Of Race and Repentance
Approaches towards reconciliation and responsibility
Running alongside the story of Disgrace is a political commentary on the racial segregation that has dominated South Africa. While Coetzee never once explicitly embarks on a discourse on the politics of race in Disgrace, the issues of guilt and atonement are nonetheless subtly present in the subtext. Rosemary Nagy draws upon this theme for her specific study of post-apartheid attitudes in her article, The Ambiguities of Reconciliation and Responsibility in South Africa. However, Nagy deals only cursorily with the notion that Disgrace illustrates the multiplicity of the post-apartheid approach to the past, concentrating instead on a general political review of the post-apartheid era. This paper will thus attempt to develop the ideas conceptualized by Nagy, focusing in particular on the symbolism of Lucy's experience.
At one end of the spectrum we have Petrus, whose detached response to Lucy's rape may be representative of the stereotypical white minority in South Africa. When Petrus finally breaks his silence, grudgingly conceding that what happened to Lucy was not right, he refuses to look back on the crime, preferring to look instead to the future. As he tells David, "It is bad. But it is finish." He offers a solution - marriage and protection - but does nothing to atone for the past. This parallels the prevailing attitude of the average white South African in shirking responsibility for apartheid crimes.
Similarly, while David is willing to plead guilty to the charge that he "took advantage of [his] position vis-a-vis Ms Isaacs" [pg 54], he refuses to do so with "a spirit of repentance" [pg 58]. Like Petrus, he shows no remorse. What makes him a more moderate spokesman of reconciliation is only the fact that he tries, albeit to a limited extent, to make amends. His path to atonement is paved with the apology that he eventually makes to Mr Isaac, and the pardon that he asks for.
Finally, we are confronted with Lucy's irrational acceptance of the situation that she finds herself in. She accepts her fate with pliance and compliance: "Yes, I agree, it is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again. Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept. To start at ground level. With nothing." [pg 205] As Nagy propounds, "Lucy takes on all the sins of the past. She reads too much history into her rape and thereby ends up distorting responsibility." What makes her behaviour inexplicably extreme is the fact that she seems to have had no role in propagating apartheid crimes, since she does not subscribe to the ideology of apartheid. In the following exchange, the animal reference can be taken as an oblique representation of racial alignments. Lucy asserts quietly that "there is no higher life"; "This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals." David disagrees: "We are of a different order of creation from the animals." [pg 74]
In Disgrace, therefore, certain characters embody varying attitudes towards race and repentance. It is as Nagy proposes but fails to elaborate upon: "Whereas David's story shows the limits of seeking moral atonement for the past, Lucy's represents the excesses of bearing responsibility. And Petrus is the mirror image of ordinary white South Africans under apartheid."
