Literary essay notes on the Disgrace by J.M Coetzee , achieved an aggregate above 85% for these notes. Includes all themes and quotes. Has been approved by various IEB english teachers.
DISGRACE
Themes | resistance to change
It’s fitting that Disgrace opens with David Lurie’s solicitation of sex from a prostitute, Soraya.
True, Soraya works for an escort service but David still reveals Soraya’s body to be a
commodity that can be bought and sold. This knowledge doesn’t deter David, though, and he
again prioritises his own needs during his affair with Melanie. Although Melanie is his student
and has hips “as slim as a twelve-year-old’s,” David exerts his power over her and pushes her
to have sex. So to speak, David knows that what he does is somewhat immoral but still goes
ahead with it thus deterring the chance to change. (The same can be said when he encounters
Melanie's little sister )
Change is inevitable, David’s resistance to change is most apparent in his aversion to getting
older and more irrelevant, which drives him to have sex with younger women such as Melanie
Isaacs. He uses sex as a way of maintaining his sense of youthfulness, ultimately trying to
recapture his younger days. This tendency to live in the past also rears its head when he
denounces the idea of self-improvement “not receptive to being counselled,” refusing to go to
counselling because he believes a person can’t change after a certain age.
Despite seeing Lucy as a full-fledged adult, David also has difficulty accepting she’s no longer
his little girl“You cannot be a father forever”. David’s reluctance to let Lucy go and not try to
control her life, particularly after she decides not to report her rape and keep the child
conceived during the attack, ultimately drives a wedge between them. “Why arent you telling
the whole story?”
David does not experience a good shift, despite the fact that one could claim that he changed
in some aspects, such as learning compassion from Bev Shaw or serenity from Lucy. But
despite spending so much time on the farm, he continues to have sexual needs “So this is all it
takes!, he thinks. How could I ever have forgotten it?” . He doesn't develop; instead, he falls
backward, underlining his inability to change.
David Lurie never thinks of his act as a sin. He indirectly noted that the beauty of Melanie is
not her own. It should be shared and he had his share. Lurie’s attitude towards women is
obvious in his statement. He considers women as a thing which comes under the power of
men. Men can dominate women as they possess power. This rational view and supremacy
thought never allows him to think of sexual exploitation as a mistake. Further, Lurie states
“Repentance is neither here nor there”. He maintained an arrogance and superiority in many
places like his affair with Soroya and Melanie, at the committee and at the interview of
students. He never accepts the guilt. His power thirst and lust drive him to a disgraceful way of
living.
, DISGRACE
Themes | apartheid regime
David struggles to accept the new social and racial dynamics of a post-apartheid South Africa.
He had grown accustomed to a system in which white men like himself are powerful and
dominant. Nonetheless, just because he resists transformation doesn't mean he isn't aware
that society no longer accords his old views, he just doesn't make an effort to change. Coetzee
uses all David's destruction to illustrate the harmful effects of such an inflexible world view.
At first, David doesn’t act on his racist outlook, but he finds himself incapable of containing his
rage when he discovers that Petrus knows Pollux.. “Never has he felt such elemental rage,”
“Teach him a lesson, Show him his place.” In this moment, David allows his anger to mingle
with his inability to accept South Africa’s new social order, ultimately weaponizing his
resistance to change and using it as a further excuse to beat Pollux. Indeed, his frustration
regarding his own fading power combines in this scene with his opposition to the vanishing
dominance of white people in South Africa.
Lucy, on the other hand, has no problem with the way their country has transformed itself,
which is perhaps why she later chastises David for behaving so extremely. As such, Coetzee
shows readers how David’s resistance to change affects his life for the worse.
Lucy’s rape reveals that justice demands payment as her response must navigate the historical
moment. Lucy realizes that her rape happened because of the hatred that still exists from the
history of oppression of colored people in South Africa. She acknowledges that her rape was a
form of payment for justice and that she owed the people she lives among “Not slavery.
Subjection. Subjugation”.. Thus, Lucy fully embodies the way forward for the country. The
white population must display grace and humility in order to heal the past. Lucy's choice to
raise her baby and provide it with love and care shows how those once divided must now live
together in peace. “If I leave the farm now I will leave defeated.” Lucy accepts the change and
embraces it while Lurie rejects it and thus goes through turmoil.
Like rain and sheep, dogs in Disgrace multi-task in their functions as symbols. The dogs
that Lucy kennels on her farm can be seen to represent violence related to South Africa's racial
tensions. “in a country where dogs are bred to snarl at the smell of a black man.”
It’s especially interesting, then, that Petrus “the dog man” uses Lucy’s rape, and the men’s
motive to subjugate Lucy, as leverage to take over her land in exchange for his patronage and
protection, thus swapping one form of oppression for another.
Ettingers words speak to ongoing racism and tensions in SA. “not one of the you can trust” he
shows the lingering divide and the we-versus-them mentality.
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