An Analysis of Disgrace and The God of Small Things
The novels Disgrace by renowned author John Maxwell Coetzee, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, introduce several important concepts that play a crucial role in encouraging the readers to take a step back and reflect on themselves. Reading these novels go beyond the understanding of different facts of life that may have gone unnoticed or unattended amidst the people’s daily struggles. Through a few key characters that had the stories churning, the novels were able to tackle issues of sexuality, the morals and ethics attached to it, of getting old, of social isolation, of family relationship, or the lack thereof, class politics, growing up and the confusion that comes along with it, the caste system, incest, losing someone close, and several other social and political issues that define and influence the reality of people’s lives in the past until today. All these issues proved central to the characters’ lives, which had the story progressing until the characters were able to resolve them and settle on what they believe is right. Among the most significant concepts that both stories illuminated, multiculturalism provided a different backdrop that showed the characters and their situations on a much different light.
With the advent of technology, people have become closer despite the physical distance that separates one another. Everyone and anyone who has access to the Internet can talk to someone from afar at any time of the day. When globalization started, mobility further shrank the world, bringing people even closer to each other, this time, minus the distance. Professionals now have more chances of finding employment outside their own countries, while more and more children continue to go out to study abroad. There is a continuous flow of ideas and interaction among and between people from different cultures. Today, many forms of art embody this social phenomenon, which is an indication that it has been accepted and integrated in today’s life. While this is an ideal situation that promotes globalization, where the cultures involve benefit from one another. there are several negative issues surrounding it that have yet to be discussed and addressed.
John Maxwell Coetzee’s Disgrace introduces Prof. David Lurie, a professor of Modern Languages in Capetown University. He was married twice and divorced twice. At the age of 52, there is nothing much that keeps him excited nor fazed, not his job at the university, not his relationship with women. He has isolated himself from the society, and he believes that he has no friends, except for his ex-wife Rosalind. However, despite the lack of social contact, he claimed that he “has solved the problem of sex rather well” (Coetzee 1). He was refering to his regular sojourn to Discrete Escort where he would meet Soraya, a prostitute he had been meeting for sometime. The situation worked well for both of them, in the sense that Soraya didn’t seem to dislike his touch and Lurie was satisfied with her beauty and body. He didn’t know anything about her, because like in everything else, he wasn’t interested. Their arrangement worked well for him as there was no need to invest any emotions and everything was easy. Then all of sudden, his world changed when he saw Soraya with her children. Everything became akward between them, until Soraya left her job to supposedly take care of her sick mother. They parted ways and Lurie was left at a loss.
Lurie’s life in Capetown revolved around his job and his trips to meet Soraya. Capetown, being a famous destination of immigrants and expatriates in South Africa, has a population of mixed cultures and races. Lurie alone is not a native of Africa, although it was never mentioned where he really came from. Soraya, on the other hand, was a Muslim woman. This did not matter much for Lurie, nor the probability that the woman had already borne a child or children and that she may have a husband. Nothing affected him that much, as long as he was able to see her every Thursday. However, for some people, the possibility that she is married and with children, and yet still working as a paid woman is something uncommon. Even more surprising was that she was Muslim, a religion known for being conservative. And yet, as is the idea of multiculturalism, everyone is equal and has the right to do and be whatever they want to be. Between Lurie and Soraya, where they came from and what they were was never an issue. The same attitude of acceptance was also present when Lurie met Melissa.
After Soraya left, Lurie’s life became a big bore for him. He had nowhere else to go on Thursdays, and in the middle of his boredom, he saw Melanie. Lurie was easily intrigued, and based on his own admission, “he is in the grip of something” which made him feel that “he does not own himself either” (Coetzee 10). The way he liked Melanie started to feel to him as if he was a stalker. He acknowledged that she was too young and that there he must stop, but he was not in control anymore. It was as if for the first time, he found another goal, another challenge to conquer. On the other hand, it was also possible that he was simply in the grip of repressed sexual desires because he hasn’t been with a woman for quite sometime. His claim about solving the problem of sex rather well seemed to be a far away notion. With his persistence, he was able to sleep with Melanie a few times, but like the way he seemed to have expected it, trouble eventually came to haut him. Melanie filed a harrassment complaint against him, which effectively threatened his job and reputation in the university. However, being the apathetic man that he was, he pleaded guilty to all the charges even without knowing what those were. He didn’t defend himself because in his mind, he made a mistake and there is no defense or amount of apology that could change that. Despite the urging and advice of his colleagues, he didn;t budge from his decision.
Melissa was another foreigner in Capetown, but was not really identified whether she was of Asian descent or somewhere else, except that she was from George. The way Lurie described her as “small and thin, with close-cropped black hair, wide, almost Chinese cheekbones, large, dark eyes” (Coetzee 9). The composition of the university’s employees was also another picture of multiculturalism. Names such as Aram Hakim, Elaine Winter, Dr. Farodia Rassool, Desmod Swarts, and Ms van Wyk came up during his case’s hearing. Again, there was no definition or mention of where these people from, but that their last names indicated that they were also not native in Capetown. However, more than where they came from, which would appear was not an issue, his supposed crime gained precedence and serious attention. More than the race, it would appear that gender played a more active role in this part of the story. As Melanie claimed, she was raped by Lurie, and this issue had the female members of the university turning against him. His male colleagues, however, were more sympathetic towards his plight, citing that no one is exempted from being weak because they are only human (Coetzee 27). These scenes show how multiculturalism is present in the school community without any problem that would relate to race. They were all equal, but in the case where everyone believed that he indeed raped Melanie, the female populace was quick to attack him. Even Rosalind whom he was mostly in touch with was also against what he did, and she voiced them freely without regard for his feelings or whether or not he would get angry. In this situation in his life, it would appear that multiculturalism was an accepted situation, but an apparent inequality in gender was.
However, this was not the case when Lurie went to live with his daughter, Lucy, in the Eastern Cape. They haven’t been in touch for a year but he was welcomed warmly in the farm. There he helped his daughter take care of the dogs and in farming and delivering flowers and vegetable produce to her stall in the market every Saturday. He also helped Petrus in the farm, and Bev Shaw as a volunteer in the veterinary clinic. Upon meeting Petrus, a man who used to just work for his daughter but was landed after he got a Land Affairs grant, he was at ease knowing that there was someone to at least look after her. However, all this changed when they were attacked by two black men and a boy. Lucy was raped and got pregnant, while Lurie was beaten and burned. They reported the case, but Lucy did not mention anything about the rape. Later on, she found out that she was pregnant, and that the boy who attacked them was related to Petrus’ wife. Lucy stood her ground, she was keeping the baby and she was signing her land over to Petrus in exchange for protection. It was apparent that this was what Petrus was waiting for, that he had something to do with the attack because he had always been after Lucy’s land. In this part of Africa, multiculturalism had no place. This was where the situations obviously changed: Lucy and Lurie were the intruders, and Petrus and his gang would naturally want to have the upperhand in their land. David then later on attributed the attack as a form of compensation for all the injustices that the Africans were dealt with in the past, especially towards the Europeans who trespassed their lands the way they felt Lucy did.
This idea of trespassing was also the dominant theme in The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. This was first displayed when Chacko went to America to study, but ended up marrying an American woman. Perhaps this was something that was not meant to be because in the end, Chacko and Margaret ended up parting ways even though they had a daughter. The situation would describe how multiculturalism in Chacko’s small world was not exhibited. Chacko was Indian, a culture known for their reserved and culture-bound ways of life. They follow several laws, and they do so with passion and dedication. These laws were bindng, that when not followed, the person could be shun from the society or be thrown out of the family house. By family house, this meant where everyone, the parents, their chidren, and the chlddren’s family live together. After his failed marriage with Margaret, because the woman chose to go with another man together with their daughter Sophi-Mol.
Ammu, on the other hand, Chacko’s only sister, was of a different mind. She wanted adventure, a life free from all the restrictions of the laws that were imposed by their culture. She decided to move out of her parents’ house and lived with a relative from out of town. There she met Baba and they married. Coming from a family of means, Ammu was living the life she wanted, with all the excitement and glamour that went with it. She loved socializing, would always wear blouses baring her back and saris, she learned how to smoke long cigarettes from silver cigarette holders (Roy 19). Her husband, on the other hand, was an avid fan of alcohol that went beyond the border of what’s normal. He also had the habit of always lying even with the smallest things and even when there was no reason for him to lie. Ammu was annoyed about this, but her husband simply laughed it off. When she gave birth to the twins, the war with China was ongoing. While she was giving birth to Estha and Rahel, her husband was passed out drunk on a bench in the hospital lobby. Despite her annoyance with her husband, she was happy that her children were okay.
It would seem that the twins would be more than just okay in her life as they were the ones she would always lean on whenevere she’s in doubt. After Ammu’s husband told her of his boss’s, Mr. Hollick, proposal in order for him to not gat sacked, Ammu was quiet, and this enrage Baba which had him hitting her. Ammu, being a different woman from the other wives who would be all obedient and submissive, hit back. She found the heaviest book in the bookshelf and hit Baba with it hard (Roy 20). He was all bruised up when he woke up, and he apologized. This pattern went on, but when he started hurting their childre, Amuu left with the twins and went back home. Her parents, on the other hand, didn’t trust her story, firmly believing that an Englishman would never covet someone else’s wife (Roy 21). She was unwelcome, as she carried the stigma of an unmarried woman with children who was cast off by her husband. Life in traditional India was harsh on women who were like Ammu, as they were constantly talked about and criticized. Ammu, on the other hand, couldn’t care for less, as her goal was to look after her children and raise them well. she knew that there wouldn’t be any hope or her, as it was uncommon for an indiad The twins lived their lives being the center of attention in the house, but this was threatened when Margaret and Sophi-Mol arrived to live in their house. This move was came after Chacko invited them after Joe, the man Margaret left Chacko for died in a car accident.
These scenes illustrate multiculturalism, but unlike in Capetown where Lurie used to live, there was no equality in terms of culture as it appeared that the foreigners were more favored by the locals. This was indicated in Pappachi’s view about Englishmen, and how the rest of the family focused their attention to Sophi-Mol and her mother. On their way to the airport to pick up Sophi-Mol, the family stopped by the theater to let the twins watch their favorite movie The Sound of Music. But while standing alone in the lobby, Estha was molested by a man he called Orangedrink Lemondrink Man. He was terrified by the experience, and even more so when he realized that the man knew where he lived. He then decided that he would hide in the family’s resthouse in the island, and when Rahel and Sophi-Mol knew about it, they, too, went. However, Sophi-Mol died on the way there when the boat flipped and all three of them were dumped in the water.
Ammu, on the other hand, was in a different battle. Her family found out that she was having an affair with Velutha, a man way out of her class. The society where they lived in was all about class, and according to their status in life, they are not allowed to be together. Taking matters into their own hands, the family planned to frame him from kidnapping the cildren and had him beaten. Amu was locked in her room, and when the twins found out about what happened, Ammu told them that it was their fault. There were several instances of multiculturalism exhibited in these scenes, with the most important was Ammu’s relationship with Velutha. The Orangedrink Lemonade Drink man’s abuse of Esthra was another positive breach of the multiculturalism code, as it was not right to abuse a person, regardless of the age or ability to protect one’s self. The two, Velutha and Ammu loved each other. loved each other, but society dictates they should not be together. What was even more puzzling in the story which also indicates how multiculturalism doesn’t show positive results, was when Esthra and Rahel ended up making love with each other. Both Ammu and her children violated the ‘Love Laws’ (Roy 78), but to them, their deep feelings of longing, sadness, and regret mirrorred their choice. Like Lurie in the first story, Ammu and her children understood what they need and how they feel, despite the circumstances, and in both stories, they followed what they wanted despite what other people say
Multicuturalism was a strong force that developed both stories. However, as was illustrated in the novels, it may not always bring good things to the foreign settlers as authority would be asserted by the natives, while like Lucy, Esthra, Ammu, and Rahel were the those who suffered from it.
Works Cited
Coetzee, J. M. Disgrace. New York: Random House. PDF.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/87399745/1999-Disgrace-JM-Coetzee
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things.” Retrieved from
