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Bev Shaw
Bev Shaw’s husband. A man David finds overwhelmingly simple, Bill shocks him with his kindness by picking him up from the hospital on the day of the attack. Even though he has to wait hours for David to be discharged, he insists that it’s the least he could do, upholding that this is what friends are for. David, for his part, is baffled by the idea that Bill—whom he barely knows—would go out of his way to help him, and he wonders if he could ever bring himself to do the same thing. This, however, doesn’t stop him from having an affair with Bill’s wife on weekly basis—an affair Bill apparently never finds out about.
Bill Shaw Quotes in Disgrace
The Disgrace quotes below are all either spoken by Bill Shaw or refer to Bill Shaw. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 12 Quotes
Spoken without irony, the words stay with him and will not go away. Bill Shaw believes that if he, Bill Shaw, had been hit over the head and set on fire, then he, David Lurie, would have driven to the hospital and sat waiting, without so much as a newspaper to read, to fetch him home. Bill Shaw believes that, because he and David Lurie once had a cup of tea together, David Lurie is his friend, and the two of them have obligations towards each other. Is Bill Shaw wrong or right? Has Bill Shaw, who was born in Hankey, not two hundred kilometres away, and works in a hardware shop, seen so little of the world that he does not know there are men who do not readily make friends, whose attitude toward friendships between men is corroded with scepticism? Modern English friend from Old English freond, from freon, to love. Does the drinking of tea seal a love-bond, in the eyes of Bill Shaw? Yet but for Bill and Bev Shaw, but for old Ettinger, but for bonds of some kind, where would he be now? On the ruined farm with the broken telephone amid the dead dogs.
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Bill Shaw Character Timeline in Disgrace
The timeline below shows where the character Bill Shaw appears in Disgrace. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8
...end up paying a visit to the Animal Welfare League, where David meets Bev’s husband Bill, whom he finds just as plain and unlikable as Bev. On the way home, David...
(full context)
Chapter 12
...David emerges hours later with a skullcap-bandage and a patch over one of his eyes, Bill Shaw is there to pick him up. David apologizes for inconveniencing him, but Bill says,...
(full context)
David and Lucy spend the night at Bill and Bev’s. To David’s dismay, Lucy remains unwilling to speak about what happened to her....
(full context)
Chapter 18
...his advice, and Bev says that he doesn’t need to worry, promising that she and Bill will—along with Petrus—will help “look after her.”
(full context)
Chapter 23
...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,...
(full context)
