Monday, June 15, 2009

Disgrace - Ch. 1 - 6

We see the developing theme of exploitation in J.M. Coetzee's, "Disgrace".  From the beginning we have the escorts Soraya, who has two sons and Dawn, who is no more than eighteen years of age being exploited by getting sucked into the business where they get paid to have sex with different men.  We see more examples of exploitation where David meets Melanie, who is a student of his at the University where he teaches.  He develops a relationship with her that is formed out of lust and desire.  He ends up having sex with her but it doesn't end up in mutual happiness.  Melanie feels used because she will not make eye contact with David and will refuse on some occasions to meet up with him.  Melanie then switches roles with David in that she begins to exploit him by taking advantage of him.  She stops attending his classes and doesn't even take his midterm but it doesn't matter because he gives her a grade and marks her present every day that she isn't there because of the relationship that they are in.  She then exploits him even further when she wants to stop seeing him by dropping out of the course and filing a harassment report on David which brings about a trial he must attend to in order to plead his case.

1 comment:

  1. It is interesting how the tables have turned on david. it seems david uses sex in order to fulfull a missing void in his life,Maybe it fills the void of not being capable of having both of his marriages last. It is also interesting that he has a daughter and yet he still treats women as though they are objects. You would believe he would have more respect for women in genera.l His daughter is fartherest away from her father a farmer and and a lesiban maybe she is turned of from men because of what has been present infront of her whole life, a man that that is a womenizer and incable of having a marriage last.

    HARJIT S MINHAS

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