Theme Of Sexuality In J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace

While on the way to venerate Saint Thomas Becket’s remains, the entertainment of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims falls upon the requiting of stories between the different estates. However, this requiting quickly turns malicious, the Host’s simple proposition evolving into an aggressive show of social dominance that includes the boasting of both literal and metaphorical rape. The normalization (or, borderline reverence) of aggressive manliness contributes to the creation of both rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality. Consequently, when a man does not dominate a woman—or, does not use his masculinity to humiliate another man—he is seen as weak or effeminate, subsequently placing his sexuality under scrutiny. Such is the motive behind John and Aleyn’s rape of the miller’s wife and daughter—to make Symkin seem weak, and to gain a reputation of superior masculinity. Thus,

In LeBlanc’s words, “I am suggesting…that the presence of lesbian motifs and manifestations in the text offers a

Prout was frustrated that Labrie “was cleared of felony sexual assault charges” because the jury supposed that he committed the act unknowingly (Hauser A13). Socrates would argue on behalf of Proust and would want the unjust man to suffer the proper consequences. In a dialogue with Polus, Socrates even claims that the wrongdoers “are completely wretched, yet even more wretched if they are not punished” (Plato 36). While the Platonic framework can support the frustration of both Proust and Socrates because the offender did not receive proper penalties, the victim’s openness about the crime embraces the True and encourages others to demand control of their bodies. Proust’s willingness to talk about sexual assault exposed “sexual conquest at St. Paul’s” (Hauser A13). Socrates believed that every question should have an answer and the truth should be acknowledged; similarly, Proust hopes to uncover the secrets of sexual violence at her school and prevent injustice from happening. Both cases reflect the importance of rightful punishment and accepting the True for the Good of

Authors often use characters within their novels to show the consequences of challenging cultural boundaries and, in turn, display their own personal concerns. It is not uncommon for characters to reflect an author’s ideology regarding social groups in their contemporary time periods. It is clear that this is certainly the case with the 1975 novel The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, (also referred to as How Violence Develops and Where it Can Lead), written by the German Author, Heinrich Boll. The Lost Honour is, on the surface, an attack on yellow journalism and the damage it causes to the lives of the people reported on. However, with a more in depth analysis of the novel we are able to

Lord Byron, a romantic author from the 18th century was a man who was considered as a “player”, a man who was always with multiple women. In his lifetime Byron wrote many stories, three of those stories were, She Walks In Beauty, Apostrophe To The Ocean, and Don Juan. In those three stories Lord Byron indicates very important messages for each.

As a 52 year old, white South African, David Lurie has not felt the apartheid era as the majority of the black population did. He was a selfish, arrogant, and over-privileged professor who used his authoritative position to his advantage. After his affair was made public, he gets shamed by the media causing him to lose his university position and making him flee to his daughter’s farmhouse. Such Disgrace would teach David about what most South Africans in apartheid era went through, segregation and discrimination. Per Rachel, “He [Lurie] changes throughout the novel because what he represents about the past society, with his Romantic period interests, no longer holds in this changed South Africa “(56). David Lurie learns to cope with the new

Although both Blanche and Stanley are driven by desire, Stanley’s “id” desires for both dominance and sex fit the expectations set for him as a man while Blanche’s desire for sexual freedom goes against the restricting expectations of purity and innocence set for her as a woman. She consequently becomes a social outcast due to her unacceptable sexual behavior. Blanche’s superego character that looks to

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:

“I love Lavinia more than all the world,” coos Chiron in his braving with Demetrius over the right to pursue her (1.1.571). Yet it is an affection born of the subject/object desire to own, as Demetrius proves in his assertion that “She is a woman, therefore may be wooed;/ She is a woman, therefore may be won” (1.1.583-82). This perspective of Lavinia, a married woman, as a trophy to be awarded either to one or the other brother is what allows the dehumanization of her rape to occur. Their desire is sexual in nature, and if it cannot be vented through courtship, it can find release in the dominant exertion of rape. Aaron initiates this deviation by suggesting that “what you cannot as you would achieve,/You must perforce accomplish as you may” (1.1.606-07). The intended result of this new plan is the shaming and injuring of Titus and the Andronici family. They cannot physically attack him because of his stature within the Roman republic, therefore as critic Tina Mohler proffers, “the metaphoric rape of [man] might be discursively dependent on the literal rape of [woman]”

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Dimmesdale's most evident dread is that the townspeople will get some answers concerning his transgression of infidelity with Hester Prynne. Mr. Dimmesdale fears that his spirit couldn't take the disgrace of such a revelation, as he is an imperative good figure in the public eye. Be that as it may, in not admitting his transgression to people in general, he endures the blame of his wrongdoing, an agony which is exacerbated by the torments of Roger Chillingworth. In spite of the fact that he reliably picks coerce over disgrace, Mr. Dimmesdale experiences a significantly more difficult experience than Hester, who persevered through people in general disgrace of the red letter. Mr. Dimmesdale's

In doing so he has gotten himself in a world of trouble.   His life is spared but only insofar as he can come to a proper answer to one question: “what is the thing most of all that women desire?” (Chaucer 2100).   He wanders for some time, trying to find the answer to this question, for surely a man who rapes a woman by the side of the road would not be able to find the answer within himself.   He receives many answers but none quite as good as that of an old woman he happens upon in the woods.

Throughout the poem, Pages Matam explores the key ideas and issues of victim-blaming and silencing victims due to society’s taboo of speaking out about sexual assault along with the foundations of rape culture. Matam effectively outlines the harmful idea that, your beauty leads to sexual assault which society inflicts upon victims, as a constant motif throughout the poem in the lines “Tell Elizabeth Fritzl, how pretty the flame of her skin was”, using sophisticated imagery within an allusion to explore this idea, comparing the providing an evidence-base to further support his argument and perspective. This idea is further reinforced in the repetition used in “Tell my 11th grade student, Lauren, that she wanted it, her beauty had them coming’

In regards to the concepts of desire and pleasure Laura Esquivel said, “Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us, but we can 't strike them all by ourselves.” Desire for pleasure is hard-wired into human nature, and people will do whatever they can to acquire it. One strong desire of pleasure is that which involves the human body and all the pleasures it has to offer. That desire however, exists on a thin border one that if crossed enters the realm of lust. It is a realm of carnal sin that paves the road to harsh and unrelenting punishment for all who follow it. Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, demonstrates lust and the punishment that comes with it through several events befalling Byronic protagonist David Lurie. Given the horrifying assault scene of Disgrace, Coetzee is alluding to the second circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno and the punishment for the sin of lust.

Wrapping up, Lamia shows how male idealization imposes on and limits women’s sexual identity. Against general readings of Lamia’s sexual character as the root of evil, what the analysis denotes is that Lamia places the spotlight on Keats’s sympathetic but ambiguous representation of Lamia. Though the ambiguity is recognized, the nub of the argument is that Keats does not portray female sexuality as demonic—women as the Other which may be allegorically extended to all those common people who had been Othered in England during the Romantic

The future conditions of the woman’s potential marital worth were much poorer than any punishment the violator could have received. Once a woman was raped, her virginity was no longer available for her husband to have. “‘Virginity is the ornament of morals, the sanctity of the sexes, the peace of families and the source of the greatest friendships.’ Its existence was a precondition for marriage. To publicly breach it was to compromise honor, rank, even life; a ‘deflowered’ girl inevitably became a ‘lost’ girl. . . ‘The ravishing of virginity was the worst rape of all.’” (Cite Book 1) An innocent woman had now completely lost her worth to society and her own dignity due to a man’s egocentric and merciless actions.