Disgrace
參賽者： 張〇儀（應外四）
名次：第二名
書名：Disgrace
得獎作品：
This is a story of disgrace in post-apartheid South Africa, written by J.M. Coetzee. David Lurie, a Cape Town professor of English, loses everything after having an affair with his own student, Melanie. There is a hearing to help him save his jeopardized reputation and job, but David Lurie is arrogant enough and not willing to accept the deal offered by the committee. He has been assailed by the public; as a result, his reputation sinks out of sight and his job is gone. However, David Lurie himself, dissatisfied with his own lectures to unwilling students, does not seem to care that much. Having caught in a mess, David escapes from his disgrace in the city and moves to his daughter’s farm in Eastern Cape, taking refuge. David’s daughter Lucy, a solid woman and a lesbian, is now leading her life perfectly well in the countryside, seemingly. There is Lucy’s neighbor Petrus, a hardworking farmer, who is black. Although David Lurie thinks at first that Petrus seems to know his place, in time it becomes clear that Petrus wants Lucy’s land and Lucy as one of his wives. Later, an attack is launched against Lucy, raped and impregnated, and David, violently assaulted. Surprisingly, Lucy does not seek for justice and sanction imposed on the rapists, who are also black. Not until then does David Lurie realize the difference already occurred in post-apartheid South Africa. At first, I think Melanie is a victim of David Lurie because his affection, if there is, is obviously not appreciated. David occupies a position of power, a professor, and that is why Melanie does not resist. While they are having sex, Melanie is passive throughout. “All she does is avert herself: avert her lips, avert her eyes,” and “she goes slack, dies within herself for the duration.” We can easily tell how undesired the whole duration is. But then, Melanie starts to know how to take advantage of David, of her own unfortunate. As for David, I don’t think he is a victim of Melanie. From his attitude on the hearing, obviously he does not care about what Melanie says to the committee or how she reacts toward their closeness. He accepts them all. Also, he has made it clear to the committee that he is not sorry and he won’t repent. So, it seems to me that David is the victim of his own desire, something he cannot control, instead of his student Melanie. Animals in the novel are served as the inferior ones, probably black South Africans during apartheid, the colored like Melanie, and now people like David Lurie. At first, David has no sympathy/empathy for the dogs. To some extent, he identifies the animals as black South Africans, the inferior kind: when David finds out the black boy who is peeping at Lucy, he calls him “swine”; also, David thinks what the rapists do is nothing but mating, “marking Lucy like a dog’s urine.” But later he takes on the job as a dog man because he doesn’t want the dogs to bear such disgrace, so I believe it is because he identifies himself as the same kind with them, and there is no such a thing called baas en Klaas (boss and worker in Afrikaans) between him and the dogs. “Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept. To start at ground level. With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity. Like a dog. Yes, like a dog.” He himself has actually become the inferior kind now. The reason why Lucy does not seek for justice is confusing. David once says, “Perhaps it was not they who produced her: perhaps history had the larger share.” This is probably the foreshadowing about Lucy’s attitude toward what happens followed. According to David, Lucy “wishes to humble herself before history,” “a history of wrong.” It could be apartheid. Lucy herself also says, “I don't want to come back in another existence as a dog or a pig and have to live as dogs or pigs live under us.” She wants to make up for black South Africans for what white people has put them through, so she moves to the village and befriend them, subordinating herself out of her own will. In short, she compromises. While David is unbending, it is too hard for him to accept how the society has changed after apartheid. For example, he doesn’t understand why Petrus can just walk in his daughter’s house and act like he is their same kind. However, I do think David has changed by the end of the novel. This is post-apartheid South Africa. People must accept or adapt, and David does. He surrenders to the past; his sympathy/empathy for the animals grows, and he is learning how to compromise. And I believe that is his transformation, his changes.
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