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Sexual Domination: Colonial Guilt and Postcolonial Hatred in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace

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Sexual Domination: Colonial Guilt and Postcolonial Hatred in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace Sexual Domination: Colonial Guilt and Postcolonial Hatred in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace Janet Migoyan Student [Should be like this. This is just to signify that the author does not represent a department] Vt 2021 Examensarbete för kandidatexamen, 15 hp Engelska Abstract J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace was published during a defining moment in South African history in 1999. Five years earlier Nelson Mandela had been elected president after the first general election. The healing process in a country divided by race and a history marked by racial crimes, committed under long time by collective actions of many generations of colonizers, was a decisive historical necessity. Disgrace illustrates the economical and emotional mechanisms of sexual exploitation of women in post- apartheid South African society. Those socioeconomic mechanisms are fueled by postcolonial hate, making the reconciliation process difficult in the new democracy. The aim of this bachelor project is to show how Coetzee’s Disgrace contextualizes the collective humanitarian guilt and disgrace caused by sexual oppression of woman and illustrates the challenges that post-apartheid South Africa faces to reconcile with the racial crimes committed during apartheid when sexual crimes continue under the historical shadow of colonial power and postcolonial hatred. Keywords: collective guilt, gender, race, sexual oppression, post-apartheid, colonialism, postcolonialism Table of contents 1.Introduction 5 2.Previous research 7 3. Gender aspects of postcolonial theory in Disgrace 9 4. Racial aspects of feminist theory in Disgrace 16 5. Whose disgrace? 20 6.Conclusion 21 7.Works Cited 22 1 Introduction J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace was published in 1999 and is situated in South Africa during the post-apartheid period. The novel was vastly reviewed and commented and had been subject of study and attention not only by literary critics but also by academics, politicians, feminists, and journalists in general. One of the parallel plots in the novel about the rape of a white woman by three black men was highly controversial in that crucial time of South African history and was frequently condemned for exploiting racist stereotypes (Boehmer 149). Disgrace was, at the same time, praised and acclaimed by literary critics for its multilayered portrayal of the impassible questions about guilt and responsibility which was engaging the South African society in that specific period of historical turning point ( McGonegal 152). The novel’s protagonist David Lurie, a South African professor teaching English at Cape Town university is accused of alleged “sexual victimization or harassment” (Coetzee 39) of his vulnerable student and later questioned by the university committee on discrimination, which consists of some of his colleagues and the leadership of the university he works. Lurie questions the rightfulness and validity of this “secular tribunal” (Coetzee 58). Lurie resigns after refusing to issue an apology and leaves Cape Town for Eastern Cape and stays at his daughter–Lucy’s little farm. Here in Eastern Cape, he faces a different reality of post-apartheid South Africa and the power dynamic between the races are flipped. Lurie and his daughter are attacked by three black men. Lucy is gang raped, and later Lurie detects a link between one of the attackers and his daughter’s black employee and “co-proprietor” (Coetzee 62) of the smallholding, Petrus. Lurie’s and Lucy’s reactions to the rape and attack are profoundly different. This distinctive manner of viewing the reasons behind the rape is the axis, around which the complexity of the process of reconciliation and forgiveness in post-apartheid South Africa is exposed in the novel. By choosing to write about two acts of sexual violation, the first committed from a position of economic and social dominance with a white man’s privilege and the second committed by three black men driven by economic inequity and historical frustration, 5 Coetzee exposes the amplitude of gender oppression in a historical and humanitarian perspective. The ingenious plot of the novel combines historical, political, ethical, and humanitarian themes within a storyline describing a relatively short period of time in the lives of a few characters. In the novel, the sexual violations are committed against two South African women with divergent historical and colonial heritage. These disgraceful incidents of sexual abuse happen during a time when a democratically chosen government has recently replaced apartheid and the search for truth about the racial crimes committed during apartheid is on the daily agenda. This is a time when the social healing and the reconciliation process is dependent on the truth, social justice and on believe in equity. Coetzee chooses to make his protagonist the alleged violator in the one case of sexual abuse and Lurie’s daughter: Lucy, the victim of the rape in the other case and by doing that he digs even deeper into the ethical aspects of sexual domination. Lucy’s rape gives Lurie reason to reflect on his own behavior towards his young student. He is the violator in one case and the victim via his daughter in the other case. Sexual oppression and sexual humiliation, as some of many remains from the colonial rule are forcing women to subjugation and leave humans, in a continuous state of disgrace. In the novel, this gender aspect of post-apartheid South African reality are manifested at the personal, individual level. The logically irrational and inhuman treatment of the powerless, which are represented by women and dogs in the novel, illustrates a society that fights against racism and social injustice but is too blind to see gender oppression and its consequences. Coetzee elevates the tangled problems concerning colonial dominance, racial oppression, postcolonial hatred, sexual violence and desire, our mistreatment of animals to a philosophical and humanistic level of collective guilt: to a state of collective disgrace. The thesis states that in Coetzee’s novel, the collective guilt of white men following the crimes committed during apartheid is partially caused by and partially paid for by sexual domination of women of all races. Coetzee exposes the racial and human-centered aspects of sexual oppression by juxtaposing two storylines about sexual abuse where arguably, the women of different races are victims and men of different races are the oppressors. Those two sexual crimes in the novel are committed in a pivotal point of South African history when the racial crimes of apartheid period are expected to be discussed, forgiven, and 6 forgotten but are overshadowed by sexual crimes powered by postcolonial hate. In Coetzee’s Disgrace, sexual domination of women and the disgrace it causes is the central theme and an obstacle for the reconciliation process. This essay is a literary analysis of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. The secondary sources related to and relevant for the analysis of the novel in view of the main argument deal with postcolonial and feminist theory. Colonial and postcolonial South African history and the history of apartheid have formed the characters in Disgrace. Therefore, the mechanisms of sexual oppression, which the novel is dealing with, will be examined under the light of postcolonial theory. Postcolonial and feminist theoretical studies are both vast fields of social science and this essay will only touch upon a few aspects of those theories. The limits of this bachelor project confine and restrain the choice of secondary sources and by that make it impossible to mirror and reflect the whole range of critical literature which have been produced about Disgrace. Concepts such as Othering, hybridity, diaspora, and the role language plays in the reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa will be discussed briefly by using the works of postcolonial theorists such as Ashcroft and Chapman. The link between gender and race, the connection between the colonial and sexual oppression and the gendered aspects of postcolonialism will be discussed in general using works written by feminist theorist, amongst them – Manyard, Afshar and Skeggs. Arguing about the gendered racial oppression and the problem of sexual violence against women in post-apartheid South Africa, some statistics will also be presented. 2 Previous research Since its publication, Disgrace has been frequently studied, debated, and discussed (Attridge 315) and the number of literary reviews and literary studies about Disgrace specifically and Coetzee’s work, in general, are considerably huge. Literary critics such as Julie McGonegal and Derek Attridge, to name a few, have repeatedly discussed the concept of post-apartheid guilt, forgiveness, reconciliation, the state of grace, and the diversity of truth. Parallelly, Disgrace has been highly interesting for critics with postcolonial or feminist approaches to the novel. Critics such as Elleke Bohemer, Jayne 7 Poyner, Michela Canepari-Labib have studied the concepts of scapegoating (Bohemer 136), the “conscience-stricken white writer” (Poyner 2) and the connection between language and identity (Canepari-labib). There are two main themes in Disgrace that have frequently been studied: the reconciliation and forgiving process and the notion of scapegoating. The fictional hearing of Lurie proceeding in the novel has been compared with and metonymized to the work of Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa by literary critics (McGonegal 157). The national reconciliation process, which began not long
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