A Dog with a Broken Back: Animals as Rhetoric and Reality in the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee
Abstract
Coetzee’s fiction ‘calls into question [the] longstanding cultural assumption of human superiority [over animals]. His novels Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello, in particular, foreground philosophical arguments about animals. … This essay will not address these philosophical questions directly, although the suggestion that animals present a challenge to the assumption of human superiority is implicit in some of its arguments. Its focus is the rhetorical and symbolic function of animals in Coetzee’s fiction.’ (61)
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Published 1 June 2010 in Volume 25 No. 2. Subjects: Animals, Literary influences, Metaphors, Symbolism, Writer's works, Animal Studies, J.M. Coetzee.
Cite as: Ley, James. ‘A Dog with a Broken Back: Animals as Rhetoric and Reality in the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 2010, doi: 10.20314/als.92fe989544.