| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 英文學系 === 106 === In J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man (2005), Paul Raymond’s car accident enables him to experience his self-recovery, and the experience changes his life. His suffering helps him understand what confinement is and how authority uses its power to confine disability. Through his suffering, he also starts to re-examine his life and to understand what he has lost. Elizabeth Costello, as the “other,” helps him to understand his desire and leads him to explore his consciousness. Being and essence are two factors that influence consciousness. Marijana and Drago, as “others,” help Paul understand what he desires of family. With their help, Paul examines his life. His development of consciousness starts from confinement and ends in desire for family. His journey of self-recovery helps him face his life with hope rather than sorrow.
In my thesis, Michel Foucault’s “confinement” and Emmanuel Levinas’s “other” are used to analyze Paul Raymond. From the confinement of social control to the awakening consciousness, which is taught by the “other,” he experiences the process to overcome the suffering in his life. Most important of all, he sees the light in his mind–consciousness. Suffering is only a start to approach a better life. To get along with self is more important than anything else. Age is never a problem to achieve the goal of life. Each suffering in our lives is the key step to understand about self.
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