Illness Narratives in Life and Times of Michael K

J M Coetzee, the South African writer, has won the Nobel Prize in literature, the Booker Prize and many other important international awards. He has published many novels, such as Foe and Disgrace, which are well-known in the contemporary literary world. His works have also been gradually translated and studied in China since he won the Nobel Prize in 2003. The publication of Life and Times of Michael K has attracted great attention to him in the literary world. The novel is set in South Africa, with a desolate war scene after the outbreak of the civil war. It tells the story of Michael K and his mother (Anna K)’s humble life struggling in a society full of war, army and apartheid, but they were eager to find an oasis of life. Michael K, a man born with a hare-lip, on his way of chasing freedom, fell into misery not only for his mental and physical illness but also for the social unrest and ideological chaos. This thesis attempts to analyse Anna K and Michael K’s indomitable struggle against dilemma during the war times in Life and Times of Michael K in terms of Arthur Frank’s illness narrative theory, in all, hoping to find out Coeteez’s humanitarian care for mankind in this novel. Firstly, by drawing on Arthur W. Frank’s analysis of illness narrative, the thesis will identify some patterns and tendencies in Michael K’s self-perceptions that are common in illness narrative. These similarities indicate that Michael K’s silent resistance is his powerful response to the apartheid society manipulated by the oppressive class. K was a representative of the oppressed class and his fight was also the symbol of other disadvantaged people’ struggle. By describing the life and times of Michael K, Coetzee expressed his humanitarian concern for all oppressed people.