Disgrace
Coetzee’s Disgrace
On Rape and Responsibility
Throughout the course of Disgrace, Coetzee attempts to juxtapose the rape of Melanie with that of Lucy. By analyzing the actions of David Lurie, Lucy and Petrus, it becomes apparent that there is a dynamometric sense of responsibility among victims and abusers. Coetzee attempts to demonstrate that rape is more than a gendered based crime, that social class, and ethnicity also play roles in determining what harm is committed. It is because the rapes are not viewed through the eyes of the victim but primarily through Lurie, who sympathizes with Lucy and denies raping Melanie, that the readers are forced to determine who burdens responsibility and to what extent actions are repentant.
Lurie’s attack on Melanie is more or less a date rape. He doesn’t take no for an answer and her passive means of refusal are not enough for him to take the hint. He truly believes that he is dating this woman, and that it is his right to engage in such relations with her. This belief is wound up in his perpetual state of selfishness and his arrogance of self delusion. She ends up filing for grievances making the whole situation public.
Lucy is not just attacked, she is punished. What is done to her is done for the sole intention of causing her harm, of scaring her as an individual. It is done because she is a white woman, because she is the epitome of what is wrong with her rapist’s world. Along with the rape she is robbed of her property, and her father is assaulted and badly burned. In the end they both have to live with the scars of what happened.
The attack on her is not personal; it is the way an oppressed social class is lashing out at the harsh mistreatment they have received for generations. What is ironic however is that the fact that the act in itself is the most personal it could have been. The society they are trying to punish is not going to be affected as a whole to what happened that day. It is a tragedy
On Rape and Responsibility
Throughout the course of Disgrace, Coetzee attempts to juxtapose the rape of Melanie with that of Lucy. By analyzing the actions of David Lurie, Lucy and Petrus, it becomes apparent that there is a dynamometric sense of responsibility among victims and abusers. Coetzee attempts to demonstrate that rape is more than a gendered based crime, that social class, and ethnicity also play roles in determining what harm is committed. It is because the rapes are not viewed through the eyes of the victim but primarily through Lurie, who sympathizes with Lucy and denies raping Melanie, that the readers are forced to determine who burdens responsibility and to what extent actions are repentant.
Lurie’s attack on Melanie is more or less a date rape. He doesn’t take no for an answer and her passive means of refusal are not enough for him to take the hint. He truly believes that he is dating this woman, and that it is his right to engage in such relations with her. This belief is wound up in his perpetual state of selfishness and his arrogance of self delusion. She ends up filing for grievances making the whole situation public.
Lucy is not just attacked, she is punished. What is done to her is done for the sole intention of causing her harm, of scaring her as an individual. It is done because she is a white woman, because she is the epitome of what is wrong with her rapist’s world. Along with the rape she is robbed of her property, and her father is assaulted and badly burned. In the end they both have to live with the scars of what happened.
The attack on her is not personal; it is the way an oppressed social class is lashing out at the harsh mistreatment they have received for generations. What is ironic however is that the fact that the act in itself is the most personal it could have been. The society they are trying to punish is not going to be affected as a whole to what happened that day. It is a tragedy
Cited: Coetzee, J M. Disgrace. New York: Penguin Books, 1999 Gal, Noam Glenn, Ian. "Gone for Good- Coetzee 's Disgrace." English in Africa 36 No. 2 (2009): 79-98. Mardorossian, Carine M. "Rape and the Violence of Representation in J. M. Coetzee 's Disgrace." Research in African Literatures 42 No. 4 (2011): 72-83. Nagy, Rosemary. "The Ambiguities of Reconciliation and Responsibility in South Africa." Political Studies 52 (2004): 709-727. Saunders, Rebecca. "Disgrace in the Time of a Truth Commission." Parallax11, No. 3 (2005): 99- 106 --------------------------------------------