International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 5, Issue 1, Feb 2015, 23-30
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MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AND GLOBALIZATION IN TWENTIETH CENTURY

LITERATURE IN JOHN MAXWELL COETZEES NOVELS
LILY AGARWAL
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, Arya College of Engineering & IT, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

ABSTRACT
This paper explores the intricate interrelationships between discourses and struggles of identity and the multiple
processes associated with increasing globalisation in the modern age. Globalisation is often exclusively associated with
worldwide economic integration and the emergence of a borderless global market. However, globalisation also involves
sweeping changes on the social, cultural and political terrains. Globalisation furthermore entails apparently contradictory
processes of, among others, homogenisation and universilisation on the one hand and localisation and differentiation on the
other. As John Maxwell Coetzee points out through his novels for example in Disgrace,(1999) winner of booker prize,
I found that the protagonist David Lurie struggles for his identity just because of multiculturalism in his society. He is
dismissed from his teaching position, after which he takes refuge on his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape. For a time,
his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power
in the country is shifting. Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life, he is forced to come to terms with the
aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped too and impregnated and he is violently assaulted.
In Coetzees other novel Dusklands, published in 1974 in South Africa, also shares a common theme which is an
exploration of power, or the lack of it, depending on whose side you are on. Isnt about the power to rule that is fought for
in the war, or the power that is exerted in prejudice against a group of people who are considered less than human.
Isnt about the power of the mind to conceptualize how to demean a nation of people; how to propagandize one's beliefs; or
how to rationalize one's horrible and disgraceful actions. And it is about the power of survival. But power is not the only
theme. Dusklands is about the power of extensive military machines or the dominance exhibited by white supremacy or the
exploitation of colonization. So continuing with this, It is the contradictory processes of globalisation which has led to
wide ranging changes in the processes of identity formation that have, in turn, resulted not only in flourishing of discourses
on identity, but also in struggles of identity involving various minority and marginalised groups. Apart from exploring
various definitions of identity, discourses of and struggles of identity are discussed on five levels, namely the individual,
sub national, national, supranational and global levels. Attention is furthermore given to the role of the media and
information and communication technologies in these struggles and the implications for policy-making within the media
and communications sector. The far reaching implications for Africa and South Africa in particular, are furthermore
considered.

KEYWORDS: Globalization in Twentieth Century Literature, Dusklands, Socontinuing, Marginalised

INTRODUCTION
This paper explores cultural identity within the current era of globalization. For the purpose of this discussion,
cultural identity broadly refers to the shared beliefs and behaviors of a group, that form the basis for creating meaning for
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Lily Agarwal

the persons who count themselves to be a part of the culture. While changes in cultures are ongoing and inevitable,
globalization has facilitated greater transfer of ideas from all areas of the world, and the result has been a more rapid
change in cultures than was conceivable before technological development. The continuous evolution in technology,
medicine, international relations, travel and cultural transmission over especially the last two decades of the twentieth
century has resulted in a highly interdependent global village, where norms and practices are more easily capable of
being shared. These developments have been directly associated with and in fact have defined the concept of globalization.
Culture is arguably the dimension of human practices in which globalization can be most directly seen and in which
persons all over the world experience the globalizing process.
These changes in cultures across the world are normally analyzed with various levels of optimism or pessimism.
On the former outlook, globalization allows for a constant interplay between cultures and the result is that there are
positive developments that occur for both the receiving and sending culture. The pessimistic view is that cultural change is
unidirectional, flowing out to other areas of the world, with the aim of strengthening the economic advantage of the
sending countries. Whichever position is taken, however, there is no doubt that that there are ensuing changes in the
cultures. It has also been seen the way in which globalization has been theorized as impacting on cultural practices by
briefly exploring the notion of identity, arguing that identity is a point from which one interprets the world. From there, a
discussion of cultural identity and change will lay the framework for discussing cultural identity in the era of rampant
globalization. The final sections of the paper will look specifically at the Africans situation and the other burning
examples which are useful as a case in point for arguing that a specific organizing structure in the culture will serve a
significant mediating role in how the changes that result from globalization will occur.
Impact of Globalization and Diverse Culture on Individual Identity
It is fair to say that the impact of globalization in the cultural sphere has, most generally, been viewed in light.
Typically, it has been associated with the destruction and generation of cultural identities, victims of the accelerating
encroachment of a homogenized, westernized, consumer culture. The impact of globalization is worldwide.
The globalization brought changes in the cultural relations that exist among countries. Thus, these relations have been
denominating through the cultural power that also exist in this kind of discourse. Nowadays what specifies what a country
is, its how it deals with the so called superiority of the first world countries, those that control and keep their partners
underneath the cultural power games like they were puppets of the post colonial system. Thats what were all living,
a new type of cultural colonialism, played by multifaceted cultural identities that relation themselves with their new
metropolis. It has been already mentioned that were dealing with a certain kind of discourse, and how it works is the
focus of our attention. The Cultural Studies are used as the background of how a critical (theory) point of view of the
contemporary world works in the changes brought by the globalization. For the sake of the modernity and progress,
the top layer of the society dictates the rules of how belonging and being part of this group: you partially lose and change
what you are, and become what they want you to be.
There are however more positive views of the impact of the cultural dimension of globalization. Enhanced travel
and communication opportunities can be seen as allowing for people to see and experience other cultures, which helps in
the appreciation of differences and people may then work to enhance the chance of survival of these cultures. Through
television and movies, one is able to appreciate also the diversity of cultures across the world, since persons are sometimes
exposed to programming from outside of the dominant Western European and American landscape. Additionally,
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

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Euro-American movie and television producers may try to incorporate other cultural ideas into their productions. The result
of these will be truly a entertainment global village.
The potential exists for a situation where two or more cultures may meet in the same space. When there is such a
meeting, the dominant culture is the one that is generally the target culture, that which is to be achieved.
The Reflection of Globalization and Identity Crisis in the Selected Novels of J. M. Coetzee
With taking the reference of J. M. Coetzee, a South-African novelist, translator, and critic, who was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003? He is the first novelist to win the Booker Prize two times, for his famous novels Life
and Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999. J. M. Coetzee has given us a splendid novel Youth presents the
struggle and conflicts of an inhabitant surviving in different Countries Coetzee has used his own experiences and diasporic
sensibility. The mental condition of the displaced immigrants has caught the imagination of several novelists. Youth
indicates that Coetzee still feels like an outsider, though the ending of the novel leaves a ray of hope for readers. Coetzee
has long explored themes of exile, isolation and the effects of colonialism on psyche in his literature. It cannot be said that
he should be considered a diasporic writer in a literal sense, but he is always one of the first writers mentioned in any
general discussion of the African Diaspora. Andrew Gurr has described this theme of diasporic receptivity argues:
Deracination exile and alienation in varying forms are the conditions of existence for the modern writer over.
The basic response of such conditions is search for identity, the quest for home, through self discovery or self-realization
(14).
Coetzees writings evidence the exiled life of individuals and language toward multi-cultural and liquid identity.
He is always worried with the subjects like variety of dislocation and migration, exile and disorienting experience in the
explosive and disconcerting realities of the postcolonial world. Coetzee has created the Diasporic characters like John and
other characters. These characters experience displacement and nostalgia in the alien land.
Youth consists all of Coetzees thematic concerns like search for identity, cultural dislocation, isolation and
alienation. Youth presents the struggle and conflicts of inhabitants surviving in different Countries. The novels of Coetzee
describes that numerous people and their sense of alienation, homelessness and modernity, bitter experiences missing a
sense of feel right. They may yet find themselves about to make struggle form their existence in order to achieve their
personal identity. Pramod K. Nayar has explained:
Much of diasporic writing explores the theme of an original home. This original home as now lost-due to their
exile-is constantly worked into the imagination and myth of the displaced individual/community. Nostalgia is therefore a
key theme in diasporic writing (191).
Coetzee himself has a multi-cultural surroundings and he also cannot say to which he finally belongs. Coetzee
himself keeps a wish to have his own identity. In an interview he said, that "leaving a country is, in some respects, like the
break-up of a marriage. The novel explores colonial neurosis, multiculturalism, modernity, bitter experiences, insurgency
and the game of possession, social discrimination, changing human relation and historical relationships between people
from different cultures and backgrounds. It deals with the themes of alienation and migration, of cross-cultural drifting.
The novel is a brilliant study of culture, relations, customs, and values, cultural, slavery is directly manifested
through these characters. They fail to assimilate new culture and give up original culture in totality. The protagonist of the

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novel Youth, Coetzee contract with young men recently arrived in the England of the 1960s to make their way in the world.
Coetzee skillfully delineates the protagonist John's dilemma, his concern and need for self-existence in the novel.
He sacrifices his native values. Several insulting incidents happened with him in England. He had to suffer the typical
isolation in abroad. (36)When he was very far from his homeland he suffered from neurotic anxiety, an isolation and
depression. In the Novel Youth the main character John is in departure from the racial discrimination and political unrest of
South Africa. He goes to foreign land because the emotional pressures of his family. Anxiety and alienation remain as
personality issues after his escape from South Africa to England.
Thus the novel concludes with the self-realization of John. All the major protagonists of Coetzee suffer from the
dilemma of displacement and identity crisis. These types of people always remain busy in wandering in search of their real
existence. The novel is a close analysis of a person who leaves his native land and suffers from fundamental questions of
identity and existence. He leaves his native land to get education but surprisingly he has to lose so money things instead,
like loss of identity, loss of human relation etc. He consciously pre occupied with the thought of getting success but
unconsciously he is uprooted from his cultural existence. John an immigrant cannot identify himself either with his
previous land or to his new land.
An incident of haunting violence and terror in J. M. Coetzees novel Disgrace renders an exacerbated biblical Fall
following the strained relationship between the white South African Professor David Lurie, a divorced father, and his
fair-skinned daughter Lucy: Lurie fails to protect his daughter, a lesbian living alone on her remote farm, to prevent her
rape and robbery by local Black thugs, and to keep her landholding from being confiscated by her polygamous Black
caretaker, Petrus. In each instance, what happens to Lucy has happened to Black South Africans in the past. I will read the
novel as an allegory in which Lucy represents a South Africa that has been raped and violated physically and
geographically by whites during the Apartheid, and that now in the new South Africa the same pattern of behavior is being
reiterated by Blacks. The Blacks represent a new leadership (possibly temporary as the word caretaker suggests of
Petrus) that simply repeats the rape and geographical violation of their white predecessors. The child Lucy carries, another
victim in the cycle of racial hatred and violence, will bear the marks of changes to come in the South African landscape.
Written in deceptively spare prose and with steely intelligence, Coetzee focuses on the Post-Colonial social and political
tensions between generations, sexes, and races in South Africa. As I will argue, the appeal of Luries journeys across vast
savannahs and modern cities of new South Africa is the discovery of a kind of cold and compelling truth akin to a parody
of a spiritual awakening. Lurie, the teacher, represents the white Afrikaner who has lost his moral authority. He may
witness the current abuse but is not in a position politically or ethically to do anything about it. His awakening is less a
religious epiphany than a sad commentary of the inhumanity and the perpetual state of disgrace.
Contemporary Racial Conflicts and Their Impact on the Individuals and Society with Some Examples
Apart from discussing the facts about the culture, identity and the globalization I found a recent burning example
in Times of India that the students came from the different part of the world struggles and faces many problems just
because of their color, culture and are notable to get back their own identity and are also called with a particular title as
KALE. The article is as follows.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

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Our True Colors (3)

The Treatment of African Students Reveals Indias Prejudice because of Cultural Differences
Radhika Oberoi
Her fizzy tangle of dark hair has elicited many snide remarks on campus. American students who pick India to
scholastic pursuits. There are 10400 students from seven African countries, according to a report compiled by the Ministry
of home affairs often find it lonely sojourn, riddled with hostility. Campus life is charged with racial under currents and
bright students who are here for intellectual riches and a bit of friendship frequently find themselves left out in the cold.
Discrimination is rife in hostels and African students are often dismayed by the relentless staring, whispering and
sniggering. Okoronkwo Hyginus uchenna, also a law student, finds it befuddling when he becomes the target of
unprovoked laughter. I have noticed that when I walk into the room, the Indians will start speaking Hindi, or they will
laugh and African kid never get to hold the remote in the TV room. The Indians decide what to watch, they say.
This would also explain why we continue to remain insular, mix only with our community, when Indians migrate to say,
Africa or the Caribbean countries.
Sociologist Dipankar Gupta reaffirms the Indian bias towards fair skin. Weve a color complex ever since we
decided in19th century that we are Aryan. Indians do tend to think along ethnic divides and we have a sense of aesthetics
borrowed from old Western notions- that fair is better. We were not like this before, for example, there does not seem to
have been racist tendencies in Mughal times Even in the Rig Veda, there is no mention of color. Only of Varna, and means
order.
News reportage is halfhearted when the victim of a crime is African. In 2012, a 24 year old woman from Rwanda
was gang raped near her residence in Timarpur, north Delhi. An apathetic police swung into the action a few days after
theassault, which took place on 3rd December 2013 and while the rapeof Indias Nirbhaya, which occurred soon after led to
unrestrained public outcry, the African girl who lay in hospital was a forgotten snippet of news.
Professor Malakar, Director of Francophone African studies at JNU, observes that while several Indian
universities have tried to sensitize the local students to language and mannerisms that can be interpreted as racist,
sometimes there are some cases of teasing and bullying. There are a fewkids who use the word Kale. The black students
understand the import of the word and are naturally offended, he says... Assimilation, then, should not become the African
students lone struggle. The place that Indian universities offer them should also be a place called home. With additional
reporting by Parakram Rautela.
Another examples of racial discrimination and identity is as follows along with the title
Son of Arunachal MLA Dies after Racist Assault in S Delhi (1)
A nineteen year old Nido Tania, who lived in Jalandhar and was a student of BBA first year in Lovely
Professional University, lost his life on a holiday in the capital the reason was he was mocked and assaulted by some
people for his dyed blond color hair and made a racial comment. They also hurled a racial slur at him. As it was told by his
uncle that it was not the first time that he was made fun of his hair. He had faced it earlier too and used to get angry and
depressed about it. The incident has once again highlighted how despite some lip-service, Delhi police personnel have not
been sensitized to problems that may arise from prejudices and stereo typing. Tania should have been escorted to safety
and not left among people whom he had antagonized and who had already turned violent.
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Lily Agarwal

This unfortunate incident yet again shows how deep racial prejudices run in India. While stringent laws against
race crimes are required, they alone cannot eradicate the widespread biases in our society. The fight must begin from
school itself by including lessons on the hateful nature of racial discrimination. Beyond that, the fight against it must be
taken up energetically by the police and every other organization, including political parties. Swear by multi-culturalism,
but they must demonstrate their commitment.
1held for Assaulton 2 Manipuri Women(1)
Two Manipuri women being ridiculed and physically abused in public by a group of men in kotla Mubarakpur on
January 25, police arrested an accused on Sunday. He has been charged with molestation and voluntarily causing hurt.
The victims Tharmila Jo and Chonmila were beaten up after one of them kicked a dog in panic as its leash was entangled in
her foot. The women insist the leash was tied to the boot on purpose while the copssay it probably got stuck accidently.
This tells a lot about how police treat cases of prosecution against people of the northeast. said Tharmila.
The cops maintain there was no negligence on their part.

CONCLUSIONS
In concluding, the main thrust of the argument has been that the cultural identity is one that is less likely to be
severely negatively impacted by globalization because of its historical background, which has provided for a mechanism
that has been called fluidity. This fluidity creates the space for external values and behaviors to be adopted, based on their
instrumental value and the extent to which they are coherent within the context of the foundational values and behaviors of
the culture. Given the crucial role that culture plays in ones personal identity, there is not likely to be psychological
trauma resulting in the persons lived experience.
Thus the novel by J. M. Coetzee also concludes with the self-realization of the protagonist. All the major
protagonists of Coetzee suffer from the dilemma of displacement and identity crisis. These types of people always remain
busy in wandering in search of their real existence. The novel is a close analysis of a person who leaves his native land and
suffers from fundamental questions of identity and existence. He leaves his native land to get education but surprisingly he
has to lose so money things instead, like loss of identity, loss of human relation etc. He consciously pre occupied with the
thought of getting success but unconsciously he is uprooted from his cultural existence. John an immigrant cannot identify
himself either with his previous land or to his new land.
On the whole Globalization fundamentally transforms the relationship between the places we inhabit and our
culture practices, experience and identities. As we have discussed above the transformation and the impact of globalization
are quite evident in the complexity and diversity of cultural identity. Thus the processes of forced and free migration
have become a global phenomenon of the so-called post-colonial world. Though they seem to invoke an origin in a
historical past with which they continue to correspond, actually identities are about questions of using the resources of
history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not who we are or where we came from, so
much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves:
not the so-called return to roots but a coming-to-terms-with our routes.
With regard to the concept of culture, multiculturalism or cultural diversity I have set out that culture is the whole
way of life of people, from birth to the grave, from morning to night, and even during sleep, has today become an

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

Multiple Identities and Globalization in Twentieth Century Literature in John Maxwell Coetzees Novels

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obviously inevitable. Judging from the way the texture of cultural diversity is recognized and especially the way
globalization influences culture, without doubt culture is and will always be different but equal. Every culture is valuable
and worthy of noninterference. In this sense this paper has elaborated on the relocation of cultural studies with increasing
attention being paid to the globalization of culture and critical practices concerning cultures. Modern societies are
multicultural in themselves, encompassing a multitude of varying ways of life and lifestyles of people. Today most
peoples identities, not just Western intellectuals are shaped by more than a single culture. Not only societies, but people
are multicultural. The concept of globalization on the other hand, assumes that cultures are becoming the same as the
world. Globalization is a concept of uniformization, preferable following the Western model. Globalization in this article
seems to promote not separation, but exchange and interaction of different cultures.

REFERENCES
1.

Andrew, Gurr. Writers in Exile: The identity of Home in Modern Literature (Sussex: The Harvester Pres, 1981).
p. 14

2.

Nayar, Pramod K. Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2008. p.191.

3.

www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529 Vol. I. Issue. IV
5 October 2012

4.

Coetzee, J. M. Youth (London: Secker and Warburg, 2002). p. 36

5.

Times of India Saturday, February, 1, 2014 p.1

6.

Times of India Monday, February, 1, 2014 p.1

7.

Times of India Sunday, January, 26, 2014 p.3

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