The Role of Animals in Coetzee's Novel Disgrace

Becoming Animal

In European thinking, the opposition between culture and nature is given by the existence of two different species: the animal, depicted as a thing, instead of being and the human, who is the only one who can manage the privilege of existence throughout his rational thinking. This idea of duality appeared in the 17th century philosophy and is presented in Rene Descartes’s book, 'Discourse of the Method. ”. This conception belongs to a culture, whose only ambition was to exploit the non-rational beings world.

In his novel, 'Disgrace, ' J. M. Coetzee exceeds this duality by using the presence of the animals as a symbol to portray the violence and oppression of white people, but also to emphasize the fact that animals are capable of empathy. When first reading Coetzee's novel Disgrace, it may be hard to catch all animal references. Even the fact that animals will have a significant impact on the change of the protagonist, David Lurie, is hard to predict. However, soon enough, we find out that animals are central to the novel.

At the beginning of the novel, animal analogies are barely present, but as the narrative thread progress, after Lurie's sexual encounter with Melanie, one of his students, he starts using lots of animal analogies to describe the situation and to justify his action. His analogies will substantiate once Lurie leaves Cape Town to go the 'darkest Africa, ' as he calls it, where his daughter Lucy owns a farm. One of her occupations there involves animals; she takes care of several watchdogs. Lurie is forced by the circumstances to establish some sort of connection with animals. Soon after his staying at Lucy's, he ends up working at the welfare clinic with Bev, one of Lucy's friends. David's Lurie’s ‘disgrace’ is very much influenced by animals and their way of living, without any resources and owned by humans.

The presence of animals throughout the novel gains more meaning when considering the surroundings, that being South Africa. Dogs, specifically watchdogs, were owned merely by white people as a mean of protection against black people. Watchdogs belong to the long history of South Africa.

Animals are mentioned everywhere in Disgrace, in the beginning, in a metaphorical way and later on in a very concrete way; animals become a constant presence in David’s life.

In the novel, animals are portrayed in different ways: animals as abused beings by humans, animals as a reflexion of nonhuman behaviour, and animals as a soul with which one can connect and share a life with.

The Otherness

One concept that needs to be talked about when trying to understand Lurie's relation with animals, is the concept of Otherness. In her book 'Going to the Dogs, ' Rosemary Jolly explains that the need to live an embodied existence, made us associate ourselves with beasts. She defines the concept of Otherness as' Living with our bodies, at least from Descartes on, is a state we associate with the other. ' Derek Attridge addresses the same concept in the 'Age of Bronze, State of Grace. ' He reiterates the ides that animals are part of a real that Lurie himself knows he cannot understand:' if Melanie is another whom he wrongs by not attempting to know, animals are others whom he knows he cannot begin to know. '

An intriguing aspect of Lurie's relationship with animals is his care about the corpses. Lurie cannot bring himself to discard the bodies immediately after the animals are euthanised. 'But that would mean leaving them on the dump with the rest of the weekend's scourings…He is not prepared to inflict such dishonour upon them' (144). David's affection for the dead dogs makes Attridge wonder, 'If a dog is an absolute other, what is a dead dog, and what response does it demand?'. Lurie makes it his job to incinerate the corpses; he brings the dead dogs always on Monday morning to the incinerator. Attridge describes Lurie's intervention as 'all the more powerfully conveyed because it is represented in Coetzee's unemotional, precisely descriptive prose. ' Lurie himself wonders what thrives him to go every Monday to the incinerator.

'Why has he taken on this job? For the sake of the dogs? But, the dogs are dead; and what do dogs know of honour and dishonour anyway? For himself, then. For his idea of the world, a world in which men do not use shovels to beat corpses into a more convenient shape for processing'. (145-46). The state in which Lurie finds himself resembles other characters in Coetzee's writings, as Attridge points it out: Lurie's' for himself 'is very close to Elisabeth Costellos' out of a desire to save my soul. ' He goes on to explain why he is calling this state, in which Lurie finds himself grace:

‘It's this experience of finding oneself personally commanded by an inexplicable, unjustifiable, impractical commitment to an idea of a world that has room for the inconvenient, the non-processable, that I'm calling grace, though it's not, nor could it be, a word that occurs to Lurie. ‘In other words, the thought of a word without brutality, that motivates Lurie to treat animal corpses with respect is a sign of human grace.

By this point, a significant change in Lurie's attitude towards animals and Bev has taken place. After visiting Bev’s clinic with Lucy, Lurie's response to his impression on the matter is not a very thoughtful one, but somewhat disturbing:' It's admirable, what you do, what she does, but to me, animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-intentioned that after a while, you itch to go off and do some raping and pillaging. Or kick a cat. ' These are the first substantial thoughts he has voiced on the question of animals and his relation to them, and they are voiced as far as we can tell with seriousness (Tom Herron). So not only is he not an animal person, but David despises people that dedicate their life to them.

Becoming animal is another concept relevant to the novel and is a process that both Lurie and her daughter Lucy must go through. They suffer a transformation that involves losing power, position, land, dignity, or reputation. Becoming animal for Lucy and her father starts with their lost and continues with the process of adjusting themselves to a new, insignificant lifestyle. Lurie cannot go back to Cape Town as a teacher and Lucy cannot change the fact that she got rapped. As explained by Paul Patton in 'Becoming-Animal and Pure Life in Coetzee's Disgrace, ' becoming-animal does not mean imitating the animal, but rather a transformation that involves both loses and gains. 'Becoming-animal is not a matter of imitating the animal, nor do they always imply actual transformation into the animal concerned. Becoming-animal is always a matter of enhancing or decreasing the powers one has or acquiring new powers by entering into a ‘zone of proximity’ with the animal. ' In Lurie's case, his transition from a university professor to becoming animal takes time but reaches the climax in one Sunday evening while driving home from the clinic. Assisting while the dogs are put down, gets harder every time, and impacts him deeply.

'He had thought he would get used to it. However, that is not what happens. The more killings he assists in, the more jittery he gets. One Sunday evening, driving home in Lucy's kombi, he actually has to stop at the roadside to recover himself. Tears flow down his face that he cannot stop; his hands shake. He does not understand what is happening to him.

'His reaction may come as a surprise considering that up until this point, he portrayed himself as a strong being, a bit arrogant and selfish, who is not easily affected by humans or animals. This is not the only time Lurie is emotionally affected by the faith of animals. ' His whole being is gripped by what happens in the theatre. He is convinced the dogs to know their time has come. . . they flatten their ears, they droop their tails, as if they too feel the Disgrace of dying ;(143). This is the first time when Lurie thinks of animals as conscious beings, that can feel and think, whereas before he would regard such ideas as 'nonsense.'

Lucy's undergoing process of becoming-animal is slightly different. She already lives a simple life at the farm and was from the beginning very accepting of people and animals in comparison to her father. After the rape, she has no desire to leave the farm or seek justice; her goal is minimizing, starting life with nothing. Her attitude towards her situation is very unusual and may be as confusing to the reader as it is to her father Lurie, but she feels like she must pay the price considering the time and place meaning South Africa. ' Wake up, David. This is the country. This is Africa'.

In a conversation with her dead about her decision to marry Petrus, giving him her land, Lurie finds her situation humiliating, but Lucy thinks that despite everything that happened she must learn to accept it and start from the beginning.

'How humiliating he says finally. Such high hopes, and to end like this.

'Yes, I agree is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again. Perhaps is what I must learn to accept. To start at ground level. With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity. '

'Like a dog

Yes, like a dog.'

Her attitude may seem not as shocking when considering Deleuze and Guattari's definition of becoming-animal. ' To become animal is to participate in movement, to stake out the path of escape in all its positivity, to cross a threshold, to reach a continuum of intensities that are valuable only in themselves, to find a world of pure intensities where all forms come undone, as do all significations, signifiers, and signifies, to the benefit of an unformed matter of deterritorialized flux, of nonsignifying signs'. (13) Lucy undergoes all these steps with a strong conviction that her decision is the only right thing to do, regarding the time and the place, referring to postcolonial South Africa.

'In another time, in another place, it might be held to be a public matter. But in this place, at this time, it is not. It is my business, mine alone.

'This place being what?'

'This place being South Africa.'

After her decision to stay at the farm and keep quiet about the rape, choosing minimalization over revenge, Lurie decides to stay with her; which means he must undergo the same process as his daughter. He has no power over her decision, but he chooses to stay and support her, despite their differences.