“Disgrace” is one of the most significant works of J. M. Coetzee, which brought him the Booker Prize and worldwide recognition. The action takes place in post-apartheid South Africa. In “Disgrace,” J.M. Coetzee’s creates a complex character, Lucy Lurie, which faces the shameful and disgraceful acts of her father, the suggestions and assumptions of her homosexuality and the degrading physical violations committed against her because of her race and sexuality.
Lucy’s Lurie Character
Lucy is the daughter of the main character, the resigned professor from Cape Town David Lurie. She lives in the rural Eastern Cape, and chooses settled countryside life over urban fuss. As David thinks of her at the beginning of the story, she is a “solid woman” and can be best described as “ample” (Coetzee 62). Apparently, calm lifestyle without having to conform to the demands of city made her look like simpler. However, her look also mirrors past failures. Despite the fact that urban society was quite far from Lucy, she faced many stresses since settling there. She moved to the countryside to live in the rural self-made community, but the project fell apart, and she stayed in the area with her girlfriend, Helen. Later, Helen also left Lucy and moved to the city. Hence, Lucy was left alone to run her smallholding, with gardening and dogs as her primary occupations. She had to maintain independence and adapt to the nature-friendly living.
To her dad, David, such life reminds a cage, where his daughter keeps herself on purpose. Nevertheless, Lucy seems to be sure that this is the best way of living for her, close to nature and animals. Her love and care for them are illustrated many times in the novel. What is particular, she is not alone with her principles and has a friend, Bev Shaw, who is running an animal shelter. The only difference between them is that Lucy cannot put down a dog, she is too sensitive for such action.
Although she has independent and rural lifestyle, she preserves her curious mindset and does not hesitate to ask provocative questions to find the moral, the truth. Whenever David tries to let her see the other side of life, the intellectual and civilized one, she firmly rejects his position: “They are not going to lead me to a higher life, and the reason is, there is no higher life. This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals” (Coetzee 70).
Strong willingness to be authentic is making her a distinctive character, unclear even for her own father: “As a child Lucy had been quiet and self-effacing, observing him but never, as far as he knew, judging him. The dogs, the gardening, the astrology books, the asexual clothes: in each he recognizes a statement of independence, considered, purposeful” (Coetzee 73). This complexity of her personality shows her inner power, and unfortunately, leads to further disgrace.
Analysis of the character in historical context
The position of Lucy in her local society was unstable and even dangerous from the very beginning. She moved to an area which used to be abandoned and risky for white people and got surrounded by indigenous African population. After years of violent apartheid, the borders between races still existed, although at the time they were not obvious. As Claassens and Spronk estimated, the demonstration of violence in the novel is extremely complex, and “the former penetrator becomes the penetrated” (93). In this case, Lucy Lurie is the former penetrator, an alien who dares to intrude on the restricted zone.
Despite the fact that she was raped and her rights were gravely violated, Lucy steadily rejects law and legal ways of solving the problem. It can be seen when she forges her own version of what happened, although her father insisted on fighting with injustice. As Claassens and Spronk suggest, Lucy might be an author’s way to demonstrate the type of women, who are ready to sacrifice themselves to be forgiven later (82). Probably, Lucy realized what a humiliating situation she was in, but her way of accepting it was unexpected and self-denying: “What if that is the price one has to pay for staying on?… They see themselves as debt collectors, tax collectors. Why should I be allowed to live here without paying?” (Coetzee 158)
As McDonald suggested, Lucy had a strong will to have a happy future by following nature, and convinced herself that she would finally love the undesired kid (83). It is likely that her conception of dignity was to simply avoid running away from problems and shame, like her father. Lucy’s personal understanding of disgrace gave her strength to move on after the act of violence and accept laws of her neighbors. Only this way her character and actions can be explained.
To sum up, it should be noted that Coetzee successfully created a controversial and complicated character, Lucy Lurie, who demonstrated perseverance in living her own way with accepting norms of dangerous environment. In spite of being of a different race and orientation, she admitted the rules of her society, and did not sacrifice her principles regardless of the position of her father. Thus, Lucy seems to be a contradictive, but courageous and confident person.
Works Cited
Claassens, Juliana, and Klaas Spronk. Fragile Dignity: Intercontextual Conversations on Scriptures, Family, and Violence. Society of Biblical Lit, 2013.
Coetzee, John Maxwell. Disgrace. Secker & Warburg, 1999.
McDonald, William. Encountering Disgrace: Reading and Teaching Coetzee’s Novel. Camden House, 2009.