Gender Discrimination In Disgrace By J. M. Coetzee

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee is a novel that came out five years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, in 1999. The novel illustrates the post-apartheid condition in South Africa and includes the changes, political and social, which the black citizens gained in freedom and power. However, the situation did not improve matters for females, not only black women, but also for the white women that were fortunate during apartheid. Disgrace depicts the female population through silence in a country fighting racial segregation. It represents gender discrimination and racism, which are equally expressed through a disturbing protagonist, David Lurie, a professor at Cape Technical University. Additionally, the elements of rape and silence are also
The event starts off with Lucy letting one out of three men into the house, in result she becomes the victim of a brutal gang rape. Subsequently, Lucy asks David to share his experience: “You tell me what happened to you, I tell what happened to me” (99). What is ironic is that Lucy does not share any detail about her experience. In result, Lucy chooses to remain determinedly silent and does not report to the police about her rape, she only reports that her father was attacked and belongings were stolen. Unlike her father, Lucy believes the police and other authorities are not capable to handle and solve what has happened to her. She explains to her
Firstly, it is demonstrated through Melanie’s “not rape, not quite” (25) and the violent rape of Lucy. These two females will now live in an unbearable condition and suffer in silence. The effects of both sexual assaults relate to the sufferings of female victims in both apartheid and post-apartheid. Similar to numerous victims of sexual assault, Melanie and Lucy are introduced into a life of suppression and silence, which causes them to be incapable of describing the awful incident that they have experienced. These female characters are a strong example of how females in real life are silenced, that they are unable to convey the many attacks that have arisen. Therefore, the novel focuses more on silenced victims, rather than the sexual attacks