ABSTRACT

Age of Iron is the only novel in J. M. Coetzee’s oeuvre that makes explicit references to the context of late-apartheid South Africa. Strictly speaking, the novel is about the challenges of overcoming the iron logic of the age, i.e. the very rationality of the apartheid regime. Thus, the novel has important implications not only for the context within which it is situated but also for the struggles that have since shaped South Africa. This paper attempts to provide a dialectical alternative to poststructuralist and Levinasian readings of the novel. It examines the ethics and politics of love and freedom in the novel and follows the itinerary of these concepts to the question of forgiveness. Specifically, I argue that Mrs. Curren, the narrator and heroine of the story, can be understood through the lens of the Hegelian Unhappy Consciousness, that is, as the “dual” consciousness of mastery and slavery. As such, she is obsessed with questions of freedom (mastery and slavery), forgiveness, love, evil, and salvation, among others. Through the mediation of its Unhappy Consciousness, in fact, the novel renders possible the transition from the nightmarish real of late-apartheid to a real figuration of a different future.

摘要

铁器时代是 JM Coetzee 全部作品中唯一一部明确提及种族隔离晚期南非背景的小说。严格来说，这部小说是关于克服时代铁逻辑的挑战，即种族隔离制度的合理性。因此，这部小说不仅对其所处的背景具有重要意义，而且对后来塑造南非的斗争也具有重要意义。本文试图为小说的后结构主义和列维纳斯主义解读提供一种辩证的选择。它考察了小说中爱与自由的伦理学和政治学，并沿着这些概念的路线走向了宽恕的问题。具体来说，我认为可以通过黑格尔的不快乐意识的镜头来理解故事的叙述者和女主人公柯伦夫人，即 作为主人和奴隶的“双重”意识。因此，她痴迷于自由（支配和奴役）、宽恕、爱、邪恶和救赎等问题。事实上，通过其不幸意识的调解，这部小说使从晚期种族隔离的噩梦般的真实过渡到不同未来的真实形象成为可能。