state of the world in the novel. In beautifully crafted sections, Coetzee moves towards the resolution of K’s feelings and an intention of man viewed as simple-minded but is far from such a claim. Thus, concluding that in times of war, it is enough to be able to be non-participant than a rebel. While Coetzee’s novel does not directly explore over themes of medicine and medical ethics but his narrative posits an abstract allegory that draws parallels between the human body and the body politic, human wellness and the health of society, human survival and the emaciation of the State. 

Michael K struggled throughout the life. After quitting his job, he became unwaged with no professional identity in society. He was without any proper identity certificates with him and he had little interaction with other people due to his physical distortion of cleft lip. Unable to succeed in public school system, he was sent to an institution that inspired to do charitable work with handicapped children but in reality conformed to the procedures of discipline and punishment. His cleft lip had reduced him to be an isolated man without communication and others considered him stupid. Indeed Coetzee had chosen an exceptionally quiet protagonist. By doing this Coetzee, wanted its foreground black masses that had been ignored by history, politics and revolt movements. Therefore, he had discussed their struggles through Michael K for life, existence and voice in the disturbed and conditions of the civil war. Despite the narrative form, the plot was less important here than the display of conditions during The Life & Times of Michael K. The reader was encouraged to identify with Michael K, but his life is no more important to the scheme of the novel than the times in which he lived. The novel consisted, in essence, of the dissolution of the state of South Africa and the causes although these topics were not set forth in full. It gave a partial picture of the dissolution, and his life suggested some of the causes. At the end of the novel, we found that Michael K as a completely changed man. There was no improvement in Cape Town. The writer discussed the bad experience of K and black people. Life struggle made him strong and mature. Being a gardener, he was contented and even lives in peace. House war snuffed out lives, gardening stands for nourishing and nurturing life. It was a story of survival and isolation, the individual struggling against a society gone away and struggling to survive in nature.

John’s life has been described as a 10 year old school boy and his thoughts told us about his life in the novel Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997). John himself in a dilemma whether he was an African or an Englishman, had reflected his identity throughout the text. The novel started with brief introduction of the apartheid policies affecting the minds of black people and how the rules made by white government affected John’s life.  He considered himself to be a mute character. He has been tortured regarding his religion in his school life because of the ridiculous effects of the apartheid policy. He took a great deal of interest in exploring the life and he blamed his parents for not being a normal boy.

John was emotionally distant from his family. He didn’t like his father but had a great attachment with his mother as he was dependent on her for his daily routine and other chores. He was teased at school very often because of his African descent. He was very passionate about cricket and he even compared it with war. Failure was his good friend as it accompanied him in most of his tasks. Most conflicts in his life were because of religion and his families being from an African background follow English culture. Religion was a great problem to him in school. He decided to become “a Roman Catholic” when the teacher asked John about his religion. The National Party supported this racial segregation and the policy further worsened the situation. John was one of the many young sufferers of the policy. The situation in his school, home and socio-political issues made John search for his own self.

John, in the text Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002). It follows, sequentially, the first part of the memoir. As the title suggests, John grows up to understand how the apartheid era has affected him. The scepters of apartheid still haunt South Africa. The Pan African Congress is on the rise in South Africa, protesting against the whites. The cold war is going on between Britain and Russia. Under these circumstances, John becomes an alienated and displaced character who shifts to London. Here, he meets with many adverse circumstances. Since he is alienated from his motherland as well as from his family, he prefers his literary career, ascribing it more importance than his professional life. He goes to London to become self-dependent by earning his livelihood so that he can become a good artist. However, he is entrapped in the tiresome experience of his job. Consequently, he feels that his literary pursuit of writing poetry is drying day by day. Also, he is painfully alone, there being no individual who ever came into his life. Indeed, the main purpose of being in London was to focus on his literary career. This phase of life was quite different from the life which he had spent with his family. However, he is still hopeful about life and his future. Keeping all this in mind, his motto turns out to be “Better to accept the burden of unhappiness and try to turn it into something worthwhile, poetry or music or painting: that is what he believes” (Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II 14). Since he aspires to keep his artistic spirit alive, he reflects over the artistic nature of great poets such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. He follows their ways also. He is ready to face every hurdle which comes in the way of his artistic career. The condition in South Africa was turning to anti apartheid era. The blacks were completely filled with the frustration because of years of suppression they suffered under the discriminating rules of white government. Riots and marches were going on in multiple places in South Africa; blacks were gathered in large amount raising their voice against whites. John too had to suffer a lot as a child because of discrimination in South Africa not only in the society but in schools also. John's mother used to send him letters frequently but John as the child wanted to remain away from any kind of emotional disturbance that came in his way.

Herein, Coetzee again locates his focus upon the subjectivity and identity concerns of the protagonist, John, who remains unable to decide whether to concentrate on poetry writing or prose writing. Even then, he always opts for a hopeful outlook. John wants to establish his identity as a good artist. For this, he works as a computer programmer in IBM and later with International Computers. He remains in London to realise his literary pursuits. Nevertheless, his loneliness haunts him perpetually. Although, he feels somewhat satisfied that in London he was trying to live as an English man, however, he does feel suffocated with his job scenario. , Coetzee had presented his protagonists, their journeys and quests, the place of prominence in the texts and in the turbulent South African socio-cultural and racial scenario. So much is said about Coetzee and his works but the main concern is how the identity of an individual is affected by the several social and political factors.

1. Coetzee, J.M. . Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life. Vintage Books, 1998.

2. ---. Life & Times of Michael K. London: Vintage Books, 2004.

3. ---. Youth : Scenes from Provincial Life II. Vintage Books, 2003.