Disgrace “The Chosen One

Disgrace, by J.M Coetzee, deals with post apartheid South Africa.
He depicts a land rich in both culture and ethnicity, a melting pot of different beliefs and races.
The Story deals with a professor, David Laurie, who has been baited by the most delectable of earthly desire, lust. In his search for a rekindled sexual life, his private life becomes a community scandal. After being put on trial by the university, he leaves his job as a teacher. In his quest to find a simple life, one less tainted by the judgment of society, he moves in with his daughter in a small farm. During his time with his daughter, events take place which reveal to him his own mortality, the thin, fragile, separation between life and death. To David it takes this fall, this stumble into and inevitable quagmire of suffering, to find any measure of redemption for his faults. The challenges which David overcomes, put him in situations where he has two choices, to give in to what is “easier” and simply move away, or to stay and get through the experience with the ones he loves, in this case, his daughter who is without argument, the real victim of the story. Along with this symbolic search for redemption, David faces off with physical challenges of cultures clashing in the midst of what is now, his life, his home, his daughter. Soon he realizes that there is little to do, and that the reigns are not always in his hands. His daughter, seeking both refuge and acceptance, marries her neighbor/ worker, who will help her father the bi product of racial discrimination and blood hate.
The story takes the reader through a transformation from a story of the romantics of every day life, young lust, and unrequited desire, into one oh an equally harsh physical strain of his life on Lucy, his daughter’s, farm. There are many levels of, what I believe is the same struggle, which David goes through. First being that of the jubilant lust of an aging man or “ servant of Eros” in a world of certain social criteria, second, that of his work. David is crushed by the changing view point of the university, to whom romantic literature and poetry are not on par with the importance of technological and scientific education. Third is the struggle of the book that David is writing parallel to the progression of the story, which mirrors Davids own personal emotional equilibrium. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the struggle of an evolving society. David is living in the time of post apartheid South Africa, with the memory of “ the old days”. The transformation that David’s thoughts and beliefs must make is a great one , only made worse by the assault of him and his daughter, and his useless quest for justice. All these interwoven themes make this book the influential piece of writing it is. On one level or another, I found it impossible to not connect with both the character and the circumstances he is faced with. I feel lucky to have flipped from page to page and travel through his journey with him, learning, growing, becoming. I personally bear witness to the evolution and growth of Mr. David Laurie, both mentally, and physically, Both as a father, and a lover. What a beautiful story of personal conquest.