One of the most important terms in the critical lexicon of John Maxwell Coetzee is allegory. The literal vs. symbolic controversy has surely dominated the critical discourse concerning J.M. Coetzee's oeuvre and ranges from acknowledgement of allegory as a principal mode of reading (most notably the works of Dominic Head and Teresa Dovey) to refusal of treatment of textual elements as metaphors or symbols of other, grander entities or ideas as exemplified by critical studies of Derek Attridge.5 An inquiry into an anti-allegorical move provides a student of Coetzee's fiction with enough data to speak of Coetzee's reluctance to acknowledge his novels as being something else than what they are, saying or meaning more than their most literal reading allows.