Disgrace

by

J. M. Coetzee

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Disgrace: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
One morning while watching geese, Lucy asks David if he has any plans to find a new teaching job, but he tells her that nobody would hire him. Even if he advocated for himself, he claims, society is no longer willing to hear his excuses. Curious why he thinks nobody would listen, Lucy asks him to state his “case” for why he had an affair with Melanie, and he says, “My case rests on the rights of desire.” He then reminds her of a dog that used to live next to them when she was a child. Whenever this dog saw a female dog, it would get excited, so the owners would beat it. As such, every time it saw a female, it would get both excited and scared. David says he always found this “ignoble,” suggesting that it would have been kinder to simply kill the dog.
When David says that his “case rests on the rights of desire,” he suggests that his transgressions with Melanie were natural functions of human desire, which he believes he is entitled to have. Going on, he outlines the idea that it’s unkind to keep sexual beings from acting out their desires, even positing that death is better than having to live a life in which one is unable to satisfy their carnal cravings. By outlining these ideas in this way, David treats the entire matter as if it is some abstract intellectual theory, when what he’s really talking about is how he doesn’t deserve to be punished for sexually harassing a young girl. Readers see again how adept he is at creating justifications for his immoral actions.
Themes
Desire and Power Theme Icon
Shame, Remorse, and Vanity Theme Icon
Love and Support Theme Icon
Time and Change Theme Icon
Quotes
As Lucy and David continue their walk, they pass three unfamiliar men. “Should we be nervous?” David asks, and Lucy says she isn’t sure. However, the men simply pass them by, but when Lucy and David return to the farmhouse, they find them standing in the yard. Lucy calls out for Petrus, but he’s nowhere to be seen. One of the men then says that he needs to use the house’s phone because one of their sisters is giving birth. Reluctantly, Lucy goes inside with two of the strangers while David stays outside with youngest of the three. As soon as Lucy and the men disappear, though, David knows something is amiss, so he calls for Lucy to come back outside. Just as he’s about to follow, though, he hears the front door lock. 
Coetzee has already established that Lucy lives in a dangerous area—one of the first conversations David has with her upon arriving at the farm is about whether or not it’s safe for her to be living alone. In this moment, then, readers begin to understand why the characters are so worried about what might happen to them in this place.
Themes
Violence and Empathy Theme Icon
The boy near David starts running to the other side of the house, so David lets Katy off her leash to chase him. Unfortunately, though, Katy is too slow. As for himself, David runs to the kitchen door and kicks it in, but as soon as he enters the house, something hits him hard on the head and he loses consciousness, eventually waking up to find himself locked in the bathroom. “Lucy!” he screams, but he’s unable to kick down the door. Still, he continues to call her name until a man comes into the bathroom and takes his car keys before locking him in again. He then watches out the window as the men pace in the backyard with Lucy’s rifle, which they use to murder the cooped-up dogs.
Needless to say, it is quite ominous that these three men have locked David in the bathroom while Lucy remains somewhere else in the house. Given that Disgrace is in part a novel about sexual transgressions and the ways in which some people prioritize their desires over others’ wellbeing, it’s not hard to piece together that the men are most likely raping Lucy. David suddenly finds himself looking at the issue of sexual abuse from a new and very unsettling angle. The murder of the dogs is also especially horrifying, as they are wholly innocent victims of the men’s invasion.
Themes
Desire and Power Theme Icon
Violence and Empathy Theme Icon
The next time the bathroom door opens, David rushes out, but one of the men trips him and douses him in liquid. He then hears a match ignite and is suddenly “bathed in cool blue flame.” Horrified, he swats at his face and listens as his hair catches fire, quickly moving back into the bathroom and throwing toilet water on himself. “Lucy!” he screams once he extinguishes the flames on his body. The three men, it seems, have driven off in his car. Eventually, Lucy appears in the bathroom door. She is in a bathrobe and her hair is wet, but she shows little emotion, simply walking out to the dog pens and surveying the carnage. After seeing this, she shuts herself in the bathroom and tells David not to enter, refusing to answer whether or not she’s all right.
Seeing Lucy in the aftermath of her rape is a startling thing for David, who wants badly to make sure she’s all right. However, she has nothing to say—she has just undergone a terrible act of violence, and now David comes face to face with how truly devastating it is for a person to experience such violation. Lucy doesn’t want David’s comfort in this moment—she withdraws into herself to preserve her strength, and also perhaps rejects David because of his own history of sexual coercion.
Themes
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Shame, Remorse, and Vanity Theme Icon
Violence and Empathy Theme Icon
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The farmhouse is trashed, and the three strangers have stolen many items, but David can only think about Lucy. Lucy, on the other hand, remains calm, informing her father that she’s walking to her neighbor Ettinger’s house to get help. Before she leaves, she says, “You tell what happened to you, I tell what happened to me.” At first, David doesn’t understand what she means, and then he tells her that she’s “making a mistake” by refusing to talk about what happened to her, though she simply says, “No I’m not.” Overcome, David says, “My child, my child!” and embraces her, but she is “stiff” and unresponsive in his arms.
It is completely understandable that Lucy wants to stay quiet about having been raped, since this is her decision. At the same time, her unwillingness to address the matter is an indication of how much courage it must have taken Melanie to come forward about how David harassed her. In this way, Coetzee shows readers the emotional complexities that arise when a person is processing trauma.
Themes
Desire and Power Theme Icon
Shame, Remorse, and Vanity Theme Icon
Violence and Empathy Theme Icon
Love and Support Theme Icon