J.M. Coetzee’s DISGRACE a critical study

1. J.M. Coetzee’sDISGRACEa critical study Dr. P. M. Patil Head, Department of English, Arts, Commerce and Science College, Palus

2. J.M.COETZEE & HIS LIFE • John Maxwell Coetzee, born on 9th Feb., 1940, in Cape Town in South Africa, in English speaking family background. • His father was a lawyer and mother, a school teacher. • Graduated with honour in English and Mathematics, completed Ph. D on Samuel Beckett. • Worked as an assistant professor of English, at the State University of New York, • He emigrated Australia in 2002, attached to the University of Adelaide, and today he lives there.

3. J. M. Coetzee & His Work • Novels • Three books of literary criticism • Two autobiographical memoirs • A collection of essays • Literary reviews • The violent history and politics of his native country has proved him raw material for his work. As a writer, he is influenced by his own personal background of being born in and growing up in South Africa. Although a white writer living in South Africa during apartheid, Coetzee grew to believe in and write with strong anti-imperialist feelings.

4. J. M. Coetzee & His Awards • Internationally he has won many literary awards prizes including: • Three CAN literary Awards (1977, 1980, 1984) • Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1981) • Twice Booker Prizes ( 984, 1999) • Femina Prize (1985) • Jerusalem Prize (1987) • Irish Times International Fiction Prize (1995) • Lanan Literary Award (1998) • Twice Commonwealth Writers Prizes (2000, 2006) • Higher Prestigious, Nobel Prize for Literature (2003)

5. About Novel: Disgrace • Disgrace(1999), second Booker Prize winning novel of Coetzee which is set in South Africa in the late 1990, is strong statement on the political climate in post-apartheid South Africa. It is a brilliant novel written after the demise of the apartheid regime that deals with the collective mood of present day South Africa’s white population at the end of the dark 20th century. • The novel is a story about a man’s largely unchecked sexual addiction and how it has completely destroyed his life. Everything which he does is centred on sexual intercourse.

6. Characters in Disgrace Major Characters: • David Lurie: He is the protagonist of the novel. He is a twice-divorced 52-year-old professor at the Technical Univeristy of Cape Town at the beginning of the novel. • Lucy: David Lurie’s daughter in her mid-twenties ekes out a meager living on a small farm in the Eastern Cape, by managing dog kennels and selling flowers and vegetables at the local market, with the help of Petrus, her black neighbour. • Melanie Isaacs: A twenty years old, a cute and fashionable girl who is a student in Prof. Lurie’s Romantics Course at Technical University of Cape Town who passively engages in an affair with her professor. • Petrus: He is a black neighbour who lives in the stables and helps Lucy on her small farm in the Eastern Cape. • Pollux: Pollux is an important character in the novel. Pollux is referred as ‘the boy’ throughout the novel. • Bev Shaw: She is Lucy’s friend and lover of animal. She voluntarily runs a Grahams town animal clinic. To her, animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. She takes care of animals which are injured.

7. Characters in Disgrace Minor Characters: • Bill Shaw:He is Bev Shaw’s good husband. • Mr. and Mrs. Isaacs: They are parents of Melanie. • Ryan: He is a boyfriend of Melanie Isaacs. • Ettinger:He is Lucy’s neighbour. • Soraya:She is a prostitute with whom David Lurie enjoys sex. • Evelina:She is the first wife and a mother of Lucy. • Rosalind:She is the second wife of David Lurie. • The Tall Man, The Second Man, Helan, Desiree Isaacs Farodia Rasool, Manas Mathabane, Desmond Swarts, Dr. Otto

8. Plot of the Novel :Disgrace The novel has four important parts. • Life of Professor, David Lurie at Technical University (Chapter- 1 to 6), • Life of Lurie at his daughter’s home (6 to 10), • Rape and aftermath (11 to 18), • Disgrace, resolution and reconciliation (19 to 24).

9. Setting of the Novel: Disgrace • The novel has two settings: • Cape Town and Eastern Cape in South Africa. • The novel begins in the Cape Town of South Africa where David Lurie was a professor at the university. The Cape Town was generally considered to be a part of ‘white’ South Africa during the Apartheid. • When David leaves to go to live with Lucy in Salem, he’s headed to completely different part of the country: the Eastern Cape, which was long considered to be part of ‘black’ South Africa.

10. Themes in Disgrace • Silence • Violence • Sex • Identity and Its Problem • Suffering • Theme of Family

11. Title of the Novel: Disgrace • The word ‘disgrace’ means – a loss of reputation or respect, but here the word ‘disgrace’ can be an action to bring shame on somebody else. It is applicable to a number of characters in the novel. e.g. David Lurie, Lucy and to even dogs on the farm. • David experiences disgrace in many ways. He disgraces Melanie Isaacs by making her feel ashamed; he also disgraces himself in the front of the University community when he loses his job in a public and humiliating way. • Lucy doesn’t disgrace herself, but she lives in disgrace condition as she copes with the pain and mortification of being raped in a brutal and abusive way. Besides, even dogs on the farms in the novel live in pathetic lives.

12. In Nutshell….. • As novelist, Coetzee is an unflinching honest, impersonal and transparent, in his portrait of racial and political conflicts before and after apartheid. He intends to raise disturbing questions about the nature of the New South Africa. He also tries to present the problems of both, black and white, in his earlier and later novels respectively. His work presents his reading about the world though he writes about the South Africa. He also tells us something we all suspect and fear---that political change can do nothing eliminate human misery.

13. In Nutshell….. Coetzee became the voice of the vision in his own time. He wishes to create the new South Africa. He also expects humanitarian values to prevail everywhere, and it is seen through his characters. Coetzee seems to advocate the possibility of a different future for South Africa. His certain themes like colonialism, identity crisis, silence and isolation, violence and the views regarding human destiny which Coetzee proposes, and the dark and gloomy atmosphere he presents, give us an impression that Coetzee possesses a pessimistic view of life.

14. In Nutshell….. • However, a close study of his themes seems to leave a sort of morbid hope alive. Being a white writer living in South Africa during apartheid, Coetzee is one so committed to exposing sufferings caused by apartheid. He also condemns apartheid. Besides, Coetzee has sympathy for black oppressed and also voiced the feelings and aspirations of his age. He values the importance of humanitarian outlook more, perhaps his close association with the people and the critical observation of prevailed conditions made him more introvert. He firmly believes in secular values and tries to construct peace and harmony. By his views and attitudes expressed by his characters, Coetzee seems progressive thinker and humanist.

15. Disgrace: Pale light of new Dawn THANK U