Analysis Of Disgrace

Disgrace is a novel set in post-apartheid (racial segregation) South Africa written by J M Coetzee which was published in 1999.The novel is about the violence and attacks taking place in Africa during this time.Also, the ultimate victim in most attacks are the women who are left to suffer and no one comes forward to help them. This is the writer’s way of showing how movements,wars,attacks ultimately target the fairer sex,also how women become the place to dispose frustration for a man and the society at large. The story is about David who is a fifty two year old Professor of English Literature at a University in Cape Town; the description given by the author tells us that he is a disinterested man who is living life for the sake of living; he has a daughter Lucy who lives away from

He confides in her his experiences with women and hence, their relationship was about to be mended but the final attack took place. Plus, their relationship becomes worse when Lucy was raped by the intruders who destroyed their farm and house and assaulted David. After the incident Lucy was left pregnant and David’s existence became even shallower. Everything changes after the incident as Lucy refuses police help, withdraws completely from the society and starts living a depressed life, she closes up and starts looking at David as being one of the men who raped her, because she was aware of the fact that what David did to Melanie was more or less the same thing that happened to her. Disgrace points to a context where women are regarded as property, and are liable for protection only so far as they belong to men. As a lesbian, “Lucy would be regarded as ‘unowned’ and therefore ‘huntable’ and there is even a suggestion in the text that her sexuality may have provoked her attackers.” (Quoted from the essay: Unspeakable: Rape in Coetzee’s