“Her Prim Answering Smile”

To date, disability readings of J. M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K have engaged with the implications stemming from the protagonist’s neurodiversity; however, this discourse can be expanded to account for his physical alterity. From birth, K is stigmatized for his cleft lip, a defining corporeal trait that aptly informs his “life and times.” In response, this article argues, K develops a method for negotiating the ableist politics underscoring apartheid South Africa. He studies the body part for which he is stigmatized—mouths. Encountering a series of oral expressions, K gauges each to determine the extent of his participation within his war-torn milieu. Whereas his mother’s smile conjures happiness and prompts engagement, the soldier’s mocking grin is a threatening gesture from which K distances himself. This article suggests Coetzee’s novel questions the state of personhood, asking not who is granted the dignities afforded to the liberal individual in apartheid South Africa, but what that individual must look like in order to experience affections such as compassion and respect.