Age of Iron

by

J. M. Coetzee

Cancer Symbol Icon

Age of Iron uses Mrs. Curren’s battle with cancer as a symbol for the larger societal and moral decay present in South Africa under Apartheid. Just as cancer corrupts the body from within, the novel illustrates how the Apartheid system corrupts South African society, eroding its moral and ethical foundations. This symbolism extends to the physical and emotional suffering that cancer causes, which echos the pain and trauma people suffer due to systemic oppression and widespread violence. In large part, Age of Iron is a book about empathy, and it is only through the physical decay of her body that Mrs. Curren can understand the societal decay that is happening all around her. Notably, Mrs. Curren’s cancer is terminal, and it is implied that she is on death’s door as the novel concludes. This seems to suggest that Apartheid, too, is in its final days.

Cancer Quotes in Age of Iron

The Age of Iron quotes below all refer to the symbol of Cancer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Violence and Perspective Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

There is an alley down the side of the garage, you may remember it, you and your friends would sometimes play there. Now it is a dead place, waste, without use, where windblown leaves pile up and rot.

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker)
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

The first task laid on me, from today: to resist the craving to share my death. Loving you, loving life, to forgive the living and take my leave without bitterness. To embrace death as my own, mine alone.

To whom this writing then? The answer: to you but not to you; to me; to you in me.

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), Mrs. Curren’s Daughter
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

I played as badly as ever, misreading the same chords as half a century ago, repeating fingering mistakes grown by now into the bone, never to be corrected. (The bones prized above all archaeologists, I remember, are those gnarled with disease or splintered by an arrowhead: bones marked with a history from a time before history.)

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), Vercueil
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

The country smoulders, yet with the best will in the world I can only half-attend. My true attention is all inward, upon the thing, the word, the word for the thing inching through my body. An ignominious occupation, and in times like these ridiculous too, as a banker with his clothes on fire is a joke while a burning beggar is not. Yet I cannot help myself. “Look at me!” I want to cry to Florence – “I too am burning!”

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), Florence
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:

“Tell this to your daughter,” said Vercueil quietly. “She will come.”

“No.”

“Tell her right now. Phone her in. America. Tell her you need her here.”

“No.”

“Then don't tell her afterwards, when it is too late. She won’t forgive you.”

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), Vercueil (speaker), Mrs. Curren’s Daughter
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:

“Perhaps I should simply accept that that is how one must live from now on: in a state of shame. Perhaps shame is nothing more than the name for the way I feel all the time. The name for the way in which people live who would prefer to be dead.”

Shame. Mortification. Death in life.

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), John (Bheki’s Friend)
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

I say I do not want to be put to sleep. The truth is, without sleep I cannot endure. Whatever else it brings, the Diconal at least brings sleep or a simulacrum of sleep. As the pain recedes, as time quickens, as the horizon lifts, my attention, concentrated like a burning-glass on the pain, can slacken for a while; I can draw breath, unclench my hailed hands, straighten my legs.

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), Vercueil, Mrs. Curren’s Daughter
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:

“Is it time?” I said.

I got back into bed, into the tunnel between the cold sheets. The curtains parted; he came in beside me. For the first time I smelled nothing. He took me in his arms and held me with mighty force, so that the breath went out of me in a rush. From that embrace there was no warmth to be had.

Related Characters: Mrs. Curren (speaker), Vercueil
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Age of Iron LitChart as a printable PDF.
Age of Iron PDF

Cancer Symbol Timeline in Age of Iron

The timeline below shows where the symbol Cancer appears in Age of Iron. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Pain, Suffering, and Companionship Theme Icon
Apartheid in South Africa Theme Icon
...Curren had just returned from her appointment with Dr. Syfret, who diagnosed her with terminal cancer. When she comes upon the homeless man, she is trembling. She warns him that he... (full context)
Pain, Suffering, and Companionship Theme Icon
...inside her home. She invites him to sit down and then tells him about her cancer. Rather than address what she says, the man replies, “This is a big house, […]... (full context)
Chapter 2
Violence and Perspective Theme Icon
Pain, Suffering, and Companionship Theme Icon
Apartheid in South Africa Theme Icon
While sitting in the car with Vercueil, Mrs. Curren thinks about the state of her cancer and the current condition of South Africa. She wonders whether it would be better to... (full context)
Chapter 3
Violence and Perspective Theme Icon
Apartheid in South Africa Theme Icon
...her up, causing her to cry out in pain. Mrs. Curren tells them she has cancer and orders them to put her down immediately. The police exchange a look and a... (full context)