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
While walking Katy the next morning, David comes upon Pollux watching Lucy dress through the window. “You swine!” he screams, slapping Pollux in the face as Katy attacks him. Surprised, the young man is unable to defend himself as Katy lunges at him, tearing at his arms while he tries to cover his face. As David watches, he realizes he’s never felt angrier. “Phrases that all his life he has avoided seem suddenly just and right: Teach him a lesson, Show him his place,” Coetzee notes. As David thinks these things, he gives Pollux a hard kick. “I will kill you!” Pollux shouts from beneath Katy, and then Lucy gets there, pulling the dog off of him and asking him if he’s all right.
The fact that David uses this violent opportunity as an excuse to say “phrases” he has “avoided” for his entire life suggests that he has been holding onto these toxic ideas for a long time. When he says “Teach him a lesson” and “Show him his place,” he draws upon South Africa’s racist history, suggesting that a young black man like Pollux has an inferior “place” in society—ideas rooted in colonialism, slavery, and apartheid. In this moment David allows his anger to bypass his usual social inhibitions, and takes out all of his anger on Pollux.
Themes
Blood leaks from Pollux’s arms, and as Lucy helps him up to bring him into the house, her “sash” falls down, exposing her breasts. When she turns away to cover herself, Pollux jumps up and screams, “We will kill you all!” before moving toward Petrus’s house. Facing David, Lucy tells him that she can’t handle him and Petrus’s clan at the same time. By way of justification, David explains that Pollux was watching her, but she brushes this off, saying, “He is disturbed. A disturbed child.” David says, “In the old days we had a word for people like him. Deficient. Mentally deficient. Morally deficient. He should be in an institution.” Lucy tells him to keep such thoughts to himself. Wrapping up their conversation, Lucy hints that she wants David to move out, and so he agrees to pack his things.
Again, David shows his inability to accept the changing nature of his environment, implying that his actions would have been justified “in the old days.” Because Lucy doesn’t want anything to do with “the old days,” though, she is offended by this statement, finally making it clear that David’s presence on her farm is only causing her trouble. David simultaneously demonstrates his failure to embrace change and his failure to support Lucy in a productive manner.
Themes
In the aftermath of his fight with Pollux, David finds a room in a nearby hotel and works at the Animal Welfare League with Bev. He knows he has only made his relationship with Lucy worse, but he can’t help but think that he’d do the same thing again if given the chance. In the coming days, he buys a truck from one of Bill Shaw’s friends and uses it to transport dead dogs to the incinerator. All the while, he focuses on writing his opera, playing the banjo, and thinking about Byron’s slighted lover, Teresa.
Even though David knows that what he did to Pollux was wrong, he also knows that he’d do it again. This is in keeping with his stubborn habit of rejecting remorse, instead doubling down on his moral failures simply for the sake of moving relentlessly forward. As such, readers once again see that David hasn’t truly changed, even after all the emotional and physical turmoil he’s been through.
Themes
