"A history of wrong." Post-colonial and feminist concerns in J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace

Abstract

The purpose of this B.A. Essay is to examine post-colonial and feminist notions in the South-African novel Disgrace. Its author, J.M. Coetzee, has been a prolific writer in the last decades and his works have been established as a significant testimony of the life and culture of South Africa during and after apartheid. In Disgrace he offers two corresponding yet different rapes that are both symbolic of the discriminating and violent elements merged into the history and culture of South Africa.This essay examines how the author presents the rapes and how they are suggestive of the colonial complexities of race and gender in South Africa. The first two chapters introduce the novel, its author and some of the critical reaction to it. The third chapter explores both post-colonialist and feminist theories and how they are relevant to the novel. In the fourth chapter the notion of rape is addressed and its impact on the main characters, Lurie and Lucy. In the fifth chapter, this essay addresses the reality of rape and gender discrimination in South Africa and how it is related to a wider sphere of cultural and historical violence.