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Chapter 23
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
Though he spends the majority of his time thinking about and writing the opera, David knows it’s going nowhere. The only other thing that captivates him as he waits for Lucy to give birth is a dog he meets at the Animal Welfare League. Unlike the other animals, he has developed a “fondness” for this dog, whom he knows is destined for Bev’s lethal needle. Despite this, though, David spares him week after week, taking other dogs to be put down instead.
The only sign that David has changed at all is his newfound interest in animals. When he first arrived in the Eastern Cape, he admitted that animal lovers like Bev Shaw irritate him, but now he finds himself drawn to a dog at the Animal Welfare League. However, it’s obvious that he will eventually play a role in this dog’s death, making his relationship with the animal a rather difficult one—an indication that even his most rewarding and morally redeeming relationships are weighed down by complications.
Themes
David has lunch one day with Lucy after they both work at the farmer’s market. As they talk about her upcoming role as a mother, she tells him that she’s “determined” to be a good person. “You should try to be a good person too,” she adds, but he only says, “I suspect it is too late for me. I’m just an old lag serving out my sentence.” Several days later, he visits Lucy’s farm for the first time since the incident with Pollux. David watches her proudly as she gardens, thinking about how she has become her own person. When she turns to see him, she invites him in for tea as if he’s a visitor. “Good,” he thinks. “Visitorship, visitation: a new footing, a new start.”
Rather than showing readers how David has changed for the better, Coetzee focuses on the ways in which this man has resisted change. After everything that has happened—public humiliation and violence and interpersonal conflict—David has managed to stay more or less the same, doggedly believing that it’s “too late” for him to undergo any kind of meaningful transformation. However, as Coetzee builds toward a conclusion, he suggests that David might be able to change at some point in the future—after all, David sees Lucy in the garden and apparently embraces the idea of “a new start,” something he has had little or no interest in until this moment. In this way, Coetzee contests David’s idea that it’s “too late” for him to change, essentially suggesting that, although it might take a long time, he is not immune to the possibility of transformation.
Themes
During one of Bev and David’s sessions of putting down animals at the Animal Welfare League, David finally brings in the dog he’s developed an affinity for. “One more,” he says, knowing that no matter how long he avoids it, he’ll soon have to put the dog to sleep. “I thought you would save him for another week,” Bev says as the unsuspecting dog wags its tail and licks David’s face from lip to ear. “Are you giving him up?” Bev asks. “Yes,” David says, “I am giving him up.”
In contrast to the optimistic idea that David might have gained “a new start” now that he has moved off the farm, his sudden decision to put down this dog suggests that he still actively rejects the notion that he has—or might—become a more empathetic person. When he first developed a fondness for this dog, it seemed as if he was possibly undergoing a change of heart, since he used to scoff at animal lovers. In this moment, though, he seemingly wills himself to recapture the cold, unfeeling attitude he used to have regarding animals, forcing himself to kill this dog as a way of reminding himself that it’s “too late” for him to become a better person.
Themes
