Professor David Lurie and the Book Disgrace

Professor David Lurie is a defender of Canon forces upon undergraduate student who is inviting his advances at first. It is not the first time that Lurie is doing this but he has done it before (Coetzee, 2008). At this time, he is aging and therefore he is becoming less in tune with what he can get away with and he cannot. Melanie Isaac brings an abusive charge against the professor. He is stubborn refusing to acknowledge what he has done and also the context of his post- Apartheid nation which was changed. These lead to him being dismissed in ‘Disgrace’ from the college. He goes ahead and he takes refuge in the land of his daughter of his daughter Lucy who lives in Eastern Cape.

Petrus a black neighbor to the sister of the professor is taking advantage of the changes which was brought to the social order so that he can lift himself from a substantial land holder from a ‘dog-man’ (Coetzee, 2008). In the other hand Lucy is almost alone in her refusal to join others in fighting the white. The reason for the fight is to chase the western people to vacate their area. The father of Lucy is locked in the bathroom and Lucy is raped by three men who are black. At this context, the dog belonging to Lucy is killed and the gun which was used was the one which Lucy had. When Lucy is attacked together with his father, she becomes pregnant. With anger, Lucy decides that she press charges against the attackers and to keep the child. The father loses everything during the attack. Lurie remains in the bathroom and he is very sad about the situation in which his daughter was when she was raped

The animals in the area are suffering a lot in the hands of the people. This was applying to the colors of all kind, that is white and the black. Sheep’s are staked and starved before they die, Goats are the ones which are slaughtered for the various parties which are held in the area while the dogs are also suffering from the lottery of fecundity of their own as it is even seen from the words of the gentle woman who says we are eating a lot of animals in the country for it seems they do nothing good for them.

When Lurie goes to the rural area where his lesbian daughter lives, the life seemed to have changed a lot compared to the days when he was in the university. When he remembers the way Petrus introduced him that he is the gardener and the dog-man then he doesn’t see the different at this time. This is because even if Petrus is working as tend for the dogs of Lucy the job which he is paid for, he gains more from the land which he has gained (Coetzee, 2008). The land which Petrus gained is the one which abuts that of Lucy and from this land he does a lot in it and he gains more. Lurie views the stay as a refuge to stay in his daughters land. The two cultures are separated for the work which Petrus is doing involve sweating and toil and this is a just but example of many back Africans while work that of Lurie and his descendent white Africans has to do involve opera that is most likely not to be completed and this is why Lurie admits to himself that he and his descendent will never make any more money.

The author of the book subtly reveals how the white has become irrelevant in the area. This is seen when he talks of Lurie in the Lucy’s farm where Lurie himself must contend with the people living in the area and speaks the language which he does not know and that he will never know the language. Lurie sees the black as the person who will never know of Byron or any person in the western canon. In addition he sees them as the person who goes to white homes for electricity and food and at the same time leaves the work of the white in canon behind. 

All this comes to the mind of Lurie when he remembers the attack which was committed against himself and his daughter. The crimes vivisecting at the country of South Africa as it was at the end of Apartheid are not simply crimes but are individual sallies as the vengeance of the great back. Lurie sees this clearly when he goes back to his apartment in Cape Town.

In conclusion, the author of the book Disgrace is exploiting the reactions through which the people in the world are fighting for the rights they deserve to have even if they have nothing in which they can start with to be human beings in this world. This is seen from the book that no matter what Lurie undergoes, he should not cross the lines with the students he was teaching. The work was to protect Lucy and not to cross the red lines for it seemed like nothing to professor himself. He is fight in his job and his daughter raped. He could not defend his daughter for he was not on her side. Lucy wishes to get a right from the government but she does not get it (Coetzee, 2008). Generally, there is many cultural issues which should not be applied in the society if togetherness is to be improved.