Dehumanisation, Otherness and Animal Tropes in J.M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron
Abstract
This paper aims to investigate J.M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron (1990) from the perspective of the metaphorical connotations acquired by animal tropes in the narrative. It demonstrates how the elderly protagonist of the novel, Mrs Curren, uses animal imagery to define and categorise people she associates with otherness, particularly in relation to two groups: the racialised and marginalised ‘victims’ of apartheid, and the white supremacist ‘perpetrators’, including nationalist politicians and compliant white citizens. In both cases, these figurative devices contribute to a broader process of dehumanisation, highlighting the contradictions and limitations of the protagonist’s liberal-humanist perspective and its entanglement with anthropocentric and Eurocentric biases.
Presentato: 26 Giugno 2025 | Accettato: 06 Ottobre 2025 | Lingua: en
Keywords Victim • Perpetrator • Animal tropes • Apartheid • Age of Iron
Copyright © 2025 Lorenzo Santi . This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Tol/2499-5975/2025/01/008