Elizabeth Costello as a Socratic figure

Abstract

J.M. Coetzee’s use of the persona, Elizabeth Costello, in several short pieces as well as in The Lives of Animals, Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man has had a mixed reaction amongst reviewers and critics, and Costello herself, in her uncompromising attack on reason and her repeated evocation of the Holocaust to describe how humans treat other animals, has proven to be a controversial figure, both within The Lives of Animals and by reviewers and critics of the novel. It will be argued that her contentious nature can partly be explained by understanding her as a Socratic figure. This insight is corroborated by Coetzee’s commitment to Bakhtin’s dialogism and polyphony, which Bakhtin traces back to the Socratic dialogue. Coetzee’s use of polyphony is evident in all his novels, not least in the dialogic format of The Lives of Animals.