People often juxtapose their world to the world of nature. More and more often modern people, in contrast to those living in ancient times, express an opinion that they are masters on the earth and, therefore, have a right to exercise dominion over animals, plants, and nature on the whole. However, in most cases, people are just slaves of circumstances and of the environment in which they happen to exist. Disgrace, a Booker-prize winning novel by J.M. Coetzee (1999), is all about that coexistence of the two worlds – the world of nature and the world of people who want to dominate. One of the novel’s main characters, Lucy Lurie, is a young woman who has found salvation in the world of nature and in the company of animals. She believes that flowers, plants, animals, and the earth itself are her friends which will never betray her and which give her reasons as well as finances to live for. In her turn, she also stays loyal to nature feeling part of it and finding in it the means of healing and forgiveness.
Disgrace is generally not about Lucy, but rather about her father David Lurie. He is a 52-year-old university professor who gets into trouble when his affair with one of students becomes public. David has always lived like he wants satisfying his instincts and ignoring other people’s needs and wants. He is a real city slicker and intellectual. He despises everything that falls short of his understanding what is right and what is decent. That is why the life of his daughter in the country is not what he has planned for her. But eventually Lucy proves to be stronger than her experienced and highly educated father. She seems to be more in peace with herself and the environment. With the help of nature and her attachment to it, Lucy recovers even after a severe aggressive attack committed by strangers. She shows she is able to get over the trauma of having been raped and forgive those who may be guilty of it. Lucy’s outlook and her life preferences make David change his attitude to life and, in particular, to the country life which becomes his home and his last harbor.
So, being only a secondary plot line, Lucy’s story is an essential one in conveying the theme of healing and forgiveness. Her environment becomes the place where David actually finds peace with himself and with his passions, where he lets his former life go. He learns to love nature and animals as much as Lucy does. He even learns to sacrifice his comfort not only for other people, but for the sake of animals, too. Lucy teaches him to see the beauty of the nature around and enjoy it all. Thus, Lucy turns from being her father’s greatest disappointment in life into the source of his greatest happiness, pride and his last hope.
Lucy is a young girl in her mid twenties. Despite her young age, she is already a wholesome person who knows what she wants from life and where she wants to live her life. That place is a five-hectare piece of land with a farmhouse, wind-pump, stables and outbuildings. She came to the place six years ago with a commune, but when the commune broke up and its members left, Lucy stayed along with her girl-friend Helen, who eventually left Lucy, too. Lucy stayed behind because “she had fallen in love with the place, she said; she wanted to farm it properly” (Coetzee). It is obvious that Lucy is satisfied with her life in the company of dogs and a few neighbors. She enjoys what she does and, therefore, is quite successful in her small business. She farms the land, grows flowers, and looks after dogs. These are her sources of income. Speaking about his daughter’s life in the country, David sums up: “Dogs and a gun; bread in the oven and crop in the earth” (Coetzee). This is a very simple life, but it is very satisfying to Lucy.
There is no doubt about Lucy’s love and respect for nature. When speaking about her life in the countryside among the dogs, Lucy says: “There is no higher life. This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals” (Coerzee). So, it is her life view, which means that she sees no other life for herself. It also means that she will never be happy without her land and her dogs, without sharing her life, “her human privilege” with dogs. She sees the love and respect animals show for people. She asserts that dogs treat people “like gods”, but people, in response, treat animals “like things” (Coerzee). Lucy believes it is unfair and, therefore, she is eager to make up for this injustice by serving to animals and nature. She does not think people are higher than animals. She admits that they are different. But she also insists that this difference does not make animals lower in status or importance in the great scheme of things. In other words, the author draws a parallel between the world of people and the world of animals and seems to draw readers’ attention to “our treatment of animals as well as our treatment of each other” (Heister 20). As long as people treat animals in unjust or cruel way, they will never be able to build up good relationships with other people. The conclusion seems to be that people should be kind and fair in everything.
So, by the time David comes to his daughter after the scandal in the city, she seems to be well satisfied with her life because she lives in the place she loves and does what she thinks to be right. She enjoys that way of life and, as the novel says, “if this way of life is doomed, what is left for her to love!” (Coerzee). That is why, perhaps, she cannot leave the place even after it has become the place of her greatest horror in her life and place where her dog-friends were murdered and she was raped. It is painful for her to stay, but at the same time she cannot leave that place. She understands that she cannot leave even in a state of confusion when she does not know how she can go on living. Contrary to her father, she does not escape when there are problems. Lucy fights and seeks compromises. She is more flexible and ready to sacrifice something for an opportunity to stay in the place she loves and a chance to feel safe there again. Leaving the farm would mean a defeat to her. She says: “If I leave the farm now I will leave defeated, and will taste that defeat for the rest of my life” (Coerzee). She is a fighter, but she understands the rules of the game. Like in the world of nature, she yields to the strongest and allows Petrus, her former dog-man, to do whatever he wants with her land as long as she has an opportunity to stay in her house, keep her kennels, and farm her garden plot. Thus, Lucy concludes: “I am prepared to do anything, make any sacrifice, for the sake of peace” (Coerzee). And peace to her is her life in the natural environment, with animals that are fair and loyal, which cannot always be said about people.
Lucy’s views and her outlook concerning nature and animals gradually master her father. At first he starts helping his daughter and her friends only because of having nothing else to do in the country. But eventually he begins to enjoy all this and even misses the clinic when he is away. Since the author narrates the story from David’s point of view, readers can easily see the changes taking place in the way David Lurie perceives the country life. It is especially evident in David’s speech, in the way he describes the events and his feelings through words. As soon as David comes to Lucy’s world, readers can see many similes based on comparisons with the world of nature: “like a leaf on a stream”, “like a blade cutting the wind”, “like a rotten fruit”, “like a fly-casing in a spider web”, “like spiders in a bottle”, etc. There are also numerous metaphors and epithets which make references to nature or animals: “piggish eyes”, “he wolfs down two blocklike slices of bread”, “Petrus ducks out through the low doorway”, etc. All these examples indicate that David has been acquiring Lucy’s world perception, in which she sees the things through the prism of nature. For Lucy, nature is Mother Nature which “one can trust” (Coerzee). And Lucy is solid in her views and, thus, solid in her existence. Understanding that, David changes as well and starts to seek peace in life close to nature. The changes David undergoes show how one can be happy by accepting the destiny, forgiving enemies, and enjoying every day of life. This is a real way to peace and satisfaction with life which can heal all the wounds.
Bernt Pölling-Vocke in his research on Coetzee’s Disgrace emphasizes the important role which the image of dogs plays in the story: “Dogs are a common metaphorical device used to illustrate the developments of several characters, but at the same time the purpose of the dog itself is also quite symbolic” (Pölling-Vocke). Its metaphoric use in Coerzee’s novel is really very significant. Dogs are associated in the story not only with deterrence: “Dogs still mean something. The more dogs, the more deterrence” (Coerzee). At the same time many critics claim that dogs in the novel stand for black people of post-Apartheid Africa (Dailey 8). Dailey asserts that saying that dogs are different from people, David Lurie means that black people are not like white ones: “We are of a different order of creation from animals. Not higher necessarily, just different. So if we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we feel guilty or fear retribution” (Coerzee). So, in general, it shows the attitude of the white to the black in Africa.
Making a conclusion, one can say that the story is about power and how it is exercised. As Dailey in her comments to the story claim, the novel is “about the powerful and powerless” (Dailey 7). It is about David Lurie who is powerful as a university professor and popular with intelligent and attractive women, but then he turns into a powerless elderly man who does not know what to do with his life and his instincts. It is also a story about an eternal fight between people and animals, in which people are usually gods who decide what kind of life animals must lead and when they must die whereas animals have only to obey. Moreover, it is a story of men and women, where women are usually less powerful than men and must also yield to men’s strength. And the last, though not the least, the novel is a story about post-Apartheid Africa in which powerless ones have turned into powerful and, therefore, want to make up for “the history of wrong” (Coerzee). The story also says how forgiveness can heal and bring peace of mind if people stop thinking about revenge or power and go on living their lives so that they can bring feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Works Cited
Coetzee, John Maxwell. Disgrace. Read Any Book, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <https://www.readanybook.com/online/565290>
Dailey, Vickie. “A Review and Commentary on Disgrace by J.M. Coerzee.” ELF 2 (2000): 7-8. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <https://www.uscupstate.edu/uploadedFiles/academics/arts_sciences/Language_and_Literature/ELFVol2dailey.pdf>
Heister, Hilmar. “The Sympathetic Imagination in the Novels of J.M. Coerzee – Empathy and Mirror Neurons in Literature.” Diss. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2015. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/heister-hilmar-2015-03-17/PDF/heister.pdf>
Pölling-Vocke, Bernt. “The Stylistic Purpose of Animals and the Disgrace of a Nation in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.” Hockeyarenas.com. Hockeyarenas.com, 2004. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://www.hockeyarenas.com/disgrace.htm>
