Disgrace Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

After being forced to resign from the university, David decides to visit his daughter Lucy, who lives in the Eastern Cape of South Africa on a “smallholding” in a farmhouse. When he gets out of the car and greets her, he notices that she has gained weight, though not necessarily in a bad way. Happy to see her, he thinks about when she first moved here six years ago, when she lived in the farmhouse with a “commune” of young people who wanted to farm and sell their wares at farmers’ markets. When the commune decided to move elsewhere, Lucy stayed with her partner Helen, and David helped her buy the property. As he gets settled, Lucy explains that Helen has been gone for several months, leaving her on her own “aside from the help.” This concerns David, but Lucy says that having one extra person would do little to deter robbers.

Despite David’s overall aversion to change, his life will be very different now that he has resigned from his teaching position. Even he seems to acknowledge and embrace this by going to visit Lucy in a rural area. It’s now especially important to not that Disgrace takes place in post-apartheid South Africa. After many years of racial segregation—when the white minority ruled the country and subjugated the black majority—race relations were understandably quite tense, and though the novel doesn’t necessarily deal with these tensions until later on, it’s helpful to keep in mind that Lucy is living alone in this rather fraught context, which is perhaps why David is worried when he hears that Helen is no longer living there.

Active Themes

David asks if Lucy has a gun, and she assures him that she has a rifle, though she’s never used it. She then gives him a tour of the grounds, showing him—among other things—the outdoor pens where she runs her kennel. When he was last here, David remembers, there was only one pen’s worth of dogs, but now there are five. “Watchdogs all of them,” Lucy remarks. David asks if they get bored, pointing to a small bulldog, and Lucy tells him that this particular dog—Katy—has been abandoned by her owners. As such, Lucy is the one to care for her, along with Petrus, who is her assistant and soon-to-be “co-proprietor.”

Despite Rosalind telling David not to “expect sympathy,” Lucy is seemingly still a supportive person. It is also her job to care for animals, a fact that naturally invites readers to consider if she will show David the same kind of kindness. Of course, David is the one who isolated himself from his community by acting immorally, but this doesn’t mean he doesn’t need the kind of loving support that all humans require.

Active Themes

David tells Lucy about his plan to work on an opera while he’s visiting. “You must have heard about my troubles,” he says at one point, and Lucy admits that Rosalind mentioned the matter on the phone, but she doesn’t press him for details. She does, however, ask if he will “miss” teaching, and David doubts that he will, since he never thought of himself as a very good professor in the first place. As they talk, Petrus enters and introduces himself, saying, “I look after the dogs and I work in the garden. Yes. I am the gardener and the dog-man.” Having said this, he pensively repeats, “The dog-man.” In turn, David admits that he sometimes feels nervous about Lucy living here all by herself, and Petrus agrees that it is a “dangerous” place. “Everything is dangerous today,” he says. “But here it is all right, I think.”

Thankfully for David, Lucy appears willing to let him avoid talking about his problems back home, not pressing him for details right away. Petrus is an important character, though Coetzee only provides a fleeting snapshot of him at this point. Still, Petrus’s repetition of the phrase “dog-man” is noteworthy, as it suggests that he is perhaps unhappy with this designation. Given that he lives on Lucy’s land but is about to become a “co-proprietor,” his possible dissatisfaction is important, since a change in his role could alter the way Lucy lives her day-to-day life. Petrus also belongs to the Xhosa people of South Africa, meaning that—unlike Lucy and David—he is a black man who has experienced racial discrimination under apartheid. As such, the fact that he’s about to become a “co-proprietor” of Lucy’s land (the result of the new post- apartheid constitution) illustrates the extent to which the country is changing.

Active Themes

When Petrus leaves, Lucy explains that he lives in the “old stable” with one of his wives, though he has another wife elsewhere. Over dinner that night, Lucy asks how long David plans to stay, and when he says that he doesn’t want to burden her, she tells him he can stay as long as he wants, though he insists that “long visits don’t make for good friends.” “What if we don’t call it a visit?” she asks. “What if we call it refuge? Would you accept refuge on an indefinite basis?” This prompts a discussion of David’s troubles in Cape Town, and when Lucy asks what he would have had to do to keep his job, he tells her he would have needed to go to counseling. “I’m old-fashioned,” he says, “I would prefer simply to be put against a wall and shot.”

Lucy’s willingness to let David stay as long as he wants is kind and helpful. It seems she is ready and able to give him support in this difficult time, as evidenced by her suggestion that he think about his stay as a “refuge” from his troubles. Unlike Rosalind, she doesn’t judge him for what he’s done, though she doesn’t condone his actions. She simply accepts the fact that he needs some time away from his own life. Despite this kindness, though, David maintains his arrogant refusal to change. Although Lucy’s farm would be a perfect place to reflect upon his actions and change for the better, he clings to the notion that he’d rather be “shot” than have to genuinely confront his shortcomings.

Active Themes

Quotes

Disgrace

J. M. Coetzee

Disgrace: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis