Subjection and Survival in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

Abstract

Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace, constructs a disturbing picture of the state of post-apartheid South Africa. It was generally criticized on the ground that instead of sharing national enthusiasm, it damaged the hopes of constructing a just and nonracial society by perpetuating racial stereotypes and fueling interracial violence. Disgrace, however, this paper holds, is a realistic, though gloomy, narrative of human condition. It is the scene of individuals struggling for survival amid existential and social forces in post-apartheid culture. Apartheid represented the era of victimization, subjection, and pathological attachments. It distorted intersubjective relations, turned humans’ interactions into power struggles, and produced deformed, stunted subjects. This paper examines the continuing presence of these deformed subjects in new South Africa and the violence that their presence occasions. The residual presence of character deformity and pathological intersubjectivity is a social reality of the new South Africa in Disgrace, a reality that diminishes the prospect of the promised sane society of post-apartheid era.