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Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Disgrace, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Desire and Power
Shame, Remorse, and Vanity
Violence and Empathy
Love and Support
Time and Change
Summary
Analysis
David feels as if a “vital organ” inside him has been “bruised,” and he isn’t sure how long it will take to heal, though he knows he can’t rely on Lucy to help him. Indeed, he feels like his “pleasure in living has been snuffed out.” Before long, two police officers arrive and accompany them back to the farm, where Lucy walks them through the damage without mentioning that she was raped. When the officers leave, David once again tries to get his daughter to talk about what happened (urging her to tell the authorities the full story), but she ignores him. Instead, she starts setting up a place for herself to sleep in the pantry, since she can’t bear to spend the night in her room, where she was raped. However, David insists that she should take his room, so he moves into hers.
The emotional support Lucy requires in this moment isn’t the kind David is prepared to give her. What he wants is for her to talk about getting raped and to tell the police about what happened, but she’s not ready to do this. Despite this disconnect, though, David does manages to do something for her—by moving into her room (where she was raped), he enables her to process her trauma the way she wants to, making it possible for her to move into his room so that she doesn’t have to sleep at the scene of the crime (or in the pantry). Although this might seem simple, it is apparently the kind of support Lucy needs right now.
Themes
At dinner, David once again tries to broach the topic of Lucy’s rape, but she is unreceptive. Finally, though, she tells him that she hasn’t told the police because she believes that what happened to her is a “private matter.” David objects to this, suggesting that Lucy’s refusal to report her rape must stem from a belief that she has to suffer in order to live on a farm in the Eastern Cape as a white woman. Hearing this, Lucy insists that David has no idea what he’s talking about, saying that he’s “misreading” her. “Never yet have they been so far and so bitterly apart,” Coetzee writes, noting that David is “shaken.”
David’s belief that Lucy is purposefully suffering has to do with the history of South Africa: he thinks that she feels she must make amends for the fact that white people oppressed black people under slavery and apartheid for so many years. According to David, Lucy thinks she has to atone for the wrongdoings of her race and believes that keeping quiet about her rape is a way to do this. (This line of thought also establishes that the three attackers were black, which Coetzee has not explicitly mentioned.) When Coetzee notes that David and Lucy have “never” been so divided, he demonstrates just how thoroughly violent and traumatic experiences can interfere with a person’s entire life.
Themes
