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.

Melanie Sexual object

In the novel Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee the book deals with controversial theme sexuality. In the first couple chapters we find David a university professor who is involve sexually with Melanie. According to the book David has been married and divorce twice. The David character develops around its passion for Melanie, who is beautiful and smart girl. It seems that Melanie works as a prostitute and that is how David gets to know her. The story continues and David I believe falls in love with Melanie and he harasses her. The fact that Melanie withdrawals the class and doesn’t want to study any more shows her rebellion against prostitution. The professor is shock and Melanie’s father as well that asks David to intersect in her decision. How ever Melanie speak and made a sexual harassment complaint against David.
David seems very calm and I believe he doesn’t even care about the allegations. David’s personality suggests that he sees women as sexual object. This also raises a theme of gender issue between women and men. The novel portraits women as weak and inferior compare to men who are powerful and superior. For example, “She is too innocent for that, too ignorant of her power” (39). This is the opinion of David about Melanie and probably how he views women, innocent, weak and ignorant.