The novel Disgrace, written by J.M. Coetzee was published on July 1^st, 1999. It narrates the discomforting story of a South African professor, David Lurie who has been divorced twice and commits several sexual acts which are rather inappropriate. The social context of this novel takes place in post-apartheid South Africa, which plays a crucial role in understanding the underlying nature of this novel. Coetzee has recurring themes of violence, denial, and vulnerability which are all depicted through the unfolding of events in Disgrace.

Personally, I didn’t quite enjoy reading the novel because it was discomforting in the way these themes were portrayed, the social context during post-apartheid where there was a lot of racial tension between the majority and minority. They were racially segregated in almost all aspects of life (political, economic and social discrimination against non-whites by the whites), they were segregated into four categories; Afrikaners (the White), the Black (Non-whites), the Colored (people of mixed race) and Indians. It’s important to note that apartheid was specifically meant to protect the domination of the White South Africans (Afrikaners) over non-whites. The Afrikaners believed that South Africa was their “God-given” homeland and that the white race was superior. Despite all the violence, a series of bad choices and racial segregation, I thought that the book was quite compelling and an interesting read as there were many hidden themes which were implied in Disgrace. In relation to the bigger picture of the Global Citizens stream, reading this novel was extremely relevant because we explored the relationships between literature, the self, the nation and the world around us. Disgrace is also a novel which conveys experiences of historical events, in this case, post-Apartheid in South Africa. Hence, it has allowed us as students to question how memory is portrayed and viewed both through a more specific lens versus a more generalized view.

When reading Disgrace, the theme which particularly interested me was “vulnerability” and how it was portrayed through multiple characters including; David Lurie, Lucy Lurie, and Melanie Isaacs. The theme of “vulnerability” is depicted in different forms throughout the novel as a way to accentuate the development of characters and how their experiences impact their thought processes and personality. An example of Melanie Isaacs showing vulnerability is when she spends time with her professors, David Lurie. She is somewhat characterized as timid and innocent when David Lurie sexually assaults her by raping her. When reading the first sex scene between Melanie and David, as a reader, I felt that David was somewhat pressuring her into having non-consensual sex and although Melanie didn’t do anything to prevent David’s actions, it’s implied that she was vulnerable towards David as she didn’t show any sign of enjoyment. Even though Melanie’s character is quite ambiguous as we are never given any details about her intentions towards David, the question begs to differ whether her vulnerability was used to deceive David. Why you might ask? Well, not long after their first sexual encounter she starts to dodge David’s lectures and skips her rehearsals. She then shows up at David’s apartment unannounced crying hysterically (another example of her vulnerability) about a matter that is never further discussed or explained. She also skips a test for David’s class and as David calls her out for it indicating to her that she had to make time to write the exam, she refuses and this implies that she thought because David has developed a sexual interest towards her, she would be able to get away with not completing her duties as a student. These moments of vulnerability which Melanie Isaacs has portrayed causes us as readers to identify changes in her character as we see that there is a side to her we don’t know about or is hidden to us. Her intentions are never explicitly stated and characterized to be quite secretive towards David and the readers.

On the other hand, Lucy Lurie deals with being vulnerable in a different manner. Although we know that she has been through a traumatic experience of rape when there was a home invasion by three men, she dealt with the rape by keeping it to herself and letting it somewhat consume her. In the social context of post-Apartheid, the racial tensions were evident and has a linkage to Lucy Lurie’s traumatic experience. After the incident, she explicitly informed David to only tell his side of the story and not her side of the story because she would take care of it herself. Lucy was showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress as she would not sleep in the room that the incident took place, she would avoid talking about the incident even though David tried to address it a couple of times as he thought that she should report it to the police, and at the time where she finally explicitly says she has been raped, she has accepted the truth and we see her own up to her trauma after the time she has been in denial of what happened. I wouldn’t say she was in complete denial, but she refused to talk about it and instead of reporting it to the police, she kept quiet. As Lucy’s character shifts throughout the book, we see that in the moments where she is vulnerable, she has lost a sense of herself because she was suffering in the shadow of her attack. However, she regains her spirit and confidence towards the end of Disgrace where we see that she is able to make choices and decisions with a clearer mind.

Lastly, David Lurie’s portrayal of vulnerability is contrasted with his personality because he is characterized as egoistic, self-absorbed and struggles to understand or feel empathy towards others. His vulnerability is never clearly explicit but is especially prominent when he and his daughter, Lucy are attacked in her home. David shows signs of vulnerability when he is hit across the head, dragged across the kitchen floor and locked in the bathroom. When he regains consciousness, he calls Lucy’s name and tries to break free. We see that he struggles and feels helpless and vulnerable as his father instincts kick in and all he wants to do is help Lucy to see if she was alright. During this moment, the readers are given a different perspective on David, he is genuinely worried and vulnerable which is the opposite of how he was portrayed previously in the novel. I think what made him most vulnerable was the fact that he couldn’t do anything to help Lucy and at that point, I’d like to believe that he had a moment of realization of all his past actions and experiences with Soraya, Melanie and possibly wondered if they felt this type of vulnerability and the feeling of not being able to escape. David’s vulnerability and his experience has created a sense of irony where even though he is not willing to confess about his wrongdoings in the past, he builds a wall against others to ensure that he is impenetrable. However, now that the tables have turned not directly on him, he somewhat struggles with his current situation with Lucy’s traumatic experience and his walls come tumbling down. He feels like now Lucy replicates the same response he had towards the school board attempting to get him to confess towards the sexual assault of Melanie Isaacs, but he didn’t want to accept them, he was willing to “accept the charges”. In this case, David is trying to uncover what really happened to Lucy while Lucy is defensive about it and unwilling to talk about her experience and her truth. The audience sees a development of character in David as throughout Disgrace he constantly struggles to place himself in the shoes of others or be empathetic towards them, however towards the end, he learns to let go of this defensive bubble he has created by being more accepting and open.

Overall, the theme of vulnerability has been presented and expressed in a variety of ways and has different effects depending on the character and their experiences. This can be applied to my sociology class because we learned about the effects of racial segregation and marginalization and what kind of impacts that may have on the lives of the target community. We learned about the Thomas Theorem which indicates that if we believe that our racial issues are real, then it means it is real in its consequences (based on our experiences in society). This relates to Disgrace because even though the social context of post-Apartheid was not entirely clear or referred to very often, the violence and traumatic experiences which are evident in this book are a result of the racial segregation and apartness of communities, this then evokes hatred towards another which can be expressed through violent acts.

Front Cover Image of Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (found on Amazon)

During our ASTU Class, we started to delve into a significant historical event named the Holocaust. As we talked about the Holocaust during World War II and how this event played a central role in shaping the identities of the Jews, our discussions also covered the theme of memory and the reliability of the narrative as we thought it was important to consider when reading Maus. Maus is a graphic novel written by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman and was published in 1991. This graphic novel depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father, Vladek about his personal account and testimony as a Holocaust Survivor and a Polish Jew. Through the use of black and white comic illustrations, the iconicity/simplicity of the narration and using animals (cats, mice, pigs) as a contemporary representation of racial differences, Spiegelman has successfully captured this distressing period in history which will forever be remembered. Spiegelman employs modernist techniques including notions of objective reality, reason, morality, and social progress to evoke themes of memory, racism and language.

In our ASTU class, we often questioned why Spiegelman made certain choices in the making of his graphic novel. A topic that often came up was why he chose to represent Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and the Polish as pigs. We looked at “Funny Animals” and began to deduce why Spiegelman chose to make such decisions. We discussed that it was a way for Spiegelman to evade censorship and he used the comic as a medium to express the intergenerational trauma that lies between Artie and his parents, Vladek and Anja. This type of trauma would pass down from generations to generations, hence impacting their understanding of their own identity, cultural and historical background. He chose to use these animals to symbolize a particular type of food chain in which the mice were seen as vermin or prey and the cats as predators who would terrorize and victimize their prey. Spiegelman used the characteristics of these animals to relate them to human characteristics, for instance, mice are characterized as clever, survivors. However, they were no match for the massive machinery of the Nazis, cats were depicted as pets (meaning they were spoilt) and cunning.

I personally really enjoyed reading this graphic novel for ASTU because to me, Maus was able to express and narrate experiences that are often not talked about or discussed under everyday circumstances. Maus reminds me of Persepolis (written by Marjane Satrapi) because not only are they similar in terms of the graphic illustrations but they both depict personal experiences of characters who have gone through a particular event in history which has made an impact on how their lives turned out. I think reading Maus has made a great contribution to ASTU and what it means to be a global citizen as we continue to understand the experiences of others through their perspectives, and not just by reading the Master Narratives. This has helped us further develop our skills to be selective towards which stories we take into account, allowing us to focus more on Counter-Narratives, or the stories which don’t get publicized, offering a different and more personal perspective.

What stood out to me the most while reading Maus was the theme of memory, I thought “memory” served as the central anchor to the content and other works we have discussed in our ASTU class. The dialogue within this graphic novel accentuated the accountability of memory within Maus as Spiegelman focused only on Vladek’s memories of the events that have happened in World War II and the Holocaust. Something that was quite interesting was Spiegelman capturing his father’s imperfect English as Vladek’s mother tongue was not English. Throughout the book, I often questioned, to what extent was Vladek’s memory reliable? I would notice that Vladek didn’t place as much emphasis on Artie’s mom, Anja as it seemed to be a memory which he didn’t want to reopen or remember as she committed suicide several moments after Artie left a state mental hospital after a brief stay in 1968. However, on the other hand, in the graphic novel, Artie constantly asks his father to disclose more information about Anja, what she was like and what her experience was of the war as it had a great impact on her mental health afterward. We see glimpses of the instability of Anja’s mental health throughout the novel (pg 31, 122) as she repetitively states that she “does not want to live”. I think Spiegelman was attempting to approach the idea of “unspeakability” not just through the cats and mice but also through the horrid experiences shared by his parents as Anja wrote them in a diary. Spiegelman tried to uncover their experiences not just through Vladek’s perspective but Anja’s as well because it would become more reliable and provide multiple narratives.

Throughout the novel, I noticed that Artie kept persuading Vladek to tell him more about his mother and occasionally he would bring up Anja’s diary however Vladek was always ignorant about the matter. He never directly addressed Artie’s questions regarding Anja’s diary and quite often Vladek was reluctant to talk about it or abruptly gets upset at Artie for bringing up the matter. Near towards the end of the novel, on page 158 when Artie mentions “this is where Mom’s diaries will be especially useful. They’ll give me some idea of what she went through while you were apart.” Suddenly, Vladek responded, “I can tell you…she went through the same what me: terrible!”. This connotes that Vladek only wanted to revisit his memories and talk about HIS experiences. He “destroyed” the memories of Anja because according to Vladek, “After Anja died, I had to make an order with everything…These papers had too many memories. So I burned them.” Possibly, he wanted to bury his memories because of the tragedy and depression he felt, however, this raises questions of reliability. Vladek seems to also be in denial because he doesn’t want to tap into that time in his life, which is quite odd because he willingly talks about his dreadful experiences during the Holocaust but doesn’t want to talk about his beloved wife, Anja. By the end of the story, I felt dissatisfied because it was not the ending I was hoping for. I thought it was as if the story stopped halfway and it also ended on unpleasant terms considering the unstable relationship between Art Spiegelman and his father, Vladek. Also, I started wondering if, throughout this entire graphic novel, how much of Vladek’s story was true? Was there a prominent bias or agenda he was protecting? Or was this a genuine and authentic testimony which truly represents the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust.

Reading Maus tied in nicely with all the other works we have uncovered and studied, especially the first “documemoir” or documentary memoir we watched directed by Sarah Polley named “Stories We Tell”, along with Persepolis. For our literature review, we had to write a scholarly review which also focused on a particular area of memory and I focused my topic on “Technologies of Memory”, a term coined by Marita Sturken. “Technologies of Memory” are key terms in Communications scholar Marita Sturken’s introduction from Tangled Memories, which accentuates different forms of memory related to culture and cultural memory’s role in the nation. Sturken defines “technologies of memory” as dynamic “objects, images, and representations” which produce cultural memory. Sturken describes this as dynamic because they change depending on the context of time and place and are interpreted in the present. Hence, in this case, Maus uses images and representations of race through animals to produce cultural memory regarding the event of the Holocaust. Overall, memory is seen as a complex concept which is not always understood very well and is very unique to every entity or human being. As Sigmund Freud argues, “the forgetting of impressions, scenes, experiences comes down in most cases to a process of ‘shutting out’ such things (which have been repressed).”