Robert Arnold
Boyhood microtheme
2/13/12
What does Coetzee believe about society? All along we have assumed that he can see the reality: categories don’t fit; people are individuals and can’t be boxed; all lines fade (or recede) when they are approached, but does he? All I see is a boy haunted by an ideal, societally imposed, called Normal. Normal is Straight – defined, rigid, neat. He is not Straight, he is Crooked. What is Crooked? Crooked is just not-Straight, not-Normal. It is not a box. Society has no category for Crooked. He is, as he says, nothing. But yet, nothing is something. There is no non-existence. Everything is too vibrant, too cacophonous struggle, to be anything but life.
I think Coetzee struggles with his
crookedness. He wants to be in a box. He wants to define himself, and be done.
But he cannot – and anyway there is an independent streak to him that enjoys
the struggle and does not want it to be over. But above all, he does not, I
think, feel that society is wrong. Wrong about him, perhaps, but he believes in
boxes. Categories. He uses them endlessly. What he wants is a category he fits,
preferably one he defines, but he does truly want to belong - see his musings
on his relationship with his cousin for evidence on this.
No, boy-Coetzee does not believe society is wrong. It is he who is Crooked. Society is Straight. He is far too governed by shame for it to be any other way. He feels his crookedness, but cannot find his box, and so he is alone. Eventually, for the book does carry this theme, he must realize that it is society’s error, not his own, that caused his troubles, but as the protagonist of the book, it is simply his own monsters that he is concerned about – he makes no comment on society.
