Comments on J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace

Whites in post apartheid South Africa

J.M. Coetzee, born and educated in South Africa, comments upon the changing scenario in the country of his birth. The life after the collapse of the appalling apartheid is strikingly portrayed in his work. It explores the basic human nature, which is not distinguished by any colour. ‘Disgrace’ makes for an impelling though disturbing read. The narrative leaves one dumfounded because of the depiction of cruelty. It is a series of such situations, unrelieved by any comic incidents.

‘Disgrace’ is a dark narrative of the travails of a white girl living all by herself on a farm. David Lurie is the professor of communications. His dalliance with one of his black students, Melanie, gets him discharged from his job. He leaves Cape Town to take up temporary residence with his daughter in the country to escape the hostile atmosphere of the city. However the country turns out not to be the place of refuge he thought it would be. His and his daughter’s life is disrupted by a brutal attack. They are robbed and his daughter is raped. He is disfigured in the savage attack. More disfiguring are the mental scars. He accepts the attack, what he cannot understand is why his daughter acquiesces to the situation, doesn’t say anything about it even to the police. This central incident sets in motion the process of mental subjugation, both Lucy and David’s. Lucy now shuns all human company, neglecting her dogs as well as her farm. She is more hurt by the “personal hatred” that her attackers had for her though they didn’t know her at all before the incident. David, who was so unbending before had refused to submit to the popular sentiment when asked to apologize publicly at Cape Town, now has to accept the incident. He feels old and helpless. He feels guilty that he couldn’t help his daughter. David who used to dislike the job of caring for animals as Lucy’s friend Bev Shaw does, starts helping her out at her clinic. By the end of the novel he learns to give up all that he held important or meaningful in his life, his womanizing, his quest to write the opera, his daughter, his personal dignity, and even the dogs he cares for.

The changing political conditions and their effect on the whites as well as blacks is under scrutiny in Coetzee’s Disgrace. The protagonist, David, who had been a privileged white professor, is disconcerted by the changes in the post-apartheid society. He cannot understand the reality of South Africa, as does his daughter. There has been a reversal of roles, whites are no longer capable of protecting themselves or their own. Blacks are their own masters as well as in a position to patronize the whites. With the dismantling of apartheid the society is in turmoil. There is anarchy all around. David feels out of place in his current job, teaching is merely a formality, an obligation to his students and their parents. There is no perceptible need for the study of ‘classical and modern languages’ so he has to teach the more important ‘communications’. He is a “hangover from the past, the sooner cleared away the better”, his misalliance with his ‘black’ student is seized upon to do just this. He cannot expect any mercy or sympathy ‘in this age and age’. At his daughter’s farm, he is asked to help Petrus, her “assistant…co-proprietor” unthinkable before. He comments on “historical piquancy” and even jests about the pay he will receive. In the middle of the attack on him and his daughter, the fate of almost all the whites living in the country, he mulls over his helplessness, and over the savagery of the “darkest Africa”. He is a non-entity, an impotent white who can only watch and suffer, an “Aunt Sally” whose knowledge of languages cannot save him or his child from “the savages”. The missionary “enterprise of upliftment” has failed miserably. The policy of forcing into submission has also backfired. David understands that this is revenge and that no one is safe from it. The attack on him and his daughter leave David shocked, humiliated and disgraced. He has to accept it as happening “every day, every hour, every minute…in every quarter of the country”, “another incident in the great campaign of redistribution”. He understands that things are no longer the same. “It is a new world they live in”. He laments the passing of old times when he helplessly tries to question Petrus if he had foreknowledge of the attack, and again when he wants the latter to explain the presence of one of the assailants at his party. He suspects Petrus of conniving with the attackers but unlike old days he cannot have it out in the open or lose his temper. He cannot even ask him to explain his relation to one of the attackers because ground realities have changed. He cannot confront him or get angry with him or let loose dogs on him, as had been the case before the regime change. The latter is “a neighbour who at present happens to sell his labour”. He feels more and more out of place in this South Africa. Even English, the language of the whites, is not an apt medium. It has ‘tired’, ‘thickened’ and ‘stiffened’ ‘like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud’. The South Africa he knew is “all gone, gone with the wind”.

David undergoes a profound change as the story progresses from the beginning to the end. From being stubborn and obstinate character as is reflected in his unapologetic and recalcitrant stand when asked to apologize and undergo counseling by the committee probing sexual harassment charges against him, he becomes an ‘old man’, readily giving up everything that he loves- desire to write an opera on Byron’s last days in Italy, his self esteem, even the dogs he cares for. He used to be sure of himself and his decisions, but now he has become bewildered at the fast paced changes taking place in the country, and he is not able to cope with those changes. Hence his settling in the country close to his daughter and helping at the clinic.

Though David knows the reality of present day South Africa, it is his daughter Lucy, the lone female white farmer, who truly understands and accepts this reality. She knows she is not safe on the farm and that dogs can provide “deterrence” only, but then who is safe even with weapons? She loves the land and stays on for its sake. Even after the savage attack, she decides to return to her farm because it is her land, and South Africa her country. David on the other hand is not ready to accept the changed conditions. He thinks of escape, suggests this course to Lucy, but she refuses to hide or run. She cannot be hounded out of her farm and her country. Her neighbours are also of the same opinion. Ettinger and Shaws are not willing to give up their claims to the land just because the times are dangerous. Staying on, as Lucy does, is their way of showing defiance in the face of increasing hostilities. Accepting Petrus as her neighbour on equal footing, inspite of his being black, as well as taking part in his rejoicings is her way of showing that she carries over no excess baggage from the past. She comments upon it matter of factly, “It is a big day for him. We should at least put in an appearance, take them a present”. She reminds David again and again that South Africa has changed, his is no longer a privileged life at the expense of the blacks.

Whites owe a debt to the blacks with their long history of subjugation. Post apartheid they are being made to pay for all the crimes committed, though this method of equalization is despicable in the extreme. Lucy terms her rapists as “debt collectors, tax collectors”. She would be allowed to live on only after paying her dues. The essential similarity of human nature emerges in the turn events take in the novel. Though there has been a profound change in the power structure of the country, post-apartheid society is no different. Power corrupts. Instead of learning to the contrary from their repression, blacks themselves are committing those crimes that oppressed them during apartheid. They are asserting their authority in much the same way as the whites did previously. David, or any other white for that matter, helpless to do anything about the situation, condones the violence as a necessary evil, “just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant”. Vengeance for the past wrongs, thrill and excitement at their victims’ fear and discomfiture are some of the motives behind the spate of rapine and pillaging. The blacks, subjected for so long, relegated to being servants, ‘dog man’ or ‘boy’ for long are now ready to take their share in the things. They don’t shy away from grabbing, robbery, or simple blackmail to get what they believe to be theirs. Though the likes of Petrus have worked hard and suffered, and have earned their right, not everyone seems willing to work hard. Petrus again and again points to the danger of a woman managing a farm alone, and assures her safety if she marries him. Lucy understands this as a ploy to get her farm by him. Nevertheless she accepts the proposal because she loves the land too much to just leave it. For unlike what David thinks she knows that escape is not a possibility. Leaving now will mean accepting defeat and being a refugee in a foreign land.

Though in Lucy’s case it is more of a healing journey through turmoil and pain, to acceptance and strength, the change in her character is no less. Though stunned after the ghastly attack, she emerges stronger from her ordeal. Her decisions to live on on the farm, and alone, and to give birth to her child are her way of showing defiance. She even agrees to the offer of marriage from Petrus, knowing the blackmail he intends, but on her own terms. She fiercely guards her independence, brooks no interference even from her well meaning though helpless father.

Petrus, the ‘dog-man’, portrays the changing face of South Africa. “Once he was a boy, now he is no longer.”(Ch-18, page 152) He is “a man of patience, energy, resilience…A plotter and a schemer and no doubt a liar too”(Ch-14, page 117). He has known hard work, known the life of indignity in the white regime, now, in this changed scenario, he has become a landowner, who doesn’t refrain from blackmail to get his hands on the remaining acres of Lucy’s farm. Though not explicitly stated in the text, he appears to be a silent accomplice in the attack on Lucy and her father, as if to convince her that farms should be managed not by women but by hardy men, and that women need protection of strong men to survive. His offer to marry Lucy to bring her under his protection is his way of conveying in rather clear terms that otherwise she is “fair game”. Lucy understands this reversal of roles and doesn’t report the rape to the police because it is “a purely private matter…in this place, at this time…It is my business…This place being South Africa.”

The change in Petrus is more of status; from a helping hand he becomes a landowner. He is self-confident, upwardly mobile, hard working, shrewd and opportune. He perfectly understands the conditions prevailing, and takes timely steps to make maximum gains. His offer to marry Lucy is a ruse to get her land in the garb of providing protection to her.

Coetzee’s Disgrace is a study of the changing fortunes of white as well as black South Africans. Through the depiction of a series of disturbing incidents, and their effects on the protagonist David, his daughter Lucy and her helper Petrus, the author has laid bare the turbulent reality of present day South Africa, as well as the effect of these changes on the whites who had hitherto led an exclusive and protected life, and blacks who had always been persecuted. Now with the change of political dispensation, fortunes of both have changed. David, confused and dazed belongs to the past and has no place in the South Africa of today. Lucy, brave, dauntless and self-reliant is shown to be the kind of person who will survive the turbulence that South Africa is going through. Petrus is the future of South Africa, black, zealous, enterprising, strong, competent and aware.