Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Disgrace, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Desire and Power
Shame, Remorse, and Vanity
Violence and Empathy
Love and Support
Time and Change
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Lucy doesn’t speak to David. At one point, Petrus asks for his help putting down piping for his new house, and though David tries to decline, he eventually gives in. As they work, David asks the name of the boy from the night before, wanting to know where he lives. “You see, David,” Petrus says after a pause, “it is a hard thing you are saying, that this boy is a thief. He is very angry that you are calling him a thief. That is what he is telling everyone. And I, I am the one who must be keeping the peace. So it is hard for me too.” After Petrus says this, he becomes evasive about the issue, declining to answer whether or not he’s related to the boy. However, he assures David that Lucy is safe and that he’ll “protect” her, but David remains unconvinced.
On the one hand, Petrus is a rather ominous character, since he’s actively defending one of Lucy’s attackers. On the other hand, it’s clear that he’s simply in a difficult position, since he merely wants to shield one of his own from harm while also maintaining a more or less positive relationship with David and Lucy. This is yet another byproduct of the social upheavals that have taken place since the end of apartheid, when both white and black people suddenly have to navigate how, exactly, they will interact with one another after such a long history of racial injustice.
Themes
The next time David is at the shelter with Bev, he tells her that he and Lucy aren’t getting along. In response, she tries to soothe him by saying that Petrus will protect Lucy, but this only angers David, who goes on a rant about how Petrus might have had something to do with the attack in the first place. Hearing his frustration, Bev mutters, “Poor Lucy, she has been through such a lot!” When David says that he knows what she’s been through, Bev says, “But you weren’t there, David.” This frustrates him all the more. “Do they think he does not know what rape is?” Coetzee writes. “Do they think he has not suffered with his daughter?”
It is unfathomable to David that Lucy or Bev might think he doesn’t understand what Lucy has been through. To be fair, he certainly feels for his daughter and is thoroughly unsettled by the fact that she was raped. However, this doesn’t mean he has “suffered” in the same way that she did. Though he might be capable of empathizing with her, he ought to defer to her judgment when it comes to how she wants to process her trauma. At the same time, it might be the case that Lucy is purposefully avoiding her emotional pain, so it could be helpful for someone to help her confront it. But given his history with Melanie, David is likely not fit for this role.
Themes
David tries in the coming weeks to work on his Byron opera, but he remains uninspired. Instead, he focuses on his work at the animal clinic, where he and Bev put down countless dogs. Although he thought he might become accustomed to such a difficult job, he realizes he’s no longer “indifferent to animals.” What he hates most is when a dog trusts him completely, licking his hand just before he leads it to its death. His primary job, though, is to take the dead bodies to an incinerator in black plastic bags. Each Monday he drives the corpses to be burned, and he wonders why he has taken on such a job. “Curious that a man as selfish as he should be offering himself to the service of dead dogs,” Coetzee writes, later indicating that David has chosen this task because nobody else is willing to do it.
The ways in which David repents for his wrongdoings are strange. Although his devotion to these animals seems to point toward a change in his ability to empathize, it’s worth noting that he takes on this job out of a sense of obligation—because he doesn’t think anyone else would do such a thing. This selflessness is admirable, but it lacks a certain authenticity, as if David’s just going through the motions of this job because he can’t think of another way to feel better about himself. Rather than allowing readers to fully believe in David’s moral rehabilitation, Coetzee presents a portrait of a man who finally recognizes his own shortcomings but seeks to rectify them in oddly half-hearted ways.
Themes
