Existential Other in J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man

Abstract

The experience of existential ‘other’ occurs because an individual does not have access to freedom, which creates individual identity in relation to the world and the self itself. This experience bears the concept of alienation from the social circumstances and feeling of estrangement. It is evoked as alienation from nature, alienation from others and alienation from the continuance of life. The protagonist of Coetzee’sSlow Manfails to understand the world into which he is thrown. The world is hostile to his interests and incomprehensible to the human faculties. Paulfeels being ‘othered’ from society because of his crippled state and suffered from unexpected outcomes. As a result, he does not obey societal rules and regulations and feels that the world is shaped by death and everyone is a stranger for him. Moreover, he is alienated from the self itself and from the life because he becomes aware of the inevitability of death.