The Story Archive

In the Heart of the Country

J. M. Coetzee · 1977 CE · Novel · South African · Contemporary

Magda keeps house for her father on a sheep farm in the Karoo, where nothing happens for weeks and the only other people are the servants at the outbuildings. She narrates in numbered entries, and when the new foreman brings a young wife onto the place and her father starts crossing the yard at night, the entries begin contradicting one another about what she has done. Coetzee's second book, a colonial pastoral taken apart from inside the spinster daughter's head.

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Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalPolitical
Theme
Isolation & AlienationMadnessColonialismIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Anti-Hero
Plot structure
ConfessionUnreliable NarratorNonlinear / Fractured
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe WildernessThe Mirror
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
ModernistGothic
Culture / tradition
South African

Closest analogues