The Problem of Authority and Verifiable Authenticity in Autobiography: A Study of J.M. Coetzee’s Scenes from Provincial Life

Abstract

The autobiographical genre is often associated with notions of truth and verifiable authenticity. South African author J.M. Coetzee puts these notions into question in many of his critical writings. In writing Boyhood (1997) and Youth (2002), Coetzee puts a number of these theoretical questions and concerns into an applied form through a portrayal of his younger self. This thesis provides a close reading of the two texts and explores the ways in which Coetzee’s chosen narrative method and portrayal of the figure of John underline the problematic nature of truth, the frailty of facts, and, therefore questions of authority and verification. Through his highly particular choice of using a third-person present-tense narrative to relay this portrayal, Coetzee endeavors to highlight the distances between historical author, implied author and autobiographical subject. This results in a highly unusual style of life writing that reveals the disadvantages of attempting to condense and define a highly complex form of writing using absolute and binary definitions.