Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Coetzeeââ¬â¢s Use of Humor in Disgrace (1999) Essay
afterward sympathizeing Coetzees novel (1999) and then the literary criticisms that followed its publication, the essential conclusion was that the mevery different interpretations of the novel demo it flip overed readers in super individual paths. Indeed, it seeed that bity of the criticisms were of different books. The purpose of this paper was to focus on an aspect of the novel that has received bittie attention, Coetzees liberal rehearse of humor or mockery in the context of city deport ment in post-Apartheid South Africa during the late 1990s from the viewpoint of the main character, David Lurie in the first section of the novel.Lurie taught at cape Technical University, previously Cape Town University College. Because of low schoolchild enrollment, the Department of Classics and Modern Languages had been closed and Lurie had been charge to teach courses in Communications Skills and a single course a year of his own choice in an area of his specialization, Romanti c Poe label. When Lurie, 52-years-old at the time of the novel, had been littleer, his impressive physiological appearance had allowed him to attract women of his choice with little effort.Attracting women had become more(prenominal) hard as he aged, and became even more knockout when Apartheid ended and many of its victims, who patently did non idolize unclouded male scholars, became university students and then faculty. The views of these students spread to gabardine women, who already had lacked power, relative to white men, in the beginning Apartheid ended. Thus the feminist and civil rights movements that were active in the mid-sixties in the United States and other democracies in Western Europe did non begin in South Africa until the 1990s, when Apartheid ended.David Luries StoryAt the tooth root of Coetzees novel (1999), Lurie was thoroughly satisfied having sex once a week with a beautiful Muslim woman, paying an escort service. little satis eventory was his a o nly whenting escort, followed by a secretary in his university department. clear-sighted the risk presented by new university policies, he nonetheless seduced a youth student taking his course, Melanie, when he accidentally encountered her piece of music on his agency home. Her feelings were clear only the second time they had sex.He had gone to her apartment, she had express no ( exploitation her concern that her cousin/roommate would soon return as an excuse), he continued and though she did non fight him, she seemed to play dead, delay for him to finish. In his own mind, he concluded that what he did was non rape, non quite that, but undesired nonetheless (p. 25).Later, after she had filed a complaint, he met with the disciplinary committee, composed of faculty (and one non-voting student), and readily admitted his guilt. However, he refused to purport additional information that they involve in order to recommend to the government minister of the University a course of action other than dismissal. The Rector, in an effort to turn away asking for Luries resignation, asked him to sign a statement expressing remorse, already indite for him by a member of the committee.After refusing to sign and being dismissed, Lurie visited his daughter, Lucy, at her home in a rural area of South Africa, where the satire in the first section inevitably lessened (though did non disappear) because of the most harrowing central event of the second section, the brutal gang-rape of Luries daughter, Lucy, when the rapists akinwise set Lurie on fire and locked him in the bathroom, shot the dogs at Lucys kennel, and then leave in Luries car.Criticisms Related to Luries hearing in Coetzee (1999)One argument against publishing the novel was made by prominent South Africans who were opposed to presenting a damaging image of the landed estate (Attridge, 2002, p. 315). This argument did not recognize the difference between publicizing diachronic events and valuing li terature, and that the only responsible way to engage with Disgrace is as a literary work (p. 319). Based on this premise, only literary criticisms produce been discussed below. Few of these criticisms even recognized elements of the novel that were humorous or satiric. many an(prenominal) interpretations had in common a view of Lurie as a token of the white male aristocratic elite, a man who had tried to declare the Apartheid privileges of his race and gender, in particular, freedom to initiate sexual relationships with young women who were their students (Boehmer, 2002 Cornwall, 2002 Graham, 2003 Saunders, 2005). period the view of these critics did, in fact, reflect Luries view of himself, the critics also divided up Luries own failure to recognize that the techniques he used to try seducing his women students were thoroughly ineffective for reasons unrelated to any differences in the academic abilities of students in advance and after the end of Apartheid.For example, as Lu rie did recognize, his sexual conquests of earlier years require him to use no techniques at all because women were drawn to his impressive physical appearance. As he aged, subjection required effort and he hadnt a clue as to what would and would not render him appealing to young women, disregardless of their color.His lack of awareness of the impression he made on others went to the extreme of him not even being able to pay Soraya, a professional from the escort service to continue what he considered a current relationship, probably because she found it frightening that he seemed to be following her. Although she could not have been aware of his fantasies about having sex while her two children watched, it would be understandable for her to have been concerned about the safety of her children because she no bimestrial was able to keep her actual identity private, a precaution any professional prostitute should take.However, Sarvans conclusion (2004, p. 27) that the fantasies L urie (or anyone) had to increase arousal while having sex indicated he had a moral sickness was funny sufficient for Coetzee to have used in the novel itself. As Attridge (2000) noted, increased niminy-piminy surveillance of once private details of sexual intimacy was not limited to South Africa, but instead reflected the world in general, notably . . . the United States (p. 103) and that in the first section of the book, Coetzees writing oft used satire (p. 103).Lurie recognized that he had never been much of a teacher (p. 4) and after reading a exemplification of how he taught what did beguile him, Wordsworth (when seducing Melanie, he told her that the harmonies of The Prelude have echoed within him for as long as he can remember, p. 13), one shudders to imagine him doing a worse job in teaching Communications (p. 4).Coetzee provided a very brief sample of part of a class on Romantic Poetry Lurie taught (p. 21), so brief that it was funny, rather than mind-numbing as an ent ire lecture would have been. After reading a passage from The Prelude, he asked the students why Mont Blanc had been a shame (p. 21). He then pedantically asked them what he already knew that, of course, none of them had looked up a dictionary definition of the unusual verb form simulate upon (p. 21).Although without a dictionary, context would probably permit automatically inferring a meaning much(prenominal) as intrude upon, Lurie implied the passage would have been clear had they known that usurp upon means to intrude or encroach upon. Usurp, to take over entirely, is the perfect of usurp upon, usurping completes the act of usurping upon (p. 21). When he was younger, it would seem clear that the young women in his classes found him sexually attractive because they were looking at him, rather than listening.Regarding Luries sexual relationship with Melanie, Lurie did not seem to know whether she was attracted to him, sexually or otherwise. That she did not resist him when he had sex with her after she had said no could have been because she recognized she could be safe from physical harm or even that hed leave more quickly if she were passive. When she returned to inhabit at his home, her reason might have been because she feared her boyfriend or that Lurie right on understood that she did and had a right to manipulate him regarding her attendance and work in his class. There was no evidence that she feared his power to manipulate her grade in his course.After Melanie had filed a formal charge of sexual harassment (and Lurie authentically did not have a way of knowing whether or not she was pressured to do so), several criticisms (Boehmer, 2002 Cornwall, 2002 Graham, 2003 Saunders, 2005) seemed to accept Professor Farodia Rassools argument that they needed to evaluate whether a statement from Lurie comes from his pith and whether a statement expressing remorse reflected his sincere feelings (p. 54). Luries term preposterous (p. 55) was literally accurate in the sense that it is not possible to determine the sincerity of a indite statement, but it also was difficult to understand why Lurie, who had never before showed any concern about being deceitful, suddenly became a man with principles.He did seem to be mocking Rassool but it also appeared obvious that she was a humorless woman and regardless of race, she was supported, and without particular warmth, only by the two other women who had been present at a time when she spoke. It and then was astonishing that Saunders (2005) could have made an obvious error of fact had she read the book, stating the faculty committee italics added indignantly objects to Luries acceptance of charges without remorse (p. 99).Saunders retell her erroneous treatment of the mission as united in the next three pages, Luries response does not, from the committees perspective, meet the demands of estimable responsibility (p. 100), the committee isnt convinced that Luries admission is a reflec tion of his sincere feelings (p. 101), and Luries performance does not fulfill the expectation, overlap by the novels committee of inquiry that remorse and diversity were publicly acknowledged (p. 102). How was it possible to fail to recognize that the three men at the hearing, Aram Hakim, sleek and youthful (p. 40), Manas Mathabane, the chair of the Hearing (p. 47), and Desmond Swarts, Dean of engineering (p. 47) had no such expectations, but instead made it clear they precious Lurie to let them help him avoid being asked to resign?Swarts, for example, said DavidWe would like to find a way for you to continue with your career (p. 52) and Hakim instanter after said We would like to help you, David, find a way out of what must be a nightmare (p. 52). After Rassool urged that the Committee impose the severest penalty (p. 51), Mathabane responded, Let me remind you again, Dr. Rassoolit is not up to us to impose penalties (p. 51). Lurie recognized the men were his friendsThey want h im back in the schoolroom (p. 52).There was no response after he noted, In the let loose of goodwillI hear no female voices (p. 52), but, oddly, Lurie did not seem to remember that prior to the Hearing, the only other person mentioned as a member of the Committee was a faculty member who teaches in the production line School (p. 47). During the Hearing, she was presented as a young woman, but her question about his willingness to seek help of any kind (a priest, for instance, or a counsellor, p. 49) suggested she shared the confusion of the men about his refusal to simply save his job, regardless of his opinion, but had no desire either to persuade him to do so or to cause him harm.At the preliminary meeting, the chair of his department was present, a woman who, according to Lurie, regarded him as a hangover from the past, the sooner unclutter away the better (p. 40), but the reader had no way of knowing whether she cared about him at all or might in fact want to replace him not because of his discipline but because she would prefer hiring a person who could teach.Coetzee did give the woman who wanted him to express contrition that came from his heart a name indicating she was colored (at least at the time of the novel, no-one suggested it was knotted to divide people into two racial groups white and non-white, the reason for using the term colored).Combined with Lurie having had sex with a young student who also was not white, Coetzee clearly intended to introduce ambiguity regarding Rassools intended meaning of Luries failure to mention the long score of exploitation of which this is part (p. 53). However, at that place was no justification for Cornwall (2002) using the races of Rassool and Melanie to reach the (inelegantly worded) conclusion that their relationship can be seen to be informed not only by the power relations of patriarchy and the academy but also by those of race their encounter is contextualized within the several centuries of compou nd history in which white men debauched black women with impunity (p. 315). plot of ground many of the conclusions in criticisms related to the experiences that led to and occurred during Luries Hearing were that there was a need for him to express contrition or remorse, the actual events in the novel, as described above, led to the conclusion that Lurie was more of an unintentional anti-hero than sinner. whatsoever his reasons were, as an anti-hero, he flaunted both social conventions regarding treating women with respect and politically straighten out jargon, such as women victims of the patriarchy. Should we thus admire him for the relationships he had with women? Of course not. perchance the most well-known sexual anti-hero was another Professor, self-confessed pedophile Humbert Humbert (Nabokov, 1955), who demonstrated that indeed the vilest of behaviors can simultaneously be the most comic.While Luries offensive behaviors pale in comparison to those of Professor Humbert, it would seem difficult to fail to recognize that both his typically inept efforts at seduction and his more successful ability to bring out the silliest of exercises in political correctness resulted in devastating humor at an extremely difficult period in South Africa.ReferencesAttridge, D. (2000). Age of bronze, state of grace medicine and dogs in J. M. Coetzees Disgrace. Novel, 34, 98-121.Attridge, D. (2002). J. M. Coetzees Disgrace Introduction. Interventions, 4, 315-320.Boehme, E. (2002). Not saying sorry, not speaking pain Gender implications in Disgrace. Interventions, 4, 342-351.Coetzee, J. M. (1999). Disgrace. New York Viking.Cornwall, G. (2002). Realism, rape, and J. M. Coetzees Disgrace. Critique, 43, 307-316.Graham, L. V. (2003). culture the unspeakable Rape in J. M. Coetzees Disgrace. Journal of Southern African Studies, 29, 432-444.Nabakov, V. (1955). Lolita. New York G. P. Putnams Sons.Sarvan, C. (2004). Disgrace A path to grace? military man Literature Today, 26-29.S aunders, R. (2005). Disgrace in the time of a Truth Commission. Parallex, 11, 99-106.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment