Investigating Identity, Ambivalence, hybridity: A Bhabhaian Reading of J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and Disgrace

The present paper seeks to investigate J.M. Coetzee s Foe and Disgrace in terms of Homi K. Bhabha s concept of Identities/Subjectivities. Homi K. Bhabha is one of the most importantcontemporary figure in postcolonial studies; he argues that ‗‘there is always ambivalence at the site of colonial dominance. The colonizer aggressively states his superiority to thecolonized, but is always anxiously contemplating his own identity, which is never quite asstable as his aggression implies‘‘. The paper also seeks on the notion of hybridity which indicates that the practices of colonial authority is intermingling other texts and discourseswhich results in a hybridization that facilitates colonial domination. Bhabha s reading ofLacan accords well with the ambivalence he traces in various writers. It is what Lacan calls the mirror stage that is central to Bhabha s reading. Bhabha believes that ‗‘the mirror stageencapsulates what happens in colonial discourse s stereotyping productions: the mirror stage is at least a good model for the colonial situation‘‘. Bhabha suggests that like‘‘ the mirror phase the fullness of the stereotype_ its image as identity_ is always threatened by lack.‘‘ Atelling and recurring idea in Coetzee s fiction is that the force of the colonizer is formative of the identity of the colonized, something to be embraced and this paper aims to investigate this closely by using Bhabha s concepts.

کلیدواژه ها:

Ambivalence ، Apartheid ، Colonial discourse ، Hybridity ، Marginality ، Mimicry ، Stereotype ، Uncanny