Disgrace+(ENN102)



=DISGRACE (ENN102)=

There is a very good movie that has been made about this book - never a substitute for reading the actual novel, but certainly a good way of gaining some understanding of the themes Coetzee was exploring through this story.

See the trailer: []

**Pg. 7 Some insight into Lurie’s life:**
 * He feels he is losing his sexual magnetism
 * He becomes increasingly promiscuous as a result
 * He attempts to seduce the wives of his colleagues, tourists and even turns to prostitutes etc.
 * He forges a “relationship” with Soraya – a prostitute and visits her on a weekly basis.

**Later** Soraya finds David watching her and her two sons through the window of a restaurant. She becomes uneasy and when he calls her home she ends the relationship and will no longer have anything to do with him.

**David then seduces one of his students Melanie Issacs:**
 * After their third sexual encounter she tells her boyfriend
 * The boyfriend turns nasty and vandalizes Lurie’s car
 * Later Lurie is formally charged with sexual harassment
 * He is called to a disciplinary meeting and while he admits to acting on his erotic impulses he refuses to show remorse or apologise
 * He leaves the University in disgrace (1)

**David leaves for Salem, a town in the Eastern Cape to stay with his daughter, Lucy. She has a plot of land in the countryside.**
 * Lucy is a lesbian and has recently gone through a breakup
 * Lucy, like her father, has a definite stubborn streak
 * Their relationship is problematic from the start
 * Lucy calls her father David and they are polite with each other rather than displaying any father / daughter connection
 * One day Lucy is gang raped by three men while David is locked in the toilet – he hears the violence taking place and is unable to help
 * He is assaulted before the men leave and the attackers also shoot and kill Lucy’s dogs
 * Petrus (who is the farm hand on Lucy’s plot) is away during the attack
 * We later learn that one of the attackers is related to Petrus and David becomes suspicious about Petrus’ involvement in the incident

**After the attack Lucy’s behaviour is something David cannot understand:** **In the final phases of Lurie’s stay in Salem we see him working at the local animal clinic where he assists Lucy’s friend Bev:**
 * Lucy refuses to talk about the attack – she sees it a personal matter
 * David is frustrated by Lucy’s attitude, but he behaved in a very similar manner regarding his affair with Melanie Issacs
 * Lucy reports the break in, the killing of her dogs and the fact that her truck was stolen, but she does not tell the police that she was raped
 * Lucy also chooses to keep the baby she is now pregnant with – her father cannot come to terms with her decision
 * She also decides to give her plot of land to Petrus and marry him – it would be an sex-less marriage and she would be his third wife
 * She believes that, as Petrus’ wife, she will be able to stay on her land and gain physical protection
 * Lurie has to come to terms with the reality that he is about to become the grandfather of a mixed race child
 * Bev and David end up sleeping together one night, but the “relationship” totally lacks any genuine passion
 * David strangely forms a genuine bond with the dogs that he has to euthanize at the vet; one maimed dog in particular seems to love the music David plays on his banjo
 * David’s final act is to euthanize the dog, despite planning to keep it alive for another week **(we need to ask why?)**

**A few things to note**
 * The narrator tends to speak in the present tense
 * We learn that David is 52, divorced and has a rather mechanical attitude towards sex
 * Despite what he might think David has certainly not solved the problem of sex – in fact his problems are about to start

**The first chapter of this book actually tells us a great deal:** 
 * We gain some insight into Lurie’s attitude towards women (stemming from his childhood)
 * Soraya clearly has a rather contradictory value system
 * Lurie has a very fixed temperament and fights / resents change
 * He has a strong academic interest in Byron and a dedication to Eros (the Greek god of love)
 * The escalating crime in SA and how more and more people are thinking of emigrating to places like New Zealand

**The “rape” of Melanie Issacs (pages 19; 25 and 29)** David and Melanie have sex three times before the charges are laid against him: **QUESTION:** Can we really call this a “rape”? Possibly not in the sense that we usually would usually associate the word!
 * On the first occasion they drive out to Hout Bay and then he takes her to his home where he “makes love to her”
 * She is totally passive throughout the event
 * Her passivity turns him on even more and he “tumbles into blank oblivion” after he reaches a climax (you need to ask why her passivity affected him in this way?)
 * On the second occasion we read that she “does not resist” him although she does avert her lips (avoids kissing him) and she will not look at him.
 * Again she is passive and allows him to lay her down and undress her, she even assists him in removing her clothing.
 * On the final occasion we read that “he makes love to her one more time… She is quick and greedy for experience. If he doe not sense in her a fully sexual appetite that is only because she is still young.”
 * We should note that after this encounter she is relaxed enough to make conversation with him: “Do you do this kind of thing often?” she asks him.


 * **Yes**, Lurie seduced a young, immature woman.
 * **Yes**, he compromised his ethics by having an intimate relationship with one of his students (especially when he changes an examination mark for her)


 * But did he rape her?**