NARRATIVE STRATEGIES IN J.M.

COETZEES IN THE HEART OF

THE COUNTRY: COMMENTARY ON THE (POST)COLONIAL GUILT i
Ewa DYNAROWICZ M.A.

Abstract
Of all J.M. Coetzees novels, In the Heart of the Country undoubtedly has the most
outstanding structure: a patchwork of entries sewn together by the strangest narrationfull
of repetitions, mutually excluding turnabouts. This allegiance to the discourse of fiction
rather than the discourse of politics is seen as reflecting the authors stance on the colonial
past: unwillingness to acknowledge complicity, shading the problem of the colonial guilt.
All Coetzees oeuvre is to a large extend preoccupied with the place of the post-
colonizer in South Africa and refuses to present it in terms of binary oppositions. In In the
Heart of the Country the moral imperative of the authors self-distancing from complicity
and the imprisonment of naturalized connections finds its full realization. The use of
narrative devices in In the Heart of the Country constitutes what Attwell calls a displaced
subject, a narrator who is not one of the primary agents of colonization but who lives in the
conditions created by such subjects and who endures subjectivity this position entails. As a
displaced subject, Magda is not simply a perpetrator of colonialism but also its victim. The
complex narrative illustrates her dependence on language and impossibility of undermining
the prevailing discourse.
This article will be devoted to the analysis of the complex narrative serving as a
carrier of both post-colonial engagement and the authorial voice concerning the post-
colonizers place in South-Africa.

1. Narration in In the Heart of the Country: Introduction

Coetzees sojourn in the United States (1965-1972) coincides with what David Attwell calls
the emergent moment of linguistics in the West, both as a method and as a model for the
analysis of culture (Coetzee 1992: 23). Coetzee himself is aware of the influence of his
linguistic studies upon his formation as a writer: My linguistic training enables me to see the
effects I was undergoing with a degree of consciousness (1992: 25). He also admits that it
permits him a more conscious process of absorption of influences (1992: 25). The very fact
that he is a scholar publishing on current developments proves that he is highly familiar with
linguistic and formal devices. The author himself points to the fact that in each of his novels
certain formal aspects and techniques prevail, one of them being the most prominent in each
of the books In In the Heart of the Country it was cutting, montage. In Barbarians it was
milieu. In Michael K it was the pace of narration. In Foe it was voice (1992: 143).
Commenting on his own critical essays, Coetzee admits that in his view formal coincides with
conceptual because form always conveys a certain message, is rooted in a discourse, reflects
it. Of all J.M. Coetzees novels, In the Heart of the Country undoubtedly has the most
outstanding structure: a patchwork of entries sewn together by the strangest narrationfull of
repetitions, mutually excluding turnabouts. This allegiance to the discourse of fiction rather
than the discourse of politics is seen as reflecting the authors stance on the colonial past:
unwillingness to acknowledge complicity, shading the problem of the colonial guilt.
All Coetzees oeuvre is to a large extend preoccupied with the place of the post-
colonizer in South Africa and refuses to present it in terms of binary oppositions. In In the
Heart of the Country the moral imperative of the authors self-distancing from complicity
and the imprisonment of naturalized connections finds its full realization. The use of

1
narrative devices in In the Heart of the Country constitutes what Attwell calls a displaced
subject, a narrator who is not one of the primary agents of colonization but who lives in the
conditions created by such subjects and who endures subjectivity this position entails
(Attwell 1993: 56). As a displaced subject, Magda, the protagonist and narrator of Coetzees
novel, is not simply a perpetrator of colonialism but also its victim. The complex narrative
illustrates her dependence on language and impossibility of undermining the prevailing
discourse.
Different aspects of Magdas narrative show her dependence on this discourse, serving
as a carrier of both post-colonial engagement and the authorial voice concerning the post-
colonizers place in South Africa. This article will be devoted to the analysis of different
aspects of Magdas narration in reference to the theoretical background such as introduced in
Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative Fiction by Steven Cohan and Linda M.
Shires.

2. Structure

Reading J.M. Coetzees In the Heart of the Country, one is struck by the unique atmosphere
of the novel, its intense, hypnotizing, dream-like, claustrophobic mood. Undoubtedly it is
achieved purposefully, by the conscious use of certain stylistic and rhetorical devises. Their
ultimate aim is to construct an appropriate form that would reflect the content and match the
discourse used. The first technique applied by the author is the fragmentary structure of the
novel. In the Heart of the Country consists of two hundred sixty-six fragments, resembling
entries from a diary. The resemblance comes also from the fact that the narration is led in the
first person, by a woman called Magda. In its fragmented structure, the novel resembles
Samuel Becketts The Unnamable. Coetzee speaks about the influence of Becketts prose on
his writing in one of his conversations with David Attwell published in Doubling the Point:
Essays and Interviews (1992: 17-30). He admits that he was inspired by the thrifty style of
The Unnamable which encourages short, precise sentences or even gerund clauses. What
makes them so attractive to Coetzee is that they only allow stating, signalling certain themes,
restricting the space for transmitting ideologies.
Another influence and a key to understanding Coetzees style may be the philosophy
of Ludwig Wittgenstein, which in its first phase may be described as the longing for an
objective language, capable of reflecting reality in a one-to-one relation (Tractatus Logico-
Philosophicus) (Pears 1999). Writing his treaty in short entries and lecturing using short
sentences, Wittgenstein tried to eliminate everything that blurs the meaning with discourse.
Coetzee shares the modernist consciousness of the falsifying quality of language rooted in a
discourse. The use of the fragmented structure helps to reflect the subjective quality of the
novels language. Short entries are like snapshots of reality flashing in Magdas mind.

3. Agency

What may strike the reader of In the Heart of the Country is the overwhelming occurrence of
the personal pronoun I in Magdas narrative. The majority of entries starts with it and contains
a number of possessive pronounsmy, mine, as well as the reflexive pronoun myself. The
extensive use of personal pronouns in the novel can be analysed in reference to the
structuralist analysis of language provided by Roland Barthes (1915-2004). In the article To
Write: An Intransitive Verb? Barthes refers to the thesis formulated by Benveniste that a
fundamental condition of language is its polarity (1972). The characteristic of every language
is that it automatically introduces two grammatical divisions: one into person (I) and non-
person (he / she) (which Barthes in his article calls correlation of personality), another into I

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and non-I (you), called correlation of subjectivity. I always has a position of transcendence
with respect to you, which means that it embraces the non-I in its consciousness. Another
characteristic of I is that it is always interior to the statement, whereas you is always exterior;
I and you are reversible, he/she can never reverse itself into a person. The grammatical third
person exists outside discourse; it is diminished or removed, that is why it is referred to as a
non-person.
The two types of correlation find an interesting realization in Coetzees novel. First of
all, as the whole novel is narrated by the first person narrator, the I always represents a white
womans perspective. The reader observes other characters in relation to Magda only. Her
feeling of alienation stresses the non-personality of the characters narrated by her. Lacking
personal experience and any point of reference, she does not fully understand other peoples
ways. The reader feels that her interpretation of colored peoples behaviour is faulty, and
consequently is left with many gaps in the story. ii Magda focuses on external manifestations
of complying to the social codes, rather that on the psyche of the inhabitants of her story. This
creates the effect of estrangement. The other, the non-person, is remote, alien. Also the
character of the correlation of subjectivity in the novel is peculiar, as there is hardly any space
for reversibility, even in dialogues. In In the Heart of the Country the coloreds are not
allowed to use you addressing Magda because it would suggest the possibility of undermining
the existing hierarchy. You is replaced by the third-person word miss which keeps the
irreversibility safe and, at the same time, reflects Magdas higher status. It also stresses her
rule over the narrative as the reader hears Klein-Anna and Hendrik talk only when they
address her. The reader does not come to know what they call Magda when she is not around.
This kind of irreversibility is a characteristic feature of the colonial discourse. The you of a
colored servant is not in the position to turn into an I. In other words, there is no possibility
of expression for the coloreds; in the use of language they take the place of the object, never
that of the subject. This kind of language violation keeps the coloreds in the position of
linguistic disadvantage, preventing them from expressing their subjectivity.
On the other hand, narration of the novel grants Hendrik and Klein-Anna a certain
amount of freedom. As the first-person narrator Magda does not have any access to other
characters thoughts and, consequently, neither does the reader. One starts to wonder about
the character of Hendrik and Annas private conversations. Magdas narration has no control
over their minds which creates an area of freedom for the colored inhabitants of the farm. It
gives them a degree of independence and, to some extend, even of advantage over Magda.
Hendrik, is self-confident to such an extend that he will not undertake actions which he finds
inappropriate. He refuses to crawl into the porcupine hole chosen by Magda to bury her
father. His self-reliance is additionally stressed when confronted with Magdas confusion and
her unreliability as narrator.
The identification provided by the grammatical category of person is inconsistent
throughout the novel, which is also significant for the meaning of In the Heart of the Country.
The new light is shed on the interpretation of the novel by the use of the pronoun we. First, by
the use of the pronoun we Magda identifies herself with her father, which reflects her colonial
identity. Using we and our with reference to herself and her father, Magda automatically
activates the process of exclusion and refers to the collective identity of the whites. We/they
division reflects the relation between the whites and the coloreds, the colonizer and the
colonized, the baas and the servant. In the passages where she speaks about her father and her
step-mother, however, and later about her father and Klein-Anna, Magda distances herself
from her father. When her father enters relations with other women, she looses ground for
identification; he becomes distant and non-personal. The fact that baas Johannes does not use
the pronoun we in reference to Magda and himself but uses it in reference to himself and his
colored mistress shows that the relations on the farm are distorted. Magda is deprived of her

3
role. Her loss of position is also reflected in her utterances. She feels that her father treats her
as a non-person: To my father I have been an absence all my life (Coetzee 1977: 2). As a
result she perceives herself as a zero, null, a vacuum (Coetzee 1977: 2).
Confronted with changing relations on the farm Magda tries to find a new point of
reference for herself in order to re-define her position, which is manifested by her search for a
new linguistic role. She tries to free herself from the colonial discourse in which the familiar
division of roles dwindles; she starts to use the pronoun we in reference to herself and
Hendrik or to herself and Klein-Anna. By doing so she abandons the colonial convention
she gives them a chance to become subjects, to reverse into an I. It seems that the pronoun we
is capable of providing a bridge of reversibility over the gap between the participants of the
master-slave language game. It turns out to be impossible, however, as both Hendrik and
Klein-Anna keep addressing her with the familiar term miss. Klein-Anna will not call her with
her proper name and Hendrik will not talk to her at all. They both hide their true selves behind
the wall of silence.
Although Magda makes an attempt to enter new linguistic relations, she suspects that
this is futile. She realizes that she is trapped in the situation in which communication is
impossible, still she longs for a conversation which would be a true exchange of meaning:
We have our places, Hendrik and I, in an old old code. With fluid ease we move through the
paces of our dance (Coetzee 1977: 27).

[. . .] I only wanted to talk, I have never learned to talk with another person. It has always been
that the word has come down to me and I have passed it on. I have never known words of true
exchange [. . .]. The words I give you cannot be given back. They are words of no value.
(Coetzee 1977: 110)

On the other hand, she seems to be relieved that her familiar language role will not be shaken
by an unknown elementparticipation on the part of her servants. She comments upon her
conversation with Klein-Anna: This is not going to be a dialogue, thank God, I can stretch
my wings and fly where I will (Coetzee 1977: 110). I would not be myself if I did not feel
the seduction of the cool stone house, the comfortable old ways, the antique feudal language.
Perhaps [. . .] I am a conserver rather than a destroyer [. . .] (Coetzee 1977: 47).
Magda describes her fathers use of the pronoun we with reference to himself and
Klein Anna as an exchange of forbidden words (Coetzee 1977: 38) and corruption of
speech (Coetzee 1977: 39). She is aware of herself being trapped in the colonial discourse
which manifests itself by the specific use of language. For her it is the basis for identification
and that is why she experiences any violation of the language as corruption, as something
endangering her position. She wants to find an alternative in the network of colonial relations
but they are part of her identity to such extend that she finds it impossible:

[. . .] perhaps my rage at my father is simply rage at the violations of the old language, the
correct language, that take place when he exchanges kisses and the pronouns of intimacy with
a girl who yesterday scrubbed the floors and today ought to be cleaning the windows.
(Coetzee 1977: 47)

The impossibility of finding an alternative language makes her try other means of
communication with Hendrik: Im doing my best in this unfamiliar world of touch (Coetzee
1977: 112). However, if the reader assumes the interpretation according to which Magdas
romance with Hendrik is merely her imagination, this alternative communication also turns
out to be possible in dreams only.
The notion of the colonial language underlying the relations between the whites and
the coloreds may be read as a commentary on the present-day South African society in

4
which the colonial language still lives in peoples minds, and which is in need of reform. A
post-colonial discourse comprising new linguistic solutions has to be invented. The fact that
the actions time is so vague ([. . .] if that is the century I am in [. . .]), and that the action
takes place in such an insignificant place makes this interpretation even more plausible
(Coetzee 1977: 69). This reveals something about the nature of the linguistic relations, namely
how deeply rooted they are and how quixotic any attempt to change them is. It shows how the
oppositions rooted in the very use of pronouns make it impossible to free oneself from
defining ones identity in relation to the other.

3.1 Agency in Metafiction

In his analysis Barthes also focuses on the situation when the narrator is the I, which leads to
the confusion between the subject of the discourse and the subject of the reported action (one
who is speaking today is the same as one who acted yesterday, which is impossible) (Barthes
1972: 162). In the analysis of the first person narration an attempt has to be made to
distinguish the psychological person from the person performing the act of writing/telling.
When the narrator recounts what has happened to him, the I who recounts is not the same I as
the one that is recounted. As it is impossible to create something preceding language and to
describe it later on, the use of the sign I always refers to me in the instant of talkingan act
which is always new. When a text reaches the interlocutor it is always a stable sign, a product
of a complete code. Barthes calls an attempt to determine the person through the instance of
discourse an instance of nyn-egocentrism. iii Magdas narration is prone to the nyn-egocentric
analysis; the narrating I not always corresponds with Magdas I, which calls the readers
attention, suggesting a presence of some agency other than herself. It is led in such a manner
that it draws attention to its constructedness. This is what the metafictional writing also
doesit draws attention to the presence transcendent to the narrative and to the very process
of writing (Waugh 1984).
Many of Magdas utterances balance on the verge of metafictionality. She ponders
upon her existence as a fictional character; she analyses situations she was put into. It seems
that she is aware of the requirements of different conventions and the necessity of complying
with them: Character is fate, she says (Coetzee 1977: 5). Magda tries to rebel against the
convention of the plaasroman and her role as the colonizers daughter, but finally she realizes
that the rebellion is pointless. She also realizes that she is being played with; the convention
changes and she, as a character, is put in situations she is not prepared to deal with:

So all of a sudden here I am at the centre of a field of moral tensions, they are no less, for
which my upbringing has barely prepared me. What am I going to do? [. . .] A crime has been
committed. There must be a criminal. Who is the guilty one? I am at a terrible disadvantage.
Forces within me belonging to the psychology I so abhor will take possession of me and drive
me to believe that I willed the crime, that I desired by fathers death (Coetzee 1977: 76)

The situation is often beyond her control, nevertheless, she seems to be aware she will have to
submit to the convention of a crime-story as well as to that of psychological novel or any
other one chosen by the real author of her narrative. In those instances the agency is taken
away from Magda and falls in the hands of the writer. This is also where the discourse is
visible the most clearly. At this meta-level the author comments on the social codes and
symbols which are also a convention, shared by the characters of the novel.
Magdas narration produces the instance of nyn-egocentrism also through the use of
other techniques which allow focusing on actions on which she has no influence. The first
technique is the recurrent use of Im the one-phrase in which she refers to herself in the third
person. By doing so she distances herselfthe narrator from herselfthe character; she refers

5
to herself as to the other. Another technique is what can be referred to as the metonymic
representation: reducing herself and other characters of the story to their body parts, focussing
on details while representing the surrounding reality. Magda frequently calls the readers
attention to the constructed nature of the narrative when she describes what happened to her
focusing on the specific part of her body: my stomach revolts, my heart hammers, my
mouth floods with salt (Coetzee 1977: 55). Body parts become something external to the
character. It is no longer I but it that is central to the narrative. What is more, by the use of
such a representation of herself, Magda describes actions which are normally beyond ones
control. As she elaborately narrates physical reactions she creates the gap between the
narrator and the character and forces the reader to notice the narration. Her lack of control
over the narrative is also expressed by the use of passive constructions such as: I am hit or
I have been dealt with which present the character-narrator as somebody on whom the
action is performed (Coetzee 1977: 62-3).

3.2 Agency and the Use of Passive

Generally there are not many elaborate passive structures in Magdas narrative, however short
passive constructions, not followed by the by-phrase introducing the agent, are quite common
in the novel. In those cases Magda looses control over reality in favour of an inanimate agent
and becomes an object. The external world affects her and takes over the command over her
life: The wind still whistles through me, but softly now. The noise filters into me (Coetzee
1977: 60). This narrative device draws the readers attention to the surrounding nature. It
illustrates the impact of landscape upon the life of the Little Karoo inhabitants. Such is the
power of the veld that it determines peoples disposition: Sometimes I too feel full of sorrow.
I am sure it is the landscape that makes us feel like that (Coetzee 1977: 124). Its vastness and
emptiness escalates the emotional emptiness brought about by Protestant austerity and the
colonial constraints.
The metafictional instances of reflecting upon convention mentioned in the previous
section are also achieved by the use of passive constructions. In this case it also serves
conveying the actions which are beyond the agents control. Sentences like: I have been left
lying about, forgotten, dusty, like an old shoe, or when I have been used, used as a tool, to
bring the house to order, to regiment the servants, may illustrate the situation of Magda as a
character granted the right to reflect upon her place in the convention (Coetzee 1977: 44).
This meta-textual use of passive is a technique underlining the fact that actions are undertaken
beyond the agents control and as such restrict the characters subjectivity. The technique
allows to stress the importance of the factors determining Magdas identity: discourse of the
author, which she as a character has to carry, as well as the social codes ruling the farm and its
inhabitants in the Little Karoo (landscape, nature, history, nation, gender).
The absence of the agent may be read as a commentary on the condition of the
speakers society. Passive constructions reflect the discourse and draw attention to the
problem of responsibility. It is the case in some passages of Magdas narrative. In entry forty
four the passive is used: All my life I have been left lying about [. . .] I have been used, used
as a tool [. . .] (Coetzee 1977: 44). The effect of the omission of the agent in this fragment is
that the reader has to reflect upon the deep structure of the sentence and to ask the question
about the one that has used the character as a tool. The next question arising is about the
reason for the agents absence and about the narrators choice for the passive construction.
Few answers are possible. On the level of the plot Magda was left and used by her father or
by Hendrik. On the level of the story she may also have been left behind and abused by the
society, becoming a victim of the history of her nation. On the metalevel, she was used by the

6
author to transmit both discourse and convention. The passive suggests her inability to escape
all those agents.

4 Focalisation

Also the focalisation in the novel reveals the presence of the post-colonial discourse
underlying Magdas narration. In the colonial writing, paraphrased dialogues allow the
narrator bigger amount of freedom and bigger control over his/her characters and their words.
Such a use of dialogues allows manipulation of utterances in order to smuggle an ideology,
and as such makes the discourse clearly visible. In In the Heart of the Country all the
dialogues are quoted but, paradoxically, they also allow the reader to get a glimpse of the
underlying discourse. The marginalized are allowed to speak, but they make no use of this
freedom. Neither Klein-Anna nor Hendrik will break the established rules. The post-colonial
voice of the author is heard again, commenting on the impossibility of freeing oneself from
the socially imposed codes of behaviour.
The narrator seemingly overlaps with the character of Magda. It is Magda who
recounts her story. What strikes the reader is how she is preoccupied exclusively with
herselfin the major part of the text, what happens to her involves only herself. There are
hardly any other characters occurring in her narrative in the time when it is being produced.
They are restricted to Magdas father, Hendrik and Klein Anna. A few other characters (old
servants, Anna and Jacob, the little boy) merely cross the narrative. Others are not there
anymore: the dead mother, the teacher and children from the school existing no more. Not
only is the whole narration led by Magda, but it is also focalised through her eyes only. When
one scrutinizes the narrative, however, one discovers that the narrative voice is not
homogenous at all.
The narrative voice in In the Heart of the Country can be analysed with reference to
categories introduced by Coetzee himself in his critical essay on Becketts Malloy (Coetzee
1992: 33). In Coetzees novel, the reader has to do with a diary and the first person subjective
narrator, whose knowledge, in the traditional, realist convention, is restricted. Here the first
person narrator does not comply with these rules. Some of the passages contain information
that is beyond the scope of the first person narrators knowledge: Night falls, and my father
and his new wife cavort in the bedroom. Hand in hand they stroke her womb, watching for it
to flicker and blossom. They twine; she laps him her flesh; they chuckle and moan. These are
fine times for them (Coetzee 1977: 3). These facts Magda cannot know. She describes these
scenes although one may assume that she cannot see them. She becomes an omniscient
narrator. The most extreme emanation of that is visible in the last sentence where she enters
the consciousness of both her father and his new wife. One may ascribe this deeper
knowledge to Magdas working imagination. Also the use of the present tense contributes to
this effect. One feels that the scene described is not a real one but a one unfolding in Magdas
head. This assumption is never confirmed, however. The first person narrator never uses
words like in my imagination, I imagine, it seems to me, they must, which would
separate subjective knowledge from presuppositions. Consequently, this narrative technique
confuses the reader and, in the way characteristic of metafiction, calls his/her attention to the
very text. It does not allow one to merge with the fictional reality; the reader is forced to stay
outside the text, remembering that it is being produced (Waugh 1984).
Magda also transgresses her formal capacities commenting on her position as a
spinster, comparing herself to other spinsters: The colonies are full of girls like that, but
none, I think, so extreme as I (Coetzee 1977: 1), one [mother] such as any girl in my
position would be likely to make up for herself (Coetzee 1977: 2); describing the
circumstances of her mothers death, which she cannot remember: The doctor came too late.

7
Summoned by a messenger on a bicycle, he had to come trundling along forty miles of farm-
track in his donkey-cart. When he arrived my mother already lay composed on her deathbed,
patient, bloodless, apologetic (Coetzee 1977: 2); mentioning her fathers feelings towards her
mother: Her husband never forgave her for failing to bear him a son (Coetzee 1977: 2). By
doing so she not only displays more knowledge about the world than she is likely to posses,
but also claims access to other peoples thoughts.
Also intrusions like the one in entry number five suggest the incongruity of the
narrative voice: (But why did he not come on horseback? But were there bicycles in those
days?) (Coetzee 1977: 2). One may wonder whose these words are. They may be rhetorical
questions asked by Magda herself, they may be rhetorical devices showing her unreliability as
a narrator, but they may also be utterances of the author himself, showing up in the text,
wondering if he did not go against the grain of historical data, trying to choose a more
appropriate version. Also utterances like: Character is fate may be read as instances of
metafictional discourse. The fact that the reader is not sure who actually speaks forces him/her
to reflect upon the source of utterances, does not allow him/her to take them for granted.
Using this technique, the author makes the reader familiar with the discourse underlying the
utterances. Using his character, he shows what the prevailing perception of the world is and,
by means of irony, undermines it.
There are many devices revealing unreliability of Magda as narrator. Explicitly, she
points out to her lapses of memory: or perhaps [. . .] that is also possible. More detail I
cannot give unless I begin to embroider, for I was not watching (Coetzee 1977: 1). Besides,
she provides the reader with many alternative versions of one story. This technique is
frequently used to underline the textual and constructed character of a novel, Cortazars
Hopscotch (2001) being one of the most prominent examples. It reflects the impossibility of
conveying reality with words, as well as the assumption that none of the versions is privileged
as the true one. Made unreliable, Magda, the representative of the colonial rule, serves as a
metonymy of the whole colonial discourse.
Magda frequently uses conditional structuresmight have/could havereflecting
uncertainty, suggesting speculation, possibility, not an assertion. Some of the sentences strike
the reader as strange, unnatural because of their syntax: She is the new wife, therefore the
old one is dead (Coetzee 1977: 2), my fathers first wife, my mother or She was to frail
and gentle to give birth to the rough rude boy-heir my father wanted, therefore she died
(Coetzee 1977: 2). Such utterances, which according to the rules of the mathematical logic are
deprived of sense, reoccur in the text. Because of the reversed order, they produce estranging
effect. Just like the repetitions, they strike the reader as unnatural. Also the function of these
estrangements to some extend coincides with that of repetitionsthey draw readers attention
to these utterances, encouraging the search for the meaning hidden behind them. They may
also point out to the stereotypical features of womens narrations in which emotions prevail,
which are therefore unreliable. On the other hand, they may praise this kind of non-rational
perception. The author may present feelings and intuition, associated with the womanly
domain, as an alternative to reasonthe attribute of the patriarchal rule responsible for the
colonial oppression.

5 Temporality and Frequency

Also the temporality of In the Heart of the Country is carefully arranged. Although there are
not many instances of analepsis or foreshadowing, their use is significant. Anachronies give
the reader an insight into Magdas childhood. Instances of prolepsis operate on the level of
parallels: the arrival of the step-mother can be matched with the arrival of Hedricks wife; the
fathers affair with Klein-Anna corresponds with Magdas affair with Hendrik; Jacob and

8
Annas departure anticipates that of Hendrik and Klein-Anna. The proleptic character of these
events is not very plainthey operate on the level of association. What they do, however,
they may serve as landmarks of the boundary between the real and the imaginary.
Foreshadowing fragments, told in the future tense in the first person, strengthen the
impression of fictionality.
The novel makes use of those narrative devices which stress the primacy of narration
over the story itself, which serves to highlight the discourse it conveys. The story covers a
relatively small number of events, which can be grouped into parallels, with Magdas
patricide as the central axis for the pairs of events: the arrival of Magdas fathers new wife
and the arrival of Klein-Anna; the romance with Klein-Anna and Magdas romance with
Hendrik; Anna and Jacob leaving the farm, Hendrik and Klein-Anna leaving the farm. The
reader quickly comes to the conclusion that the events lack the cause-and-effect relationship.
These parallels imply that the text rejects the mimetic, realistic method of representation. The
effect is that of constructedness. The reader does not know which events happen indeed (on
the level of the story), and which are outcomes of Magdas fantasy. As the events exclude
each other by logic, the reader is tempted to assume an interpretation and to label some events
as fictional and some as true (or, in other words, fictional within the fiction and true within the
fiction). Considering logical circumstances, some events are more likely to be imaginary than
the others, one of them being the new wifes arrival, as we know not what happens to her at
the endshe disappears from the story altogether. Another one is Magdas patricide, as we
meet baas Johannes alive at the end of the story. Also her affaire with Hendrik as well as her
fathers affaire with Klein-Anna may be imaginary.
The following interpretation based on the close reading approach to the text shows that
the events which are supposedly imaginary are narrated mimetically, presented as scenes, and
are narrated with the excessive use of narrative devices connected with frequency, whereas
those real involve the narrative devices constructing the temporality and agency of the text.
The focus placed on those elements shows how the effect of fantasy is achieved through
language. The events in which one tends to believe are, from the narrative point of view,
mostly instances of either retrospection narrated in the past tense (I grew up with the
servants children. [. . .] With the servants children I searched the veld for khamma-roots, fed
cowsmilk [sic] to the orphaned lambs [. . .] [Coetzee 1977: 7]), or fragments conveyed in
present perfect concerning situations which still last: In the house shaped by the destiny like
an H I have lived all my life [. . .] (Coetzee 1977: 3). It is worth noting, however, that they
are important not so much as facts from Magdas life, but as ideas conveying the general
knowledge about the life on the farm in the Little Karoo and the reality of South Africa.
The reader tends to distrust the events which Magda narrates elaborately, on which she
ponders endlessly. These are the events narrated mimetically in the present tense. They form
an overwhelming majority. The present tense is here associated with the unfolding of
Magdas fantasy. The impression is created that the time of telling and that of the events are
the same. The narrative technique typically used together with the first person narration to
depict characters thoughts is the stream of consciousness. The effect is additionally
strengthened by the fact that all Magdas philosophical divagations are also expressed in a
similar way: in the present tense, in a disrupted, chaotic, illogical and obsessive manner.
Another narrative hint which may make the reader consider some events as real and
other ones as imaginary is frequency. The technique often used in In the Heart of the Country
is the use of repetitions. The repeated event is immediately associated with a reoccurring
obsessive thought. Frequency is also used in a slightly different wayalong with some other
linguistic techniques (general statements, being an important device) pointing to the
repetitiveness of certain social practices, like bringing new wives home or affaires with
colored servants, which depicts the colonial reality of the South African farm. The narrator

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repeats parts of sentences, whole sentences in slightly rearranged form, or the same words
within one entry: Her eyes are black and shrewd like two berries, two shrewd black berries.
[. . .] I watch her mouth mesmerized. Then she turns on me the wide smiling mouth and the
shrewd black eyes (Coetzee 1977: 1). Sometimes the repetitions take the form of a collection
of synonymous expressions growing in intensity:

I was not watching [. . .] I should have been standing ready to greet them with smiles and
offers of tea, but I was not. I was absent. I was not missed. My father pays no attention to my
absence. To my father I have been an absence all my life. [. . .] I have been a zero, null, a
vacuum [. . .]. (Coetzee 1977: 2)

Frequently the repeated phrases transgress borders of one entry and they appear in the
following one:

From one of the farthest oubliettes of memory I extract a faint grey image, the image of a faint
grey frail gentle loving mother huddled on the floor [. . .], and in the very next entry: [. . .]
my mother, a frail gentle loving mother who lived under my fathers thumb [. . .] (Coetzee
1977: 2).

Some repetitions are even significantly distanced from one another, but they reappear more
often: Magda tells about her father bringing his new wife in the very first entry: They came
clip-clop across the flats in the donkey-cart [. . .] (Coetzee 1977: 1). The very same sentence
reappears several pages further in entry thirty eight, when she tells about Hendrik bringing his
wife home (Coetzee 1977: 18). The effect created by the use of repetitions is that of the Greek
chorus, commenting on the situation, repeating the most important utterances. Through this
procedure the reader sees how Magda perceives reality, what her obsessions are, what attracts
her attention, what haunts her. It constitutes the subjective character of the novel. What is
more, because of the proliferated repetitions the reader cannot forget about the presence of the
narrator, he/she is invited to participate in the novel, to judge the situation and to make his/her
personal sense of it. Setting focus on one seemingly unimportant detail also strengthens the
obsessive character of the whole novel, which makes the reader feel uneasy. It urges him/her
to look closer at the detail, to ponder on the meaning of the repeated word or sentence, to
search for some hidden senses.

6 Imagery and Mimetic Representation

Magda relates herself to the world either through her senses or through words. As a
consequence in In the Heart of the Country one can trace two approaches to mimetic
representation: one filtered through the individuals consciousness, expressed in words and
therefore tainted with the social symbols; the otherthe primary, sensory one, which tries to
stay as much as possible on the sensory sensations side. The second approach finds its
realization in the sensory imagery. Descriptions of smells, colours, sounds and textures take
an important place in Magdas narrative. Those images often produce the effect of enormous
intensity: [. . .] the light is no longer green but grey, and it is by footsteps and voices that I
have been jolted awake. Confused my heart hammers, foul and sticky from the afternoons
torpor, my mouth floods with salt (Coetzee 1977: 55). At the same time the images produced
out of the registered sensations appeal to the readers own senses, engaging all of them:

The yard is awash with silver-blue light. The whitewashed walls of the storehouse and
wagonhouse shine a ghostly pallor. Far away in the lands the blades of the windmill glint. The
groan and thud of the piston reaches me faint but clear on the night breeze [. . .]. One sound

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 that I hear [. . .] is the sound of a distempered dog whining and growling and panting without
cease. (Coetzee 1977: 65)

Detailed descriptions make the scene unfold in front of the readers eyes. Reoccurring
onomatopoetic phrases like clip-clop, scrub-scrub-scrub, slog slog slog, pique, pique,
pique, weave, weave allow to overcome the flatness of the text and creating its theatrical
allure.
This very special kind of imagery not only stresses Magdas sensitivity to the
surrounding nature. It also places the emphasis on the moments when she experiences the
world with the minimal participation of the ideologically contaminated thought. It illustrates
her reliance on the world free from social constraints. By this, senses are opposed to the
thought and words constituting her monologuedependent on her social background.
Also images of the body parts responsible for sensory perception reoccur in the course
of the narrative. The characters of Magdas story (and she herself) are associated with or
reduced to their body-parts. Examples of such a representation can be found in numerous
descriptions of Magdas step-mother who is associated with her full lips. The image is so
intense that it seems to Magda that the woman observes her with the lips: She watches me
with full, ironical lips (Coetzee 1977: 2). This kind of imagery contributes to the
estrangement and paranoia effect. It accentuates the utmost subjectivity of Magdas
perception and, along with the narrative devices, casts doubt on her reliability as a narrator.

7. Conclusion

The demanding and playful character of Coetzees novel is essential for carrying of the
complex message which comprises critique of the colonial discourse and commentary upon
the post-colonizers place in South Africa. The most outstanding result of employing the
complex narration is producing a displaced subject, a character who involuntary participates
in colonization as a result of being dependent on history, culture, and language. Magda is
presented as deprived of autonomy: as a character she is dependent on the author and the
literary convention which he chooses for her; as a lonely woman on a South African farm she
has to comply with the Afrikaner tradition and patriarchal order which it implies. Although
she makes attempts at transgressing the language that encloses her in the master-role, she
fails. As a result she is doomed to non-existence as she cannot form a stable identity through
the reflections of the self thrown back by others (Attwell 1993: 58). Her lack of control over
her life, is accentuated by the use of passive constructions and shifting agency. The authors
diagnosis is pessimistan individual is unable to subvert the governing social norm; his/her
rebellion is futile. Magdas loss of autonomy as a subject makes her a victim of grand-
narratives and frees her from responsibility and the colonial guilt. By portraying the
representative of the white, privileged part of the colonial society as a victim, Coetzee points
to the possibility of marginalizing not only the colonized but also the colonizer.
The narratives complexity also carries a less straightforward message. By presenting
how grand-narratives of language, history and culture overpower Magda, the narrative devices
reveal mechanisms of the colonial reality and pinpoint the consequences they have for the
functioning of the society. As a result In the Heart of the Country may be read as universal
critique of colonialism. At the same time it is streaked with elements pointing directly to the
Afrikaner cultural heritage. Although nearly allegorical, it reflects the authors concern about
the situation in his own country. Written in 1977, the novel is a rather pessimist diagnosis of
the apartheid society and a warning against the possible consequences of the segregation
policy. What the colonial society lacks and needs is a unifying culture, a common frame of
reference that would prevent estrangement and alienation of its subjects.

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Notes
i
This article is based on a chapter from my M.A thesis written under supervision of Anna Cicho
Ph.D.
ii
The term colored, used in South Africa with reference to people of mixed racial origin, will be
used within quotation marks throughout this article as it may be regarded as insulting (Lenta 2002:
160).
iii
nyn (from the Greek nun) means now.

Works Cited
Attwell, David. 1993. The Labyrinth of my History: Dusklands and In the Heart of the
Country. J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing. Berkeley:
Univ. of California Press. 35-69.
Barthes, Roland. 1972. The Structuralist Activity. Eds. Richard T. de George and
Fernande M. de George. 148-154.
Coetzee, J.M. 1977. In the Heart of the Country. London: Vintage.
. 1992. Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews. ed. David Attwell. London:
Harvard Univ. Press.
Cohan, Steven and Linda M. Shires. 1988. Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of
Narrative Fiction. London: Routledge.
Lenta, Margaret. 2002. An Analysis of In the Heart of the Country, by J.M. Coetzee.
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 162. Ed. Tom Burns and Jeffrey W. Hunter.
Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group.
Pears, David. 1999. Wittgenstein. Trans. Katarzyna i Jacek Gurczyscy. Warszawa:
Prszyski i S-ka.
Waugh, Patricia. 1984. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction.
London: Routledge.

Ewa Dynarowicz M.A.

Department of Dutch and Afrikaans
School of English
Adam Mickiewicz University
al. Niepodlegoci 4
61-874 Pozna, Poland
ijwa@ifa.amu.edu.pl

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