Historical Symbolism In J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace

J.M. Coetzee 's Disgrace is a novel set in South Africa historical context. It takes place in a specific period and the characters of the novel are involved in the larger social setting they possess. The characters struggle with societal issues that influence groups that dominate the scope of the novel. Coetzee wrote his novel in present day South Africa, where the novel 's violence was voiced in daily papers. Yet, even though the novel is based on historical accuracy, on occasion it directly references history by using animals (dogs) as a motif to signify the political and socials disorders during Apartheid.

Coetzee sets Disgrace in post-apartheid South Africa, not long after Africans were given equivalent freedom and rights from their white neighbours, who thus needed to change under no longer being the privileged race. The novel benefited from the irony of the African historical context, that after a victory for social equality and human rights. The conditions appear to have been no superior to anything that they received when the disparity was government-supported.

Coetzee 's Disgrace,

The dogs’ role in South Africa can be found on the homepage of the white South Africans who breed and condition Boerboels to behave in a certain discriminatory manner. A dog that had been conditioned and used since 1652, has been used as a property safeguard, against intruders both from human intruders and animals. Undoubtedly, households guarded by these and different dogs were or still are not those of the blacks occupying South Africa and rather those of whites, for example, Lucy or her much more cautious neighbour Ettinger. One individual who secures his property with hefty bars, security gates, and perimeter fence (113) and goes nowhere without his Berretta (100). Another evidence for this perusing of dogs is found in David statements, who, while burrowing graves for Lucy 's dead dog, says that dogs in South Africa are trained “to snarl at the mere smell of a black