In the novel, Michael comes across many borders in the form of barbed-wire fences. Most of these fences on farms are meant to keep people out, but in the camps, the fences are meant to keep people in. The first distinct time readers encounter a border is when Michael climbs over a barbed-wire fence into an apple orchard where, “worm-eaten fruit lay everywhere underfoot; the fruit on the branches was undersized and infested” (39). Michael learns here that he will actually eat this infested fruit in order to survive, meaning that he will do anything to be a part of this earth. Michael is constantly saying that he is a gardener. He learns that whoever owns this land is not taking care of the orchard and the plant life is dying. Michael finds life in this death and is able to satisfy his hunger. He also instills in himself a stronger connection with the land and the value of plants, making this need to cross any fence to find the purpose of life in the land.
Even the house on the farm where his mother grew up is a fence in itself. Inside is desolate and he only finds comfort when he sleeps in the kitchen because there is a hole in the ceiling and Michael can see the stars. Michael is so connected to the earth that he needs his freedom, away from fences in order to flourish. That is why he planted pumpkins near the river bank. But then, when he leaves and escapes to the mountains, Michael worries, “tomorrow will be their last day… the day after that they will wilt, and the day after that they will die” (65). He views these plants as his children. Even when he is up in the mountains, away from fencing, Michael still shows his concern for his pumpkins. He learns that even though he had to abandon his “children” in order to survive, he feels guilty. Living off the land, away from fences, Michael has started a life and he is now able to show his true emotions and feelings. Sometimes people are trapped in their homes or they cannot show their emotions. Like Michael has plants, hopefully people can find a source of freedom that makes them happy.
When he was taken to the labor camp, Michael was forced into a fenced property. He couldn’t leave; if he did he was told he would be shot. Being held against his will has made him truly unhappy. When he finally escaped, luckily he wasn’t killed, but “every mile or two there was a fence to remind him that he was a trespasser as well as a runaway” (97). Sadly, the land he lives off of is not his. Michael will jump over any fence to feel closer to the land and feel a sense of belonging in this world. Figuratively, when one jumps over a fence, it may seem like they are doing something wrong, but in reality, that person may be escaping a horror or standing up for what is right. Michael would rather be in danger of being captured than actually being held captive. Michael tells the doctor, “I always wanted to fly. I used to stretch out my arms and think I was flying over the fences and between the houses” (133). This imagination tells the reader that Michael has always been captive, even in his school or institution. He was never free and he never saw the land bordered by a fence as a safe place.
The fences do come up quite a bit in this novel. It seems like they both figuratively and physically keep Michael away from that ultimate freedom. The patrols on the roads, though not actual fences, serve the same role- they send him back once, then they keep him from proceeding freely, forcing him to hide and live like an animal.
ReplyDeleteThese barriers of all sorts are the products of those in charge, but what’s interesting is, as you mention, they serve a dual purpose- to keep the ‘others’ in and to keep them ‘out’, depending on what scenario best serves the needs of those in charge. As you say, “Michael has always been a captive”, but he has also been an outsider, therefore, he is both kept in and kept out at the same time. When he is returned to Cape Town at the end, he is kicked ‘over’ the fence and into another fenced locality.
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ReplyDeleteThe fences and Michael’s ideas of confinement seem to be as prevalent as their paradox: living off the land, taking no more than you need, revitalizing the earth, leaving no evidence of existence after dying. Another similar paradox associated with this is the speaking and the silence. Coetzee ironically speaks through rhetoric for a man who wishes to remove himself from his own and all other forms of verbal noise. The second narrator is a guard, a representative of captivity. Both Coetzee and the guard are presumably white and Michael is not. I see as well a opposite relationship between men, the guard and his father, both representing war, and his surrogate mother, Mother Earth, who he wants to be a physical part of and to protect. But, at the same time, it appears as there is only two choices for him: to live in a cage or among fenced borders, or to “live like a beast…in a hole and hide by day.”
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