THE COLLAPSE OF THE WHITE AUTHORITY OVER THE BLACK IN J. M. COETZEE’S DISGRACE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to investigate and throw some light on J. M. Coetzee’s celebrated novel Disgrace (1999) in South Africa’s post-apartheid in order to indicate the ramifications in the aftermath of apartheid in which with the subversion of the white authority, and the change in power structures of the society, the once dominant ideology presupposing the white superiority over the black fades away. Through identity crisis, mimicry and violence, the white hegemony shatters and a new power structure comes into being. Hence, David Lurie, the protagonist along with his daughter Lucy are taken as representatives of the whites that suffer both physically and psychologically and go through an identity crisis which leads them to a kind of awareness regarding their current situation in the post-apartheid period. Having endured and suffered some pains that are going to be presented in the subsequent sections of the current study, David and Lucy draw a conclusion that there is apparently no way but co-existence and compromise between the two races. Apartheid, indeed, leaves a wound for both the black and the white through conflicts and collisions between them. Therefore, Lucy can be regarded as the symbol of redemption and reconciliation between the two races. In what follows, the word apartheid will be first defined and elaborated on, then applied to Coetzee’s selected novel in order to examine and demonstrate its overarching effects on both the white and the black.