Man and nonhuman environment : towards an ecocritical reading of J. M. Coetzee's life and times of Michael K

Abstract EN

The advent of ecological paradigm in literary studies is significant in our age of globalization and environmental degradation which is the result of the domination of anthropocentric values.

The lack of sign of an environmental standpoint in concurrent literary arena would seem to hint that despite its "revisionist energies" (Glotfelty xv), scholarship remains academic in the nuance of scholarly to the point of being environmentally unconscious of the outside world.

This study examines J.

M.

Coetzee's novel, Life and Times of Michael K (1983) in the context of ecocriticism.

Ecocritical reading attempts to negotiate man's relationship to non-human environment by using concepts of environmental consciousness, sense of place, and sustainable nostalgia.

Much of environmental writing excludes 'home' as an environmental site and dismisses family that works on land.

Michaels' journey to the farm in search of his mother's ancestral place and his dwelling in different places evoke entitlement, belonging, land-right issues, land tenure, and displacement.

The important questions here are whose place is earth? and where to dwell? Life and Times of Michael K, thus, seeks to subvert the narrative by which the colonist creates a sense of belonging in the land.

Michael K feels out of place every where he goes.

He recognizes himself as an outsider, an "other", and more importantly marginalized.

He confronts his right over land where he belongs.

He is always subjugated to the surveillance of the state.

The question of land rights is not only restricted to a non-native but also to a native like Michael K who, being a black native, is questioned about his whereabouts.

The Conclusion sums up all the key issues in the study.