Dusklands (Criticism)

Criticism

Joyce Hart

Hart is a freelance writer and author of several books. In this essay, Hart compares the two novellas contained in Coetzee's Dusklands in search of the not so obvious similarities that link the two stories together.

None other of J. M. Coetzee's works except for his first novel, Dusklands, consist of two separate works combined to create a whole. One might argue that this was done haphazardly or with only a weak link connecting the pieces. The works, after all, take place in two separate countries, at two separate times. The protagonists live in very disparate circumstances and come to terms with their personal challenges in very dissimilar fashions. But the connections between the two separate parts of this book do take form. Similarities between the protagonists' personalities and their situations are evident. Themes that appear in one story are reflected in the other. And the actions and motives of both protagonists can be defined in relatively parallel details. After exploring these traits of what at first appear to be two unrelated tales, it is difficult to see this novel as anything but a cohesive project.

The protagonist of the first novella, Eugene Dawn, is a rather meek person, living in a quiet environment. He spends most of his life in the library or in a lonely corner of his drab office. His work entails the intellect but little physical exertion and no travel. Immediate danger to his body is nonexistent. In opposition is the protagonist of the second novella, Jacobus Coetzee, the tamer of the wilds; the elephant hunter; the macho slave master — a man who lives in danger of physical harm almost every day of his life. The former lives in the twentieth century in a quiet, modern town, where he ponders war but has little to do with it. In contrast, Jacobus lives two hundred years earlier in a time of colonial expansion, which demands that in order to survive, one must live by one's wits and superior physical conditioning. So how do these two men relate to one another? Where and how do their personalities connect? What could they possibly have in common?

One of the first and possibly most evident characteristics these protagonists share is their isolation. Eugene, although married and a father, demonstrates very slim, if any, emotional involvement with his family. He admits that he is addicted to his marriage, but he also states that he is not in love with his wife. She is an annoyance to him. The only time he is slightly attracted to her is when Eugene believes she is having an affair with her doctor. It excites him to think that another man might be enamored of his wife, or at least physically lustful of her. And Eugene's relationship to his son is even more flimsy. The boy belongs to his wife, as far as Eugene is concerned. Although he kidnaps Martin, he spends very little time actually communicating with him and more often complains that the boy is a young child who craves attention. Away from home, Eugene has very little contact with the people around him. And when he does meet with fellow employees, it is more often in silence. He listens to his supervisor but has little to say to him, even though the dialogue in his head is enormous. Of all the people around him, it is the quiet, mouse-like figure of Harry, the clerk in the library that Eugene relates to the most. And this relationship is fleeting, at best. Eugene is so busy, and therefore so distracted, in analyzing everyone around him, trying to figure out how he either fits into the equation or second-guessing how others perceive him that he devotes little time to actually sharing anything with the people around him. He is isolated by his fear and his lack of confidence. He lives inside his head in a tiny room that becomes more and more distorted.

Although Jacobus, unlike Eugene, appears to have little fear and enough self-confidence to believe that no matter what life-threatening circumstances he might find himself in, he can turn it into a game of possibilities and become excited by the challenges, he too lives in a very isolated world. Not only does he live in a place that he refers to as having limitless boundaries, a place where one can walk for days and never see another human being, he also, like Eugene, lives inside of his head. The room he lives in is also very narrow and distorted. Because of the life-threatening challenges that Jacobus faces every day, he has come to believe that he is superior to those around him. He faces death on a continual basis and eludes it. He has survived because of his outstanding intellect, he concludes. Others perish in front of him, because of their stupidity or lack of perception. Like Eugene, Jacobus has no friends. The people around him are merely tools that he uses to get what he wants or needs. He has no one to talk to. The one time he attempts to talk to Klawer, one of his workers, Jacobus dismisses the man's responses as trivial. No one understands him, or so Jacobus believes. If given a choice (which he is given, actually, but which he refuses to fully act on), Jacobus would like to live wild in the desert, naked except for his shoes, and very much alone. He refers to his life as a farmer as one of boredom, a life of practiced and repetitive routine. Jacobus's counterpart, Eugene, also mentions how bored he is with his office job. And yet both men remain in their positions, alone and isolated by their thoughts. Their thoughts, through which these men make themselves feel superior to their fellow beings, keep them locked in a world that has no space for camaraderie. They walk their paths as if they are the only truly human people on earth.

The stories that surround these two men also contain similarities. There is the concept of propaganda that unites them, for example. Eugene works on a theory of propaganda, which he hopes the government will use in the war in Vietnam. This work is the focal point of the story, around which Eugene at once excels, flounders, and finally deteriorates. The propaganda is presented as a way of finding victory in Vietnam; a way of suppressing the desires of the Vietnamese people to fight for their land and their way of life. In a comparable way, Jacobus also deals in propaganda. He does so when he deals with the African men who work for him as well as when he must face strangers, such as the Namaqua people. With his own workers, Jacobus continually reinforces the concept that he is the master and they are the slaves. He does this in words and in actions. These men could easily overthrow him at any time and yet they do not because they believe his propaganda. When Jacobus is in danger of being toppled by the Namaqua people, he praises them for their goodness and charity, claims that he does not fully believe. He tells them these things only to pacify them, to win their temporary willingness to share their hunting fields and to leave Jacobus's supplies in tact. This is a more personal propaganda that Jacobus uses, but its purpose is the same as the propaganda that Eugene creates. Both men's aims are to further exploit another group of people, to win them over, and change their ways. Both stories, in some ways, revolve around the concept of using propaganda to colonize a foreign country.

There is also a lot of blood and guts, rather graphically detailed, in the two separate stories. Eugene, for instance, carries with him, at all times, photographs of severed heads and other atrocities of war. He carries them, he says, so his wife will not meddle in his business. But he also takes the pictures out from time to time to study them. He is somewhat fascinated by them. It is because of these photographs, his wife tells him, that he is changing. The effects of the war in Vietnam have made him a different person, one she knows less well. Later, when Eugene suffers a mental breakdown, he takes a knife and stabs his son. The details of this stabbing are blurred because of Eugene's state of mind, but nonetheless, the reader can imagine the blood and suffering of Eugene's son.

Jacobus's story is more specifically graphic. Killing abounds throughout the telling of his adventures. Animals are killed for food and for profit. People are murdered and tortured. Even in Jacobus's illness, the putrid details of infection, nausea, and diarrhea are reported. He tells of having seen a man roasted. And later, in a struggle with a group of children, (somewhat akin to Eugene stabbing his son), Jacobus bites off a child's ear. After his men betray him, Jacobus returns to the Namaqua village and takes pleasure in slowly killing his former slave, the young boy Plaatje. These bloody deeds are visible signatures in both pieces. They are written in the same tone — objectively and simply. Little emotion is expressed in any of these scenes, whether it is a father wounding his son or a master massacring his slave. The sordid details are presented much as a doctor might record the fine points of a surgical operation. In other words, there is a detachment between the perpetrator and the person he attacks.

And finally, there is the motif of dominance. Even meek Eugene sees himself as one who dominates. He admits, on one hand, that he is insecure, but at the same time (or shortly afterward), he claims his superiority. Eugene is smarter than his supervisor, he says, even though he quakes in his presence. His boss does not understand him or his work. Eugene is the only one who sees the truth, who envisions the true path. He is also better than his wife, who is lost in her depression. His only relationship with his son is that of master. He takes his son to the motel with him and does not in any way attempt to create a child's world for his son's benefit. Rather, the son must adjust to his father's life. And to further prove his dominance, when the police come to reclaim the child, Eugene punctures the young boy in an attempt to further deflate him. The police, like everyone else in Eugene's world, do not understand. "The people in front of me are growing smaller and therefore less and less dangerous," Eugene says, just before the police club him over the head.

Jacobus's goal is also to dominate. He plans on wiping out everyone who stands in his way. He and his fellow farmers clear the land of the Bushmen so they can claim the land for themselves. This is the way the Boers conquer. But the Boers are not the only dominant culture. They have been driven into the interior by the British, whose aim is to conquer the Boers. Dominance, whether played out by men versus animals or man against man, is pressed forward in both of these stories through war, propaganda, slaughter, weaponry, religion, and, in some cases, just an excuse for adventure. One man tries to dominate a whole culture while another attempts to dominate his wife and child. The outcomes vary — one man successfully seeks his vengeance, while the other succeeds only in a total mental collapse. But the desires, motives, and practices of these protagonists, as well as the undertone of these two stories, link the novellas tightly together and present two sides of a compelling narrative.

Source: Joyce Hart, Critical Essay on Dusklands, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.

What Do I Read Next?

• The Complete Short Prose, 1929 – 1989 (1997) is a collection of short stories by Pulitzer Prize – winning author Samuel Beckett. Coetzee wrote his doctorate dissertation on Beckett and is sure to have been influenced by Beckett's work.
• Coetzee's writing is often compared to Franz Kafka, the great Czech author who wrote during the turn of the twentieth century. Kafka's The Trial (1925) is considered by many to be his scariest book, as protagonist Joseph K. becomes entangled in a treacherous legal system.
• While working in England as a computer programmer, Coetzee stayed in touch with literature through his studies of British author Ford Maddox Ford. The Good Soldier (1915) is one of Ford's best and saddest works. It tackles the subject of infidelity in two marriages, a topic that was more rare in its time than it is today.
• Coetzee won the Booker Prize for two of his novels. The first was Life and Times of Michael K. (1983), a story about a young but poor gardener who tries to escape the war that is raging around him; and the second was for Disgrace (1999), about a professor who falls from grace because of a brief but rather cruel affair with a student.
• Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) is an important work of postcolonial criticism. Said explains how Western people mystified the Orient — through literary, historical, and ethnographic texts — misappropriating the people of that region. The act of understanding other cultures, and writing narratives that depict those cultures, is viewed as a highly political act of power, ultimately marginalizing those who are being depicted by excluding their own voices.