Last term in ASTU, we explored the concepts of “master” and “counter narratives” to better understand the abstract and hidden values behind an author or character. While a “master narrative” is loud and portrays a story’s superficial message, a “counter narrative” is rather inconspicuous and contrasts with the main narrative. Disgrace is a Nobel Prize winning novel, written by J.M. Coetzee, that follows a self-centered man, David Lurie, who lets his sexual drive overtake his behaviours that spiral his life down into numerous complications. From legal issues and unemployment to a degrading relationship with his self-sustaining daughter, Lucy, David subconsciously struggles with discovering his true self. While much of the novel’s master narrative depicts black South Africans as antagonistic, there are many components of the story that unveil their counter narrative.
This 1999 novel takes place during the post-apartheid era in South Africa when the nation works together to recover from the massacres and racial segregation of the previous four and a half decades. However, Disgrace’s counter narrative makes it evident that racial conflict is nevertheless a phenomenon during this era, as exemplified by the scene of sexual assault against Lucy at her Salem farm. In this incident, three black intruders attack David, Lucy, and their dogs. As the motives behind their invasion are considerably ambiguous, they are left for the audience to interpret. Are the intruders affiliated with Soraya? Are they acting against the white family in the post-apartheid era? Their narrative ultimately goes against the idea that the people of South Africa are competently reconciling and healing from their past.
In terms of David’s character, he is illustrated as one who, due to the various social factors he benefits from, possesses a sense of entitlement, whether he encounters prostitutes, his students, or animals. Some animals that are prominent in Disgrace include Lucy’s dogs who eventually get shot and killed by the intruders. These dogs are important representations of social status in the Luries’ life and a metaphor for David himself. David’s self-entitlement is apparent when he expresses his impression of dogs as lesser beings. In contrast, Lucy appreciates the animals as equal creatures. David’s perception of dogs is rather ironic as he cried “shapeless bellows,” like those of a vulnerable animal, when he was lit on fire (96). As South African writer Antjie Krog would suggest, his “pain [destroyed] language and this [brought] about and immediate reversion to a prelinguistic state” (57). If David is comparable to a dog, does Coetzee imply that David and his disgraceful behaviours are no better than those of an animal? Perhaps the author aims to propose that David experiences more misery than he can even recognize. Moreover, when the dogs were shot, it’s as if a part of David’s persona was killed, too. This can be seen when David later developed to be more sensitive with his daughter and empathetic towards animals. Unfortunately for David, Lucy reveals that she would rather be independent from him when he tries to be more involved with her, cycling him back to his search for his own identity. Altogether, Coetzee addressed character development and issues around racial differences in ways that are sophisticated yet important to acknowledge especially in a time and place like South Africa in the post-apartheid age.
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