Essay on J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace: Post-Apartheid South Africa

This is despite that fact that there was a possibility of expulsion as a result of “moral violations”. It is these challenges that thrilled the two parties more and compelled them to love each other in a better way. This would be difficult for David now as the environment has changed among other factors that also include his age and ability to take part in various activities (Gracca

The description of their relationship draws on the language of navigation and discovery. She is seen as “undiscovered country” p.32 and David is a “battered vessel”. The narrator suggests there is no map for love

David Petrakis is Melinda’s lab partner and again one of the few people who will talk to Melinda. David is very academically strong, opinionated, and when he wants something to be said he will say it. David is a sweet guy who starts to like Melinda so he starts helping her out with everything he can. For example, he helps her on a school project but her project ends up getting her sent to MISS (Merryweather In School Suspension). David mostly does the work in biology for Melinda since their lab partners. Melinda starts to adore David because of his great

David acknowledges that his sexual violation of Melanie, who was a student, was not desired by her, he states it was “Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away” (pg 25). During the disciplinary hearing, Melanie’s account never reaches the reader, and David refuses to defend himself. This leaves the reader scratching their heads, wondering if it was rape or if it wasn’t.

The avowal that the apartheid ‘vision for democracy’ necessitated state terror and repression is evident when examining the South African apartheid system between 1960 -1994. The system of apartheid spiked significant internal resistance, hence, the ideology for apartheid stems from the creation of a white state surrounded by economically interdependent and politically dependent black states, which required state terror and repression to ensure mounting resistance and international condemnation did not abolish the apartheid system. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which increased support for armed resistance. Detentions were set without trial, torture, censorship and the outlawing of political oppositional organizations such as The African National Congress, the Black Conscious Movement, the Azanian Peoples Organisation, The Pan Africanist Congress and the United Democratic Front, were all a result of the apartheid government due to political resistance.

David noticed how his daughter kept scuffing her feet and scowling with exaggerated impatience, while giving him a silent treatment with obvious difficulties, not because she was avoiding to get yet another reprimand from him, but because she was just stubborn and proud like her mother. God, how she reminded him of her so much; same strong piercing forest-green eyes, luminous and full auburn hair, musical singsong voice, not to mention the will as strong as the Excalibur's iron, and the character of an untamed Tarpan

Clive Barnett, from University of Reading, Department of Geography, emphasizes that “Coetzee’s fiction has been inserted into dominant moral representations of apartheid” (300). Where, everything on this novel can be related to apartheid South Africa. The white professor, and his daughter represents the disgrace and shame of whites. What happened to them, the attack and Lucy’s rape, represents the punishment to the white community for the crimes they have committed against the black community. Also, Lucy’s reaction to the event was to not press charges against the rapists, “This is my life. I am the one who has to live here. What happened to me is my business, mine alone, not yours, and if there is one right I have it is the right not to be put on trial” (Disgrace 133), and stay in her house and face the consequences. Moreover, Lucy thought that was “the price to pay” in order for her to stay there, and J. M. Coetzee quoted in Disgrace:

David Lurie is a man of whom cannot function without having women around. Being raised by women, he felt the need to be around them at all times was a necessity for him to live his life. As said in the text, being around women all of his life has made him, “a lover of women and, to an extent, a womanizer” (7). Divorced twice, paying for strippers and luring students to his home is the way David Lurie lives his life as a college professor at CapeTown University. Being a father was not an aspect of life he was particularly good at as his daughter, Lucy, grew up and moved to the country side by herself. The relationships David had throughout the text brought out the different sides he has whether it was the being a womanizer, a lover, or a

Societal and familial gender and sexual socialization play a major role in David’s persistent self-hatred. His father placed an extreme emphasis on masculinity during David’s childhood. David overhears him tell his aunt that, “all he wants for David is that he grow up to be a man” (15). The heternormative culture of Giovanni’s Room taught David that in order to be a real man, you must desire, love, and marry a woman. As a result of this gender and sexual socialization, David experiences persistent feelings of self-hatred and in order to cope with those feelings, he continually lies to himself about his

David becomes so confused by his sexuality, he moves to Paris to try and figure out who he is as a person.

David also sees himself as having a great deal of influence on others and prides himself on that fact. When David was walking along the street with a coworker, a girl mistook him for a celebrity and David found it amusing to play along. David’s narration describes that the coworker was not amused by this joke and “avoided [David] for the next six months” (DeLillo 2.14). Once David sees the influence his appearance and pride could have on one coworker, he believes that he

Apartheid, the strict division between white and colored people, for South Africans has always been a big issue. The man who stopped difficult ways of life for people and communities in South Africa was also their president, Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela was a man who put his life on the line to bring people together. He was involved with organizations that would eventually help to end apartheid throughout his life and lead countless amounts of peaceful acts that put an end to this divide. Mandela was even arrested for what he was trying to accomplish. It was difficult, but once he was released from prison, he finished what he and many others had started, he put a stop to apartheid. Nelson Mandela caused for apartheid to be

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to be considered inferior because of your race? The people of South Africa had to endure racial inferiority during the era of apartheid. The apartheid laws the government of South Africa made led to an unequal lifestyle for the blacks and produced opposition.

In this thesis the writer “J.Matisonn” writes about how the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) not only addressed issues of crimes against humanity that also affected the Human rights of people but the other thing the TRC did well if anything according to this article it that it also addressed those people , organizations and even institutions who used media and propaganda in order to not only further the cause of the Apartheid government but to hurt so many families and relatives in the process.

opinion of how the country works as he grew up, and when he was 16 the