Political Irony in Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians and Age of Iron

Abstract

This dissertation has studied the use of irony in Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians and Age of Iron. Irony, in these novels, is directed at exploring the dehumanizing tendencies of colonial apartheid South Africa during the entire period of 1970s and 80s. The dissertation argues that the use of irony is political in nature. It submits that Coetzee's politics of irony is targeted at attacking such dehumanizing, exploiting tendencies of apartheid regime from the perspective of the marginalized victims. This conclusion has been reached by analyzing the above-said novels in terms of Linda Hutcheon's theory of the politics of irony specified in her book,Irony's Edge.By foregrounding the plight and predicament of South African blacks, Coetzee attempts to criticize the torture, violence and injustice emphasizing on the need of transforming people's gauge to see human beings with humanistic eye. This project shows the politics of irony in Waiting for the Barbarians, by evaluating the white colonial agent, the narrator, as the supporter of the subalterns. And the politics of irony in Age of Ironplays powerful role in cynically criticizing the torture, callousness, and brutality of apartheid South Africa, advocating the human rights of the marginalized blacks, waiting for rights, respects, equality and inclusion.