A comparative corpus stylistic analysis of thematization and characterization in Gordimer’s My Son’s Story and Coetzee’s Disgrace

Abstract

My Son’s Story and Disgrace are two novels written by two South African Noble laureates – Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee, respectively. The current study attempts to comparatively uncover the thematic foci as well as characterization aspects and interpersonal relations between characters in the two novels by dint of corpus linguistic tools, i.e., keywords and key clusters. Thus, using Sketch Engine online interface, the study presents a comparative thematic categorization of the two novels – a categorization which proves congruent with the thematization provided by previous critical literary studies of each novel. Both novels are found to revolve around racial tensions and illicit relationships in South Africa. However, although My Son’s Story is set during the apartheid and Disgrace is set after the apartheid is supposedly over, comparative corpus-driven investigation of the two novels reveals that the South Africa promised in My Son’s Story is betrayed in Disgrace, since racial violence and cross-race sexual dissipation persist. Quantitatively, using the notion of local textual functions, the associations between the use of key clusters, their repercussions on characters’ depiction, and their interpersonal relationships are uncovered. Clear affinities between the two protagonists, Sonny and David, are discerned, e.g., their love for music and literature, their sexual whims, their unsettled relationships with their children, etc. Empirically, the father–son/daughter turbulences, husband–wife vicissitudes, landlord–farmer intricacies, and love affairs’ intricacies are fathomed.

Keywords

• characterization
• thematization
• corpus stylistics
• local textual functions
• race
• illicit love
• noble laureates
• south africa
• apartheid