A Character Analysis of Lucy Lurie in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace
Her Resounding Silence Why would Lucy, who has other options and alternatives at her reach, choose to stay silent and condone the terrible act of violence committed against her is the question that Coetzee doesn’t seem to answer. From the moment we are introduced to Lucy Lurie in J.M. Coetzee’s Booker prize novel Disgrace, we meet an unassuming white woman, who is particularly independent. Aside from the occasional assistance from Petrus, her black South African assistant, who helps with the hard labor and dogs; she owns and works in her farm and lives a seemingly quiet and private life in Eastern Cape South Africa after apartheid. She welcomes her estranged father, David Lurie …show more content…
It turns out that David is a 52 year old, divorcee; a prominent literary professor, at Cape Technical University, was ousted from the university, by a panel of his peers, due to charges of sexual misconduct brought up against him by a former student. We learn that he is the complete and absolute opposite of his daughter; he is arrogant, narcissistic and a womanizer; he sees women as objects –“….a woman 's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.” (Coetzee 16). He is a modern day Casanova, yet, a failure in all of his former hetero-relationships, including with Lucy’s mother. David now finds himself desperate to save his daughter and take her away from the evil men of her land, even going as far as to telling her, “Lucy, it could be so simple….Go to Holland. I’ll pay.” (Coetzee 157). David 's persistence is arduous; nonetheless, she is not concerned with expounding on the issue; certainly not with him. It is clear that Lucy does not trust her father enough to share her deepest fears or thoughts of the rape; in her mind, her father is a rapist, albeit a different kind of rapist, a rapist nonetheless, as is evidenced in the following …show more content…
An example of a true-life story is the rape of “….journalist and rape-survivor, Charlene Smith….” articulated in Graham’s article. Smith’s story gained national attention of the sexual violence that was current at the hands of South African black men. Furthermore, Graham also points out that “Smith claimed that “rape is endemic” in South African culture….” She further states, “The government’s denial of sexual violence as a serious social problem in South Africa has been extremely disturbing….” (434). Lucy is very much aware that if she speaks out against the rapists, she’s as good as dead. However, and as Graham St. John Stott, points out, denial is not the
Her Resounding Silence Why would Lucy, who has other options and alternatives at her reach, choose to stay silent and condone the terrible act of violence committed against her is the question that Coetzee doesn’t seem to answer. From the moment we are introduced to Lucy Lurie in J.M. Coetzee’s Booker prize novel Disgrace, we meet an unassuming white woman, who is particularly independent. Aside from the occasional assistance from Petrus, her black South African assistant, who helps with the hard labor and dogs; she owns and works in her farm and lives a seemingly quiet and private life in Eastern Cape South Africa after apartheid. She welcomes her estranged father, David Lurie …show more content…
It turns out that David is a 52 year old, divorcee; a prominent literary professor, at Cape Technical University, was ousted from the university, by a panel of his peers, due to charges of sexual misconduct brought up against him by a former student. We learn that he is the complete and absolute opposite of his daughter; he is arrogant, narcissistic and a womanizer; he sees women as objects –“….a woman 's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.” (Coetzee 16). He is a modern day Casanova, yet, a failure in all of his former hetero-relationships, including with Lucy’s mother. David now finds himself desperate to save his daughter and take her away from the evil men of her land, even going as far as to telling her, “Lucy, it could be so simple….Go to Holland. I’ll pay.” (Coetzee 157). David 's persistence is arduous; nonetheless, she is not concerned with expounding on the issue; certainly not with him. It is clear that Lucy does not trust her father enough to share her deepest fears or thoughts of the rape; in her mind, her father is a rapist, albeit a different kind of rapist, a rapist nonetheless, as is evidenced in the following …show more content…
An example of a true-life story is the rape of “….journalist and rape-survivor, Charlene Smith….” articulated in Graham’s article. Smith’s story gained national attention of the sexual violence that was current at the hands of South African black men. Furthermore, Graham also points out that “Smith claimed that “rape is endemic” in South African culture….” She further states, “The government’s denial of sexual violence as a serious social problem in South Africa has been extremely disturbing….” (434). Lucy is very much aware that if she speaks out against the rapists, she’s as good as dead. However, and as Graham St. John Stott, points out, denial is not the