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
David understands he should stop pursuing Melanie, but he doesn’t. Instead of forgetting about her, he obtains her personal information from the university and calls her at home. Although she’s surprised, she agrees to meet for lunch, where she hardly says a word. After the meal, he takes her to his apartment and they have sex on the living room floor. “Though she is passive throughout, he finds the act pleasurable,” Coetzee notes. Immediately afterwards, she picks up her belongings and leaves. When she doesn’t come to class the next day, David sends flowers to her apartment, but still he doesn’t hear from her. Then, several days after they first sleep together, he sees her in the university lobby and gives her a ride home. When he asks if she’ll invite him inside, she tells him her roommate is home and quickly gets out of the car.
Again, David demonstrates his willingness to transgress certain boundaries in order to satisfy his sexual desires. It’s also again evident that he doesn’t care about the imbalance of power in his relationship with Melanie, since he doesn’t mind the fact that she is “passive” while he has sex with her. This is because all he cares about is getting what he wants, so he doesn’t stop to think about whether or not Melanie is actively enjoying—or, for that matter, actively disliking—what’s happening. Melanie’s absence in class after their sexual encounter illustrates just one of the harmful effects of this relationship on her overall life, as it has clearly made her uncomfortable about interacting with David in an academic setting.
Themes
The next week, Melanie is in class once again. As he lectures, David can’t help but furtively address what he says to Melanie, making veiled allusions to passion and love. Several days later, he attends one of her theater rehearsals, sitting in the dark auditorium and watching her onstage, and though he feels somewhat guilty for pursuing such a young woman, he also feels as if he can’t be “blamed for clinging” to his “place at the sweet banquet of the senses.” The following day he arrives at her apartment unannounced. “He has given her no warning; she is too surprised to resist the intruder who thrusts himself upon her,” Coetzee writes. “No, not now! My cousin will be back!” she says as he steers her toward the bedroom.
Once more, readers see that David is perfectly capable of recognizing why his relationship with Melanie is wrong, but he doesn’t let this stop him from pursuing her. He is good at giving himself excuses, this time reasoning with his conscience by saying that he can’t be “blamed” for what he’s doing because it’s natural for an older man to want to retain a sense of youthfulness. This, it seems, is partially why David is so attracted to Melanie: he sees her as someone who will help him feel better about the fact that he’s no longer young. Thinking this way, he has no problem striving for what he wants, even when Melanie herself indicates that she doesn’t necessarily want to continue their relationship.
Themes
Despite Melanie’s words of discouragement, David continues to hold her as he makes toward the bedroom, where he begins to undress her. “She does not resist,” Coetzee writes. Lying on the bed, she allows him to take off her clothing, “even help[ing] him” by moving her body in ways that make it easier for him to take off her pants. “Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core,” Coetzee notes of the experience. When they’re finished, Melanie immediately asks him to go because her roommate is sure to return at any moment. In the car, he suddenly feels guilty and wrong, realizing that he has made “a huge mistake.”
Coetzee is interested in exploring the unsettling grey areas of sexual harassment. On the one hand, he presents David as an unempathetic man who will take what he wants from women regardless of what they say. On the other hand, Coetzee spotlights the subtle ways in which David’s abuse of Melanie falls short of straightforward sexual violence, since there is apparently a certain part of Melanie that is willing to go along with David’s desires. However, this is seemingly just because of the power imbalance in their relationship. Melanie doesn’t feel comfortable refusing David outright, and though there is perhaps a part of her that is interested in the idea of having sex with him, this doesn’t mean she actually wants to pursue a physical relationship. David doesn’t care whether or not his advances are “undesired,” though, going forward with his own yearnings without considering the complicated situation he has forced upon Melanie. His harassment of Melanie is thus an instance of sexual coercion, in which he uses his authority and power—instead of full-on physical aggression—to get what he wants.
Themes
Melanie doesn’t come to class the following day, which is the day of the midterm exam. Despite this absence, David marks her as present and gives her a grade of 70% on the test, noting that this is a “provisional” score. For the entire next week, he doesn’t see her at all, not until she shows up at his apartment on Sunday night. He braces himself for her anger, but she surprises him by asking if she can spend the night. Relieved, he gets her settled in his daughter’s old room, sensing that something is amiss and that she needs space. The next morning, he comes in and asks how she’s feeling, but she tells him she doesn’t want to talk about what happened. As such, he takes her in his arms and she begins to weep, at which point he comforts her, almost saying, “Tell Daddy what is wrong.”
Coetzee spotlights the ways in which David and Melanie’s sexual relationship has profoundly altered the dynamics of their academic relationship. Indeed, the extra slack David gives Melanie in the classroom is the direct result of what has happened between them. The fact that Melanie then comes to David for comfort adds even more complexity to their relationship, since David suddenly feels not only like her professor and sexual partner, but also like a protective father figure. Coetzee illustrates the messy interpersonal dynamics that arise when a person in a position of power uses his authority to trespass beyond the standard boundaries of a student-teacher connection.
Themes
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When she stops crying, Melanie asks if she can stay at David’s apartment for “a while,” and though he knows this is a terrible idea, he tells her she’s welcome to do so. Just as he’s about to stand up, he runs his hand over her breasts and behind, then tells her he has to go teach. Upon returning in the afternoon, he finds her eating toast, looking rested and well. After telling him that she won’t be back until after rehearsal that night, she acknowledges that she’s “missed a lot of classes” because the play is eating up her time, and then she promises to attend his course the following day, though he realizes that he has no way of “enforc[ing]” this. “She is behaving badly, getting away with too much,” Coetzee writes. “But if she has got away with much, he has got away with more.”
Again, Coetzee shows readers why it’s not a good idea for a professor to engage sexually with a student. Although David has abused his power in order to get what he wants from Melanie, in doing so he has also forfeited a certain amount of that power, since he can no longer treat Melanie with a professor’s objective authority. Because he feels guilty about what he has done, he realizes that he can’t get angry at Melanie for using his compromised position to her own advantage—after all, he has taken certain liberties with her, and now she is doing the same with him, though in a much less destructive manner.
Themes
