‘God knows whether there is a Dulcinea in this world or not’: Idealized Passion and Undecidable Desire in J.M. Coetzee

Abstract

This chapter examines the male idealisation of the female figure that we find in many of J. M. Coetzee’s works, together with their depiction of male-female relationships as characterised by a constant conflict between the real and the ideal, imagination and physicality. Arguing that this conflict owes much to Don Quixote’s relation to Dulcinea, to which Coetzee’s texts repeatedly turn, López analyses the ways in which Coetzee’s texts explore the complexities and ambivalent ethical consequences of passion and desire, which are often presented as undecidable forces exceeding the subject’s choice and control, but for which characters must take responsibility in social, ethical and legal terms.