J. M. Coetzee's Age of Iron as a Parody of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy

Abstract

The present research is based on the rewriting of Dante by J. M. Coetzee. It basically deals with the problematic situation of South Africa in Twentieth Century. It is a parody upon the democratic period of South Africa which is full of discriminations, dominations and injustices. It is against the power of representation of the history. J. M. Coetzee has rewritten Dante's The Divine Comedy in order to question the historical truth of the past. It is the way of representing the past to the present context. It is a kind of mocking against authority because in South Africa there is no good government to support the black and other middle and lower class people. Coetzee follows the rewriting of Dante Alighieri to subvert and install the history of South Africa. By rewriting Dante's The Divine Comedy Coetzee wants to dig out loopholes and strengths of the historical representation. He wants to blur the center and attempts to raise the marginalized people of history. By revisiting Dante, Coetzee questions the inter-textuality and authenticity of the single text. This research uses parody as a critical tool to undermine the total authenticity of history.