Abstract
J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace highlights the almost perpetual conflicts in post-apartheid South African history and ethnicity. His engagement of the “new South Africa,” however, has generated fierce debates. In my thesis I try to argue that Coetzee, with his storytelling, tells “his own truth” that disquiets our senses to reality itself. My approach is related to J. Hillis Miller’s idea of “the ethics of reading,” which generates an ethical moment that is “something individual and particular, itself a source of political or cognitive acts, not subordinated to them” (Miller 5). My thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the major ideas of my thesis. In the second chapter I argue that Coetzee, starting from his literary career, has insisted on revealing “his own truth” by storytelling, which provides us an alternative way to face the reality. I also identify Coetzee’s recent shifting narrative strategy, arguing that Coetzee has developed a unique way of narrative, namely, “essay-fiction,” which keeps asking philosophical questions about human struggles. Chapter three is about the moral ambiguity during the process of reconciliation. I particularly single out David’s moral struggle in the disciplinary committee. David’s moral position is neither easy nor satisfying. As his self-examination goes, he is “Not a bad man but not good either” (195). He is still in a way through, not yet a way out of his moral ambiguity. In chapter four I propose a possibility, though a vague one, of a “state of grace”—a better racial relationship with the black South Africans for David. This “state of grace” might be realized by “double mediation”—first, via David’s “sympathetic imagination” with the animals David redefines his relationship with Lucy; second, via Lucy it is possible for David to reconcile with the black South Africans. The last chapter concludes my thesis, pointing out that Coetzee, with his unique narrative strategy, consistently delves into human struggles but without providing any comfortable solutions. He makes his story speak for itself, shaking our senses of reality itself, and waiting for true reconciliation to come.