Analysis Of Thinking Animals In Kari Weil's Disgrace

Decent Essays
This essay discusses the novel Disgrace (1999) and the changes David Lurie goes through in the novel. David Lurie becomes more compassionate towards animals and other humans, but there are still ideologies that he cannot seem to understand. Kari Weil’s Thinking Animals will be used as a reference for additional analysis of Disgrace. David Lurie begins to show greater compassion and understanding of his daughter Lucy, for example, but cannot seem to understand her decisions. David Lurie’s lack of compassion and understanding toward women is another aspect that will be discussed in this essay as an ideology that he cannot seem to grasp. David Lurie’s lack of compassion towards both women and animals illustrates a greater problem. If Lurie cannot understand a member of his own species, then it cannot be expected that he will understand a member of another species. The change in Lurie’s attitude towards both women and animals will therefore be analyzed to see if he learns to understand ideologies that he seemingly at first cannot grasp. …show more content…
Lurie only pays attention to women he finds attractive, and finds no value in women he does not. Lurie objectifies women countless times throughout the novel, such as when he says to Melanie Isaacs, “’Because a women’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” (16). Lurie’s belief that a beautiful woman must sleep with a man because it is her obligation shows his inability to recognize that women are more than objects to use and dispose of. Lurie’s use of the phrase, “she brings into the world” further reflects his attitude toward women, by suggesting with this choice of words that women are obligated to serve men from the time they are

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