타자로서의 동물: 쿳시의 소설을 중심으로

In the novels of J. M. Coetzee, the relation of subject and the Other and subject’s responsibility for the other have been revealed. Subjects described as dominant at the beginning of the novel are affected by the totally unknowable Other and feel the sense of responsibility for the uncontrollable Other. Their relation is ethical because the completely silent and unknowable Other make subjects powerless and feel the sense of responsibility that can’t be performed in reality. For Emmanuel Levinas, the relation of subject and the Other is neither selective nor an alternative for a rational consciousness. And this ethics for the Other is similar to the ethics described in novels of J. M. Coetzee. But the striking difference between their ethics is that the object of responsibility in the novel of J. M. Coetzee is not only the human being but also the animal. Elizabeth Costello, the principal of The Lives of Animals, maintains that we can imagine what is it like to be the body of animal throughout ‘sympathetic imagination.’ The identity of the human being can be dependant on the animal Other as the man feel sympathy for the suffering animal. The Other is not confined to the human other and the animal Other is not sacrificed for the human being in novels of J. M. Coetzee. The Other is not divided clearly with the human being and animal being. The alterity of the Other being symbolizes the animality of the man that has been suppressed by the subject but comprises the internal and unremovable of human subject. Abyss maintained by many philosophers and theorists between the man and the animal is not valid any longer in the works of J. M. Coetzee. Throughout the finitude of death and suffering of body, he transcends the insuperable line between the human being and the animal being.