Introduction

John Maxwell Coetzee，a South Africa-born English writer who migrated to Adelaide，Australia in 2002 and became a naturalized Australian citizen in 2006，has written in his unique style 12 novels of high quality and a number of other works in the postmodernist context．As a writer “who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider”（Engdahl，Press Release，October 2，2003），Coetzee has elaborately contributed to world literature a series of images of the Other．By revealing through the group images his profound reflections on the issues of common concern such as human civilization，human nature，equality and justice，moral ethics，etc.，he becomes known for his being “ruthless in his criticism of the cruel rationalism and cosmetic morality of western civilisation”（ibid）.

Coetzee's work with “a unique combination of intellectual power，stylistic poise，historical vision and ethical penetration”（Attwell 1）establishes his position in South African literature by winning three times Central News Agency（CNA）Literary Award — South Africa's highest literary honor．And more importantly，his work gains him worldwide recognition in literature by winning successively the Booker Prize（twice），the French Prix Femina tranger，the Commonwealth Writers' Prize，the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society，the James Tait Black Memorial Prize，the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize before he received in 2003 the Nobel Prize in Literature，making him the seventh African to be so honoured.

Coetzee thus becomes the focus of the academia．The title “postmodern allegorist”“to imagine the unimaginable”（Wstberg，Award Ceremony Speech，December 10，2003）has been widely accepted by literary critics and readers once declared by the Permanent Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee．Dominic Head，professor from Nottingham University，calls him “one of the most highly respected-and most frequently studied-contemporary authors”because “His novels occupy a special place in South African literature，and in the development of the twentieth-and 21st-century novel more generally”（“Cambridge Introduction”ix）．Swedish writer Per Wstberg's Award Ceremony Speech in 2003 pays high tribute to the great achievements Coetzee's writing has made to the purification of human souls and the promotion of human morality．He asserts that “Restrained but stubborn，he [Coetzee] defends the ethical value of poetry，literature，and imagination．Without them we blinker ourselves and become bureaucrats of the soul”（Wstberg 18）．Taking the same view，a British literary critic emphasizes，“It would not be an overstatement to say that J.M．Coetzee is one of the most influential novelists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries……”（Poyner 1）.

Coetzee study has become popular in the West today and one of the focal issues in China since the twenty-first century．Critics have studied Coetzee at different levels from multiple perspectives including ideology，psychoanalysis，narratology，etc．However，in the postmodernist and postcolonial context，the study of the Other in Coetzee's novels remains superficial without in-depth or systematic exploration．An intense study from multiple dimensions of the Other in Coetzee's novels with the application of postmodernist and postcolonial theories，will not only help reveal the connotation of the Other in the writing of Coetzee and the relationship between the author and the Other，but also help discover the significance of the images of the Other to the development of the postcolonial theories，the enrichment of the postmodernist theories and the revelation to the literary creation and criticism，and the contribution to world literature from theme to genre.

1．The Issue of the Other and Coetzee's Novels

The issue of the Other is closely connected with the binary opposition structure at the core of Western culture．From the binary opposition structures such as Being/Absence，Subject/Object，West/East，Self/Other，etc.，we can see that the world has been divided artificially into two parts，in which one is in the position of subject and authoritativeness while the other in the position of object and subordination．The manifestation of the former's authority depends upon the subordination of the latter．The Other then refers to one different from the self，or the object different from the subject．Philosophically speaking，the Other is the object for the recognition of the self.

The issue of the Other can be traced back to Georg Hegel，the representative of the 18^th century speculative philosophy，who，known to have found the philosophical value of the Other earlier than others，usually seeks totality and identity in solving philosophical problems．However，he does not repulse the importance of difference．The identity he pursues is that of difference in the world，thus resulting in the existence of the Other．Hegel begins his study from the master-slave relationship in The Phenomenology of Mind （1807）and stresses the importance of the Other for the establishment of the consciousness of the self，maintaining that the authentic self-consciousness lies in between one subject and the other，or between self（subject）and other（object），i.e．the product of so-called intersubjectivity.

The issue of the Other has developed further in the theory of Martin Heidegger，a 20^th century German philosopher，who adopts the concept of “being-in-the-world”of Da-sein to interpret the basic connection between “Da-sein”and the world．He uses the unique concept “Being with”to show that the being in the world of Da-sein is that with the Other，claiming that “The world of Da-sein is a with-world”（Heidegger 112）．The account of “with-world”relationship between the subject and the Other removes the possibility of solipsism by Edmund Husserl，the philosopher of phenomenology，who establishes the Other on the self through empathy，paving the way for the Other to become part of his philosophy.

Emmanuel Levinas，a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish origin，in opposing ontology，makes use of the Other to criticize Western ontological tradition with the intention to surpass it．Without denying the existence of the Other in traditional sense，he merely considers that Other as “relative other”，one that can be transformed into identity or self．His philosophy emphasizes that a philosophy of “absolute otherness”is to be established if we want to break identity．He puts forward his concept of the Other，which is “irreversible，something else entirely，the absolutely other”（Levinas 35）．He means that the Other should not be retrieved into the self or identity：it may meet with the self，but is totally different from the self．In his opinion，the single will of power the western colonialists，imperialists and capitalists show in their greedy pursuit of capital is the reflection of totality and identity in the real society，and its development to the extreme ends up with violence and war．He points out incisively that “Ontology，as first philosophy is a philosophy of power”（Levinas 46），holding that this is the fundamental cause of the crisis in Western culture.

Jacques Lacan，a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist，develops Sigmund Freud's Structural Model of Personality（id，ego，superego）in his mirror image theory，holding that the Other and the self are of mutual consequence according to his psychoanalysis through three registers（the Imaginary，the Symbolic and the Real）．However，his concept of the Other is quite complicated．In the light of his theory，one certain other may be of the same origin with the subject，or from the collective imagination of many other subjects，or even the certain variant in reality of the ideology．Relatively speaking，his idea of “the Other being non-self”is more practical，which has been widely employed in the interpretation of literary texts.

Karl Marx，a great German philosopher，does not discuss the issue of the Other in explicit terms，but his idea in discussing class consciousness by taking French petty farmers as an example has been popularly quoted in literary discussion.

They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interest in their own name，whether through a parliament or a convention．They cannot represent themselves，they must be represented．The representation must be at the same time their dominators，the authorities high above them，and the governmental power without limit（“Selections”677-678）.

The word “representation”，common in political practice by Elleke Boehmer's account，is at once concerned with the subject of action（self）and the object of action（the Other）.

The issue of the Other in literature is closely connected with postmodernist and postcolonial studies．The concept of the Other in postcolonial theory appeared early in Edward Said's book Orientalism（1978）．In his mind，the East is the Other of Europe and the deep European culture cannot be established without the participation of the East，for，in the binary opposition model of the West and the East，the imagination of the rational，advanced，human and high West needs to be supported by the irrational，backward，barbarous and low East，without which the Western culture can hardly be so brilliant．And the relationship between the West and the East is that of writing and being written．But he revises his opinion in his later book Culture and Imperialism （1994），

What I left out of Orientalism was that response to Western dominance which culminated in the great movement of decolonization all across the Third World…… Never was it the case that the imperial encounter pitted an active Western intruder against a supine or inert non-western native，there was always some form of active resistance，and in the overwhelming majority of cases，the resistance finally won out（Said xii）.

This revision highlights the resistance of the Other，with the emphasis on the cultural resistance and the national identity.

Gayatri C．Spivak，the author of the famous essay “Can the Subaltern Speak”，has devoted herself even before the publication of Said's Culture and Imperialism to the discussion of the voice of the subaltern under the colonial control，maintaining that it is suspicious for the main part of the subaltern to voice because it is difficult to define in accurate terms the oppressed class．And the Western academic background of the members in the Group of Subaltern Study can rarely convince people that they will be authentically on the side of the subaltern．So it is by no means easy to find the real voice of the colonial Other．In her mind，what the Western feminists need to speculate on is the question of the racial Other．In deconstructing the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront from the perspective of postcolonialism，she holds that the brilliance of Jane Eyre is established upon the repression of Bertha，a sex Other from the colony in the Caribbean.

Homi Bhabha has found the problem of Said's standing，because even if the cultural interpreters feel dissatisfied with the Western authority of discourse，they may still turn a blind eye to the function of the Other if they comment on the issues unconsciously from the Western mono-entity and cultural perspective．As a result，they can hardly see the complexity of the colonial discourse and of course cannot see the possibilities of the anti-colonial discourse．He thinks that the subject of colonizers cannot be formed unilaterally without the colonized as the Other．The absence of the Other as reference will threaten the formation of the colonial subject.

Coetzee's novels are closely related to the issue of the Other，because the author has created group images of the marginalized Other．From the maiden work Dusklands（1974）which has allegedly started postmodernist writing in South Africato Waiting for the Barbarians（1980），“a political thriller in the tradition of Joseph Conrad，in which the idealist's naivety opens the gates to horror”（Engdahl，Press Release，October 2，2003）；from the Booker Prize winner Life ＆ Times of Michel K（1983）which has highly developed the allegorical writing，to the novel Foe（1986）which Spivak has taken as a specific case for her study of marginalization theory；from Age of Iron（1990），a social political novel which improves the genre of dystopia developed by Franz Kafka and H．G．Wells，to The Master of Petersburg（1994）which “marks a turning point in Coetzee's career”（Head 72）；from the second Booker Prize winner Disgrace（1999）which，according to Boehmer，“may well have paved the way for the 2003 award to the writer of the Nobel Prize in Literature”（“Sorry，Sorrier，Sorriest”135）to Elizabeth Costello：Eight Lessons（2003）which has aroused quite a few controversies；from the unusual acceptance speech “He and His Men”at the Nobel Prize Awarding Ceremony to Diary of a Bad Year（2007）which gives readers visual impact by technical means，readers can see a mass of images of the Other，and the issue of the Other can hardly be separated from his novels.

Studies show that the Other in Coetzee's novels can be basically decided as the Other defined in postmodernist and postcolonial theories and the idea represented by Boehmer in her book Colonial and Postcolonial Literature（1995）can evidently be taken as reference in interpreting the Other in Coetzee's work：“The concept of the Other，which is built on the thought of，inter allia，Hegal and Sartre，signifies that which is unfamiliar and extraneous to a dominant subjectivity，the opposite or negative against which an authority is defined”（21）．Coetzee may purposely create the images of the Other or unconsciously depict the images of the marginalized Other，but one thing is clear：he has created more images of the Other than his contemporaries．What Georg Simmel，German philosopher and critic，states in the book Georg Simmel on Individuality and Social Forms（1971）may be more accurate in definition．In his mind，the Other in Coetzee's writings

is the Stranger who is beyond being far and near．The Stranger is an element of the group itself，not unlike the poor and sundry ‘inner enemy’— an element whose membership within the group involves both being outside it and confronting it．The West thus conceived of its superiority relative to the perceived lack of power，self-consciousness，or ability to think and rule，of colonized peoples（Simmel 144）.

We know that human beings deliberately apply negative features to other groups or individuals and otherize the latter in order to establish their own status of dominant discourse power．People assume that the Other is less complex，advanced or civilized than the self．The activator of otherization often takes the Other as the humble and inferior to get psychological gratification and superiority．The presentation of group images of the Other displays the special feeling of the white intellectuals at the margin of the white South African mythology in the postmodernist context.

The Other in Coetzee's novels is concerned with differences in race，sex，identity，etc．For example，in the mind of the white，the Other is often the colored，and in the account of the male，the Other is generally the female．The Other in the narration of the people with discourse power is surely the one without discourse power．The Other in the speech of Empire's spokesman is always the colonized and the oppressed．Generally speaking，the life of the Other is connected with disorder，laziness，dirtiness，indulgence，folly，evilness，lack of moral responsibility，etc．This demonstrates from the opposite side the civilization，order，education，morality of the dominant subject，just as Frederic Jameson says in the book The Political Unconscious：Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act（1981），“these are some of the archetypal figures of the Other，about whom the essential point to be made is not so much that he is feared because he is evil，rather he is evil because he is Other，alien，different，strange，uncertain and unfamiliar.”（115）

Derek Attridge is correct in saying that Coetzee cannot evade politics，society and history（“Age of Bronze”99），and the group images of the Other are inevitably associated with the real context of South Africa．Nadine Gordimer，another Nobel Prize laureate in South Africa，supports this viewpoint by saying in “Introduction”to the book Critical Perspectives on J.M．Coetzee（1996），

J.M．Coetzee's critics almost all seem awed by his textual innovations which，as one puts it，traverse European literary and philosophical traditions…… At the same time，the critics wrestle with whether or not Coetzee's fiction is part of the discourse of colonialism itself，avoiding its stark issues with elegant allegory or whether，indeed，his themes are distilled from that bloody starkness（viii）.

Professor Attridge expresses in unequivocal terms his interpretation of the writing attitude of Coetzee，the creator of group images of the Other.

Nor should there ever have been any doubt about his strong opposition to the policies and practices of the Nationalist government in power between 1948 and 1994 and the older colonial traditions on which they were built，even though his fiction did not take the form of straightforward “resistance writing”（“Age of Bronze”99）.

The images of the Other in Coetzee's novels are rich in variety，similar in definition with the Other mentioned in Lacan's discourse theory of intersubjectivity，usually referring to the alien，strange，dangerous being present with the absence of discourse power．Coetzee's group images of the Other include the marginalized African colored people in the context of Eurocentrism and white supremacism，e.g．the Vietnamese in the project of Eugene Dawn the thinker and the Bushmen and the Hottentot in the mind of Jacobus Coetzee the actor in Dusklands which “was the first example of the capacity for empathy that has enabled Coetzee time and again to creep beneath the skin of the alien and the abhorrent”（Engdahl，Press Release，October 2，2003），the barbarians in the mind of the military men of Empire in Waiting for the Barbarians，the otherized white in the postcolonial context as well，e.g．the old administrator in Waiting for the Barbarians，and the white with ideas different from the mainstream ideology，e.g．Elizabeth Costello in the novel Elizabeth Costello：Eight Lessons．The images of the Other can be females who as the Christian Bible provides are in the position of the sex Other，e.g．Lucy in the novel Disgrace which displays the situation of the white “in the new circumstances that have arisen in South Africa after the collapse of white supremacy”（Engdahl，Press Release，October 2，2003）and can also be the males who，with no longer the advantageous position to do what they will randomly after their loss of dominant discourse power，refuses to repent，e.g．Lurie the associate professor in Disgrace．And group images of the Other cover the displaced ones who，at the bottom of the society，keep moving about silently in the war-scarred South Africa，e.g．Michel K in the novel Life and Times of Michel K，and the otherized ones who have lost their discourse power by their determination not to be the accomplice of those with dominant discourse power in the era of colonial hegemony，e.g．the old administrator in Waiting for the Barbarians．Among group images of the Other，we can find marginalized human beings trampled down and maltreated，and the ill-fated animals even killed meaninglessly，only to cite a few．In consideration of Coetzee's oeuvres which have been accomplished in and after the notorious apartheid，or in the period of apartheid or post-apartheid era，the images of the Other can hardly be separated from the origin of history and social involvement，and can rarely be disconnected with the cruel reality in South Africa．The living condition and the irresistible fate of the group of the marginalized Other occupy an important position in Coetzee's novels.

2．Critical Review of the Other in Coetzee's Novels

As is mentioned above，the academia has not yet paid due attention to the group images of the Other，nor can we find systematic research or monographs on them，but，“Coetzee in the last decade and a half has attracted from critics more attention by far than any other author from this country，attention that predates his receiving the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature”（Chapman 10）．And critics have achieved a great deal from Coetzee's novels based on their academic researches．By adopting different strategies in interpreting Coetzee，critics can hardly avoid the interpretation of the marginalized characters on certain aspects．Their interpretations may reach different conclusions from different theoretical perspectives，but they have sure relations with the Other to varying degrees，providing beneficial reference to the study of the Other and the interpretation of the group images of the Other.

A study of the academic materials has shown that critics usually focus on the writing context，special identity and extraordinary experiences of the author．For instance，Gayatri Spivak，the representative postcolonial theorist，has expressed her own concern about the experiences of the people in former colonies and the fate of the marginalized Other in her study of Coetzee's novel Foe．By combining the feature of intertextuality in Coetzee's novels into her study，Spivak has made a comparison between the marginalized male and female characters in the first 18^th century images，concluding that both Friday and Susan Barton are typical marginalized characters．The former is marginalized because he is colored by race and his loss of tongue deprives him of the right to speak，while the latter is otherized because of her sex，losing her authority in discourse．This opinion in effect serves as a critical supplement to the idea of Derek Attridge demonstrated in his article “The Silence of the Canon：J.M．Coetzee's Foe，Cultural Narrative，and Political Oppression”．Spivak feels that the intertexuality Coetzee adopts with Daniel Defoe's novel The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe（1719）shows that “He is involved in a historically implausible but politically provocative revision”（9）．And this revision inevitably leaves traces of the time．Though she does not discuss specifically the issue of the Other，her study of the theory of marginalization and her discussion of the identity and fate of the characters in Coetzee's Foe broaden the horizon of readers，providing references for this research project in systematically studying the images of the Other．The opinion of Scott Bishop in discussing the issue of identity supports that of Spivak．He observes an overall progression of political commitment in Coetzee's writing：“The movement of the characters from their prototypes to their culmination in Susan and Friday shows that Coetzee's concern for political identity becomes increasingly evident throughout the course of the work.”（Bishop 56）This concern for identity can hardly be commented as out of so-called identity complex，but it at least originates from the breakage of identification，which can be studied further by referring to W．E．B．Du Bois' cultural identity.

Professor Stephen Waston from the University of Cape Town，one of the major researchers on J.M．Coetzee，is also related to the issue of the marginalized，but his study is usually done from the perspective of postcolonialism．By placing Coetzee's work into postcolonial context，he explores the influence of colonialism upon his literary writing．Though he holds the idea in discussing the novel Dusklands that “Never before had a South African novel broken so obviously even self-consciously with the conventions of realism and so candidly announced its own artificiality，its own fictionality”（371），Waston realizes that Coetzee's work cannot be separated from the colonial reality in South Africa or the influence of Europe he knows from his own experiences，nor be free from his hybrid identity of Afrikaans．He has cited Coetzee's speech in an interview to support his own opinion：“I'm suspicious of lines of division between a European context and a South African context，because I think our experience remains largely colonial.”（Waston 376）In this context，the Westerners treat the locals in South Africa in a superior way as colonizers，taking it for granted that the latter are the marginalized Other．Here，Waston maintains，“Just as Western people conquer nature in an effort to conquer their own self-division，so they cannot desist from enslaving other human beings who necessarily confront them as that Other，alien and forever threatening.”（ibid）He intentionally cites the metaphorical discourse of gun in Coetzee's work for a further proof of his idea：“It is my life's work，my incessant proclamation of the otherness of the dead and therefore the otherness of life.”（Waston 373）Such discourse of power politics，in defending the colonizers，exposes the author's emphatic concern for the hegemony of the colonizers，the power discourse and identity．And this concern may precisely provide references for this project to study the issue of the Other from a different perspective.

Elleke Boehmer，“with a reputation as a commentator on experiences of social alienation and split belonging”（“Australian Realism”3），does not study specifically the issue of the Other either．Her major concern is “about paying for the past in South Africa，and so about the ethical status and epistemological limitations of secular confession”（Boehmer，“Sorry，Sorrier，Sorriest”139）．However，in her discussion，she naturally touches upon the present situation of the otherized，the former colonized people，and the relocation of the identity of different peoples in the post-apartheid era．Taking as background what the “South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission”has done in the 1990s to cure the historical trauma of the country，she explores the issue of whether the abusers repent and the abused forgive by employing as a case study the protagonist's refusal to apologize for his abuse of power．In her mind，“Coetzee has openly cast doubt on the possibility of achieving closure on a painful past，of ever adequately saying sorry.”（“Not Saying Sorry”343）And she finds that “he proposes the far more painful process of enduring rather than transcending the degraded present.”（ibid）Her study further shows that “the primary other in the alternative ethical schema explored in Disgrace is not human，not the historically degraded human，but the ‘wholly other’ or the extreme alterity of the stray dog”（Boehmer，“Sorry，Sorrier，Sorriest”138）．Although she herself feels this viewpoint controversial and even a little far-fetched，yet what is noteworthy is that she has categorized the Other into two distinct sorts：one is the above-mentioned racial Other and the other is “conventional other，the silenced woman：most obviously Lucy but also the abused Melanie”（ibid）．Her thesis focuses on the trauma the white's evildoing and the black's tit-for-tat violence against violence have brought to the country in the apartheid，with only a touch on the issue of the Other without any further discussion，thus leaving a potential opportunity for an in-depth study.

David Attwell also shows concern for the cultural identity and creative context in his research on Coetzee，but his study tends to discuss the relationship between the author and South Africa．In his study of South Africa and the politics of writing，he finds that

Coetzee writes within a Western European tradition．This is a simple fact of his intellectual biography，a consequence not only of the global distribution of culture under colonialism but also of Coetzee's turning like thousands of other South Africans before and after him to the metropolis of Western culture for a better life and further education ……（Attwell，“J.M．Coetzee”232）.

This kind of writing has actually made Coetzee confronted with the dilemma of identity．“In South Africa …… Coetzee writes not as a citizen of the First World but of the Third or perhaps the First within the Third and therefore，like other white South African writers，he faces the problem of cultural authority.”（ibid）He cannot represent the West because of his Afrikaans background，nor can he stand for South Africa due to his assimilation of Western culture．This objectively causes his marginalization in South Africa．In the thesis “Coetzee's Estrangements”，Attwell continues to discuss the issue of relationship，holding that “Nearly all of Coetzee's fiction deals in one way or another with subjects who reluctantly find themselves forced to engage with a particular historical situation”（232）．Thus，any estrangement from the society and history is in Attwell's mind an inevitable result，for he considers that experimental writing of modernism and postmodernism does not have to be subject to the issue of ethics today．However，Attwell does not continue to discuss whether the result of estrangement is caused by passive marginalization or by active otherization．This offers a space for further research in the study of the Other.

Michel Chapman points out in his thesis “The Case of Coetzee：South African Literary Criticism，1990 to Today”that “Coetzee's output escapes any overarching interpretative grid”（104），but he still tries to find out tactics which he thinks effective in decoding South African criticism through the case of Coetzee．He discusses the issue of the Other in his study，thinking that the Other in Coetzee's writing should be similar in meaning to the Other in Emmanuel Levinas' concept．“Unlike Memmi's ‘colonizer who will’ or the ‘colonizer who won't’，Coetzee subscribes to Levinasian ethics：the Same is obliged to acknowledge the singularity，the irreducibility，of the Other”（Chapman 105-106）．He continues to interpret the “colonizer who will”as the apartheid racist who excludes the Other from the human community and the “colonizer who won't”as the liberal humanist who wishes to turn the Other into an image of the Self，or the Same．This interpretation has something similar with that of Mike Marais，who wrote a series of articles to demonstrate the relationship between J.M．Coetzee and Emmanuel Levinas．Nevertheless，Chapman does not agree with Marais' idea about Levinas，thinking that the adoption of the philosophical idea of Levinas to defend Coetzee's ethical responsibility “is not only misguided，but largely unnecessary．Misguided because Coetzee's novels，if not about the Same，are also not in any absolute sense about the Other”（Chapman 107）．Of course，he does not illustrate it any further for his focus is not the issue of the Other，but a critical account of the literary criticism in South Africa after the abolition of the apartheid，and Coetzee's writing is taken only as a sample．Besides，when referring to Coetzee's fiction，he mainly cites examples from Age of Iron，and occasionally from Disgrace，thinking that “‘alterity’，or otherness [is] actually located in a social context”（ibid）．In reality，Chapman has introduced the theory of sociology into Coetzee study.

It is observed from Chapman's comment that Mike Marais is a researcher greatly concerned with the Other in Coetzee's writing．In his thesis “Writing with Eyes Shut：Ethics，Politics，and the Problem of the Other in the Fiction of J.M．Coetzee”，he studies the problem of the Other by making a comparison between the ethical ideas of Rosemary Jane Jolly and the political ideas of Sue Kossew．Marais maintains that Jolly develops her argument by “contending that Coetzee，in Foe，‘specifies’ and ‘embodies’ the Other”（45），while Kossew insists that Coetzee's writing cannot be separated from politics．In effect，Marais takes it partial whether to emphasize ethics or to focus on politics．By adopting a middle-of-the-road approach to this issue，he synthesizes the opinions of the two scholars，suggesting that the academia should not illustrate Coetzee's fictional project in purely political terms，or interpret the author's writing as an attempt to give voice to the Other．The way of interpretation he proposes is to take his writing as a refusal in ethical terms．“Through this refusal…… Coetzee attempts to establish a relation with the Other as other outside history.”（Marais 45）The conclusion he reaches is that “For Coetzee，politics begins as ethics．Unlike postcolonial modes of writing which emphasize resistance，his fiction attempts to oppose without resisting”（ibid）．Anyhow，such kind of eclectic idea leaves critics space for debate.

English scholar Derek Attridge seems to have different opinions with Marais on this issue and his understanding of the Other obviously bears political instead of ethical feature．In his mind，“Figures of alterity recur in these novels，usually as subordinate third-world individuals or groups perceived from the point of view of a dominant，first world culture……”（Attridge，“Literary Form”249）．To reinforce his idea，he lists the Vietnam enemy and the native South Africans in Dusklands，Friday in Foe，Vercueil in Age of Iron as instances of the figures of alterity．He does not make any specific discussion of the issue of the Other，but his idea of the figures of alterity can provide important references for the study in this research project.

The opinions of Sue Kossew，a female Australian scholar，as mentioned above，support effectively Derek Attridge's idea though they are not accepted by Mike Marais who points out that Kossew tends to study the political nature in literary work．By borrowing the concept of Bill Ashcroft about postcolonialism，Kossew uses the term “postcolonial”not to signify a time after colonialism，but rather “to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day”（“Pen and Power”1），exploring the contradictions and paradoxes hidden in colonial and postcolonial discourse and the politics of presentation．Her knowledge of the self and the Other is usually related to colonialism and she deems the feature of post-apartheid era as “the overturning of the old structures of repression and the release of hitherto often-silenced black voices”（ibid）．In her mind，the Other is the colonized and the one who sympathizes with the colonized．After a comparative study between Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians and Brink's A Dry White Season，Kossew points out that Brink's novel arranges a narrator involved in the life of the Other（usu．represented by black South Africans），while

Coetzee's novel explores the moral，political and personal dilemma facing a colonizer，the Magistrate，who himself becomes labeled as “other”and as “the enemy within”because of his resistance to the fixity of imperial discourse and practices，as shown in his crossing of the boundary（both literally and metaphorically）drawn between the Empire and the barbarian Others（“Pen and Power”86）.

The approaches Kossew uses in studying and interpreting the contradictions and paradoxes related to colonization and its representation are of great value in reference，however，her study of the Other is still limited and further efforts are expected.

Compared with the studies abroad，Coetzee study in China started a little late．The paper “The Cost of Cronus：An Interpretation of Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning Novel Disgrace” is often taken as one of the valuable research achievements in the early Coetzee study．Zhejiang Literature and Art Press rapidly published a series of Coetzee's fiction after the Nobel Prize in Literature was officially declared in 2003．The Chinese versions are by no means perfect，but they set a solid foundation for the propagation and research of Coetzee's work．Internet statistics show that seven books have been published since Foreigner Forever. The first book on Coetzee appeared in 2006 and three of the books have been openly published．China National Knowledge Internet（CNKI）statistics show that from 2001 till now，more than 400 papers on Coetzee study have been published．The major journals which specialize in foreign literature study have made greater contributions to the study of Coetzee．A critical survey of the papers in these journals indicates that the Coetzee study in China is still limited from theme discussion to text study and to the study of narrative approaches．Most theme discussions often focus on topics related to the postcolonial and the post-apartheid，including imperial ideals，free speech and writing on trauma，besides confession，forgiveness，reconciliation in the post-apartheid era；text study mainly concerns Disgrace，Life and Times of Michel K，etc．And discourse analysis usually takes Diary of a Bad Year and Foe as samples．The flaws of present study appear obvious：some apply mechanically relevant theories to the interpretation of Coetzee's fiction，some take Coetzee's fiction as cases to illustrate certain theories which are no longer new，some even parrot Westerners' research achievements．In demonstrating the theoretical cultivation of the authors，the research papers do not leave readers much impression of revelation，but an impression that any other case will help the authors of the papers to reach their purpose equally well.

Not many domestic scholars study the issue of the Other．Among the limited research achievements，Gao Wenhui's paper “Colonizer's Self and Colonial Other：a Philosophical Reflection upon Master-slave Relationship”，by cleverly making use of Kossew's topic “Colonizer/Colonized：Paradoxes of Self and Other”，discusses the interdependence and inseparableness of the colonizer's self and the colonial Other in the South African cultural context．By discussing the replication of the colonizer's self and the imagined colonial Other，the author finds that Coetzee has analyzed the transformation of the subjectivity of the Other produced by the condescending colonizer from the one-way perspective，“revealing that the features of both the colonizer's self and the colonial Other are out of the control of power and the discourse construction，with its target against the philosophical foundation of colonial discourse”（Gao 85）.The paper does not make enough “philosophical reflections”upon “master-slave”relation，while her discussion of the Other is evidently influenced by Kossew and her conclusion seems similar with that of Attridge．Zhou Li's thesis “On the Other under the Veil of Repetition in Coetzee's Work”appears to discuss mainly the issue of the Other from the topic，but in reality the author pays more attention to the discussion of “repetition”，and the definition of the Other seems a little bit chaotic．Li Jing's English paper “Dogs，Women，and the Significant Otherness in J.M．Coetzee's Disgrace”takes dogs and women as the Other，maintaining that “Coetzee，…… [by] seemingly simple treatment of dogs and women as objects of subordination and abuse，exposes the complexity and multiplicity of existence for late-apartheid South Africa”（212）．It is justified to say that this topic is of some significance，but the small space of the paper limits its further study.

It is seen from the materials presented above that the research achievements are rich and abundant abroad，but no systematic study of the issue of the Other has been found up to now，while the study in China seems to be in a starting period，without many achievements for display．It is safe to say that except the achievements of this project，no researchers have ever made a systematic analysis of Coetzee from the perspective of the Other．No one classifies the images of the Other in Coetzee's fiction，or studies the performance of the Other in different contexts，or explores how Coetzee reflects on civilization，justice，Empire，instrumental rationality，etc．by presenting the images of the Other．No scholar has systematically studied the intention of Coetzee in creating the images of the Other or made in-depth exploration of otherizing characters．No one has given a rational interpretation of his fiction of alterity，the otherization of characters or the self-otherization of the author.

3．Research Ideas and Framework of the Book

This book chooses for the research four important novels of J.M．Coetzee：Waiting for the Barbarians，Life and Times of Michel K，Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello：Eight Lessons．With the intention to make a panoramic study of the Other in Coetzee's novels，it will discuss the above novels from multiple dimensions．From colonial，post-Christian，post-apartheid and postmodernist dimensions respectively，the book will display the representation of the Other in Coetzee's literary texts，reveal the connotation of the Other and the implication of group images of the Other，explore the historical origin of the Other and its relationship with the reality，probe into the reasons of Coetzee's preference for group images of the Other and study his philosophical reflections．The major theories involved in this research project include postcolonial theories and the theory of the Other by Jacques Lacan．And the theories involved in the process of demonstration are new historicism of Hayden White，power and discourse theory of Michel Foucault，trauma theory of Judith Lewis Herman，psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud，feminist theory of Simone de Beauvoir，polyphonic novel theory of Mikhail Bakhtin and related theories of narratology.

This book maintains that the English education J.M．Coetzee received as Afrikaans，his experiences in seeking for his European roots in the UK，his estranged feeling in the “free”USA，his spiritual wandering after his compelled return to South Africa，and his reflections after his migration to Australia，have shaped his peculiarity of a writer otherized by the West．By revealing the themes of hegemony and violence，repression of human rights，negative influence of religious belief，Coetzee levels his criticism as the Other at the cruel rationalism and cosmetic morality of Western civilization．His allegorical presentation of the relationship between macro-history and micro-history，between human being and history，between reality and history shows the Other's deconstruction of historical authority and its ideological basis．The unconventional experiment in his work demonstrates a clear feature of otherness.

The book discusses the issue of the Other in four chapters：

The first chapter discusses from the dimension of colonial hegemony Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians with the application of the theories of postcolonialism and the Other．An examination of the story setting reveals that the author has adopted in the novel the virtual form of Empire，disclosing the nature of imperial civilization in the era of the colonial hegemony．Coetzee displays allegorically the hegemony of the Empire．Placed on the opposite are barbarians in the remote area，an imaginary enemy or the Other to the Empire．By arranging the racial Other for the dominant Empire and exhibiting the sufferings of the Other，Coetzee reveals the nature of the dominators of discourse power．By presenting the situation of the racial females，Coetzee illustrates the sex Other suffering from dual oppression in the patriarchal society in imperial civilization．What is more，Coetzee has arranged the marginalization or otherization of the narrator or the spokesman in the novel，endowing him with an identity of dual Other：a marginalized Other to Empire and a non-natural Other to “barbarians”.

Then with the application of new historicism by Hayden White，this chapter examines the qualification of the history recorder，finding that the narrator has an equivocal relation with Empire．He insists on resistance to imperial sense，acting as the alien or the Other to Empire，but at the same time cooperates and conspires reluctantly with Empire，behaving as the alien or the Other to nature．Coetzee，by making use of the query of the marginalized Magistrate，decodes the complicity of laws and imperial politics．The death of the old man as the Other after great tortures is used as a case for the exposure of the history which is unilaterally presented，distorted and fabricated by the dominant discourse power before it is endowed with historical legality．The author，taking the wooden slips unearthed as example，explains that the interpretation of history is an intellectual operation in specific historical discourse，usually ending up with different results from different interpreters.

This chapter goes on，according to the definition of John Lechte on justice with reference to the opinions of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on the issue，to study the dispassionate observation and personal experiences of the narrator in Coetzee's writing，intending to find the nature of the imperial “justice”．In order to maintain its order of government，the virtual Empire，making use of the “justice”institution in the control of the state，represses by brutal and inhuman means the Other in inconformity with imperial interests．Hegemonic domination and violent politics result in injustice and inhumanity．Coetzee，by exploiting the physical tortures the old Administrator suffers after being rudely taken as the alienated Other to Empire，challenges the authoritative imperial discourse while exposing the evildoings of the inhuman imperial victimizers.

The second chapter discusses Coetzee's novel Life and Times of Michel K from the dimension of post-Christian authoritarianism．In accordance with Friedrich Nietzsche's claim that God is dead，it first makes an observation of the situation in South Africa and the scenes of violent conflicts in so-called post-Christian era when Christianity declines and the Christian ideals have been attenuated，before a further study of the images of the Other in the violent society in Coetzee's novel．Here are Anna in unknown fear all day long，and Michel K，the otherized for his inborn harelip and mental deficiency.

This chapter then discusses by adopting Michel Foucault's theory of discourse power “silence”，“a sign of disenfranchisement as well as resistance”（Head，“J.M．Coetzee”98），the apparently passive but effective coping strategy the marginalized Other takes in his escape from the chaotic society where the policies of apartheid were formed and enforced in a rampant way．The chapter mainly explores the implication in discourse and mental activities of the Other's silence on different occasions，such as on Visagie farm，in police station and resettlement camps，and discusses the Other's refusal of discourse and his resistant physical response to food．These measures demonstrate the resistance of the humble Other to the dominant discourse power and display dumbly the ideal of freedom human beings persistently seek for.

With reference to theories of trauma and discourse power，the chapter discusses Coetzee's reflections on trauma，history，power，discipline，etc．The resistance of Michel K the humble Other to the dominant discourse power in his unique way of silence demonstrates that the author，in revealing the inhuman violence，ruthless separation，indelible hostility and self-deceiving ignorance in human society，discloses the nature of rational justice in Western civilization and criticizes its moral ethics．He speaks out of a sense of justice for the oppressed and down-trodden，the marginalized Other．His reflections on the trauma of the South Africans，the oppressive history of South Africa，discourse power，discipline and punishment show his great sympathy for the weak and his resistance to authoritarianism.

The third chapter studies Coetzee's second Booker Prize-winning novel Disgrace from the dimension of the post-apartheid power-shift．The black/white relationship，especially the changes between the black and the white in the post-apartheid era，reveals that the enforcement of democratic system does not eliminate the long existing contradictions and conflicts among different races in South Africa，and the annulment of apartheid does not remove the racial separation in people's mind．The black and the white have actually not realized the policy of diversity and tolerance，and the political domain in South Africa is clearly divided among the black and the white．The difference is that the white in new South Africa is marginalized or otherized.

With the support from the theory of discourse power and the theory of feminism，the chapter discusses the fate of the white minority represented by Lurie，Lucy，etc．after their loss of protection by favorable policies and regulations．Lurie's persistence in behaving in the former ways after the white have lost their discourse power and his refusal to repent after the exposure of the scandal make him pay heavy price of constantly being otherized before his own final conscious marginalization and retreat from the city to the remote farm．And Lucy，the white woman of independence with a strong sense of self-domination，knowing that the advantageous position no longer exists for the white in the post-apartheid era，chooses after being gang-raped to face the reality and sensibly accept compromise，displaying Coetzee's idea of forgiveness or tolerance for the fusion of different races today.

The last section of this chapter，with reference to capitalist contract principle，Bataille's concept of “desirous body”and Friedrich Nietzsche's “will-to-power”，investigates the inescapable fate of self-exile and self-otherization of the white once with dominant discourse power，for they have not realized the conflict between their instinctive sexual desire and the moral and sex ethics of human beings，nor have they adapted themselves to the new situation when the preferential laws and regulations in maintaining the white's hegemonic discourse have come to perpetual expiration．Coetzee reflects on the sex ethics and human morality by employing as example the experiences of Lurie who has been deprived of prerogatives in the post-apartheid era and become the Other in the changed era．He speculates on the price the Otherized white should pay and the responsibility they should take for the historical memory by using as a case study the event that Lucy was robbed and gang-raped．Coetzee，with the idea that the black and the white in South Africa should be in harmonious co-existence，suggests forgiveness and reconciliation among different races in order to live peacefully together，and conveys his idea of equal species and harmonious nature through the transformation of the white's perception of animals.

The fourth chapter discusses from the dimension of the postmodernist discourse the apparently disputable novel Elizabeth Costello：Eight Lessons．A brief comparison of modernism and postmodernism reveals the major features of literature in the postmodernist context — decentralization，subversion of the subject，play of meaning，negation of integrality，determinacy and standardability by taking as example Joseph Heller's Catch-22，Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics， and the writings of Gabriel Marquez，Donald Barthelme，etc.

Then the chapter examines how Coetzee becomes known with his differential otherness in the representation crisis of the postmodernist context．Deeply influenced by French structuralism，Samuel Beckett's theory of the absurd，Vladimir Propp's morphology of the folktale and inter-textual novel of Vladimir Nabokov，Coetzee has demonstrated in his novels individuality and otherness，which sometimes appears as a collage of irrelevant texts，showing the feature of metafiction，and sometimes as a fragmental soliloquy of the mind，constructing the psychological fantasy of a solitary Other．Sometimes he adopts the Kafkaesque way to show the disordered spiritual life，and sometimes he takes parody to hint obliquely at the Western classics．Sometimes he adopts the form of polyphonic novel，forming multiple relations of discourse with the author，and sometimes he decodes the mode of linear narration，displaying boundless openness，diversity and relativity.

The chapter focuses on the study of the heroine in the novel Elizabeth Costello：Eight Lessons published after his migration to Australia，intending to explore the concrete image of the differential Other based on the author's idea of the character，and to reveal the heroine's idea of literature，the significance of Coetzee's design of the heroine's performance before the dominant mainstream discourse．The chapter holds that the image of the heroine displays the true color of the differential Other in the process of gaze and being gazed at and in the different relationship of discourse．Grotesque and strange as her behavior and personality appear to be，she becomes the differential Other because of her inobservance of the established rules and regulations of the authoritative discourse，or her constant query on the traditional mainstream discourse．Never chiming in with the established concepts in different problems，she always declares her ideas independently．The author uses this kind of image of the Other in order to illustrate his knowledge of literature faith，literature pattern，nature of novel，literary reception，regional literature and literature language，etc．Coetzee demonstrates the differential otherness of Elizabeth through the comparative lectures of African writers in the novel，the argumentative dialogues between her and the professor of philosophy，and the silence of West，the novelist.

This book concludes that a study of the Other in Coetzee's fiction from multiple dimensions，in displaying different forms，different attributes and different connotation of group images of the Other，provides readers with a panoramic picture of the Other in his fiction and enlarges the dimensions of Coetzee study．The research achievements will not only enrich the postcolonial and postmodernist theories，but also provide references for the exploration of the development of global literature.

1. Coetzee has published besides fiction three biographies，five non-fictions and quite a few translations，etc.
2. He is the seventh South African Nobel Prize winner following Nelson Mandela，F.W．de Klerk（Peace Prize）in 1993，Nadine Gordimer（Literature Prize）in 1991，Desmond Tutu（Peace Prize）in 1984，Albert Luthuli（Peace Prize）in 1960，and Max Theiler（Medicine Prize）in 1951.
3. Roughly estimated，about 22 monographs and collections of essays have been published since Teresa Dovey published in 1988 the first work The Novels of J．M．Coetzee：Lacanian Allegories and hundreds of research papers can be found in different journals within which 88 papers are found in the important literary journals such as Critique，Contemporary Literature，Literature Study，Contemporary Poetics，etc．
4. Dominic Head declares that “It is sometimes said that postmodernism arrived in Africa with the publication，in 1974，of Dusklands，Coetzee's first novel（although he is frequently discussed as a ‘late modernist’）”（Head 2009：ix）.
5. Genesis 2：22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man，and brought her to the man.
6. Coetzee was born in South Africa of Dutch descent and educated in English in the conflict of the black and the white in South Africa．After his graduation from the University of Cape Town，he went to work as a computer processor in the United Kingdom of Great Britain before his PhD study in the University of Texas at Austin，USA．He worked as a literature teacher at the State University of New York at Buffalo and his application for permanent residence in the United States was denied due to his involvement in anti-Vietnam-war protest．He was obliged to return to South Africa where he taught literature at the University of Cape Town．His growth experiences have endowed him with feelings of marginalization and alienation.
7. Elleke Boehmer，a female scholar and writer born in South Africa，is now a professor in Oxford University．Her important works include Colonial and Postcolonial Literature：Migrant Metaphors （1995），J.M．Coetzee in Context and Theory（2009）and Empire Writing：An Anthology of Colonial Literature1870-1918 （1998）．
8. David Attwell is a professor of literature in the University of York，UK.，long engaged in the study of South African literature．Important works include J.M．Coetzee：South Africa and the Politics of Writing（1993）and Doubling the Point：Essays and Interviews（1992），providing important and authoritative references from different perspectives for the study of J.M．Coetzee.
9. Michel Chapman is a professor of literature at the University of KwaZulu-Natal，Durban，South Africa．His important works include Southern African Literatures （2003），Art Talk，Politics Talk（2006），etc.
10. “Who Clipped the Hollyhocks？”：J.M．Coetzee's Age of Iron and the Politics of Representation．English in Africa 20.2（1993）：1-24；Writing with Eyes Shut：Ethics，Politics，and the Problem of the Other in the Fiction of J.M．Coetzee．English in Africa 25.1（1998）：43-60；After the Death of a Certain God：A Case of Levinasian Ethics．Scrutiny2 8.1（2003）：27-33；The Novel as Ethical Command：J.M．Coetzee's Foe．Journal of Literary Studies 16.2（2006）：62-85.
11. The paper was co-authored by Zhang Chong and Guo Zhengfeng and published in the fifth issue of Foreign Literature in 2001.
12. Wang Jinghui's PhD book at Beijing Languages University in 2006.
13. Gao Wenhui's Coetzee in the Postcolonial Cultural Context（2008），Wang Jinghui's Foreigner Forever（2010）and Duan Feng's Challenger to Historical Discourse（2011）.
14. Till June 2012，CNKI statistics show that Foreign Literature and Contemporary Foreign Literature publish 10 papers on Coetzee respectively，Foreign Literature Study publishes 8 papers of the kind and Foreign Literature Criticism publishes 6 papers on Coetzee.
15. The achievements of this project have been partly published，including “J.M．Coetzee：A Spokesman of the Otherized Other”（2011），“The Other and Otherness：a Study of Coetzee”（2011），“Diary of a Bad Year：a Unique Postmodern Polyphonic Novel”（2012），“Disgrace：the Subverted Other in the Post-apartheid Era”（2012），etc.