Disgrace

by

J. M. Coetzee

Melanie Isaacs Character Analysis

A twenty-year-old college student in David’s class on the Romantic poets. Melanie is hesitant when David invites her to his apartment for the first time, and though she stays for dinner and drinks, she refuses his suggestion that she spend the night. Shortly thereafter, David takes her to lunch, where she’s quiet nearly the entire meal, after which David takes her home and has sex with her on the floor. Despite her passive willingness to do this, Melanie remains withdrawn, as if she doesn’t want to be sexually involved with David but isn’t prepared or able to say no to him. In the coming days and weeks, she stops attending his class, but David marks her present anyway. One evening, he arrives unannounced at Melanie’s house and starts kissing her and leading her to the bedroom, where they have sex. Again, Melanie doesn’t resist him, but this time she tells him to stop, since her roommate will be coming home soon. Nevertheless, David continues. To his surprise, Melanie arrives at his house several nights later and asks if she can stay, and they have sex for the final time. Around this period, a young man named Ryan visits David’s office and threatens him because of his relationship with Melanie, even going as far as to vandalize his car later that day. What’s more, David receives a call from Melanie’s father, Mr. Isaacs, who asks if there’s anything he can do to help her. Apparently, he explains, she has decided to drop out of school, though Isaacs can’t fathom why she would do this, since she’s always been a good student. It’s isn’t long after this telephone conversation that Isaacs finds out the true cause of his daughter’s unhappiness, at which point he helps her file a sexual harassment complaint against David.

Melanie Isaacs Quotes in Disgrace

The Disgrace quotes below are all either spoken by Melanie Isaacs or refer to Melanie Isaacs. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Desire and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

As she sips, he leans over and touches her cheek. ‘You’re very lovely,’ he says. ‘I’m going to invite you to do something reckless.’ He touches her again. ‘Stay. Spend the night with me.’

Across the rim of the cup she regards him steadily. ‘Why?’

‘Because you ought to.’

‘Why ought I to?’

'Why? Because a woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.’

His hand still rests against her cheek. She does not withdraw, but does not yield either.

‘And what if I already share it?’ In her voice there is a hint of breathlessness. Exciting, always, to be courted: exciting, pleasurable.

‘Then you should share it more widely.’

Smooth words, as old as seduction itself. Yet at this moment he believes in them. She does not own herself. Beauty does not own itself.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Melanie Isaacs (speaker)
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

He takes her back to his house. On the living-room floor, to the sound of rain pattering against the windows, he makes love to her. Her body is clear, simple, in its way perfect; though she is passive throughout, he finds the act pleasurable, so pleasurable that from its climax he tumbles into blank oblivion.

Related Characters: David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away.

Related Characters: David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Note that we are not asked to condemn this being with the mad heart, this being with whom there is some­ thing constitutionally wrong. On the contrary, we are invited to understand and sympathize. But there is a limit to sympa­thy. For though he lives among us, he is not one of us. He is ex­actly what he calls himself: a thing, that is, a monster. Finally, Byron will suggest, it will not be possible to love him, not in the deeper, more human sense of the word. He will be con­demned to solitude.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Melanie Isaacs, Ryan
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Don’t expect sympathy from me, David, and don’t expect sympathy from anyone else either. No sympathy, no mercy, not in this day and age. Everyone’s hand will be against you, and why not? Really, how could you?

Related Characters: Rosalind (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

We are again going round in circles, Mr Chair. Yes, he says, he is guilty; but when we try to get specificity, all of a sudden it is not abuse of a young woman he is confessing to, just an impulse he could not resist, with no mention of the pain he has caused, no mention of the long history of exploitation of which this is part. That is why I say it is futile to go on debating with Professor Lurie. We must take his plea at face value and recommend accordingly.

Related Characters: Farodia Rassool (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Very well. I took advantage of my position vis-à-vis Ms Isaacs. It was wrong, and I regret it. Is that good enough for you?’

‘The question is not whether it is good enough for me, Professor Lurie, the question is whether it is good enough for you. Does it reflect your sincere feelings?’

He shakes his head. ‘I have said the words for you, now you want more, you want me to demonstrate their sincerity. That is preposterous. That is beyond the scope of the law. I have had enough. Let us go back to playing it by the book. I plead guilty. That is as far as I am prepared to go.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Farodia Rassool (speaker), Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

‘My case rests on the rights of desire,’ he says. ‘On the god who makes even the small birds quiver.’

He sees himself in the girl’s flat, in her bedroom, with the rain pouring down outside and the heater in the corner giving off a smell of paraffin, kneeling over her, peeling off her clothes, while her arms flop like the arms of a dead person. I was a servant of Eros: that is what he wants to say, but does he have the effron­tery? It was a god who acted through me. What vanity! Yet not a lie, not entirely. In the whole wretched business there was some­thing generous that was doing its best to flower. If only he had known the time would be so short!

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

‘There was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offence like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.’

‘So males must be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked? Is that the moral?’

‘No, that is not the moral. What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Let me not forget this day, he tells himself, lying beside her when they are spent. After the sweet young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is what I have come to. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even less than this.

‘It’s late,’ says Bev Shaw. ‘I must be going.’

He pushes the blanket aside and gets up, making no effort to hide himself. Let her gaze her fill on her Romeo, he thinks, on his bowed shoulders and skinny shanks. It is indeed late. […] At the door Bev presses herself against him a last time, rests her head on his chest. He lets her do it, as he has let her do everything she has felt a need to do. His thoughts go to Emma Bovary strutting before the mirror after her first big afternoon. I have a lover! I have a lover! sings Emma to herself. Well, let poor Bev Shaw go home and do some singing too. And let him stop calling her poor Bev Shaw. If she is poor, he is bankrupt.

Related Characters: Bev Shaw (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

One word more, then I am finished. It could have turned out differently, I believe, between the two of us, despite our ages. But there was something I failed to supply, something’—he hunts for the word—‘lyrical. I lack the lyrical. I manage love too well. Even when I burn I don’t sing, if you understand me. For which I am sorry. I am sorry for what I took your daughter through. You have a wonderful family. I apologize for the grief I have caused you and Mrs Isaacs. I ask for your pardon.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Melanie Isaacs, Mr. Isaacs
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:

‘So,’ says Isaacs, ‘at last you have apologized. I wondered when it was coming.’ He ponders. He has not taken his seat; now he begins to pace up and down. ‘You are sorry. You lacked the lyrical, you say. If you had had the lyrical, we would not be where we are today. But I say to myself, we are all sorry when we are found out. Then we are very sorry. The question is not, are we sorry? The question is, what lesson have we learned? The question is, what are we going to do now that we are sorry?’

Related Characters: Mr. Isaacs (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
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Melanie Isaacs Quotes in Disgrace

The Disgrace quotes below are all either spoken by Melanie Isaacs or refer to Melanie Isaacs. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Desire and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

As she sips, he leans over and touches her cheek. ‘You’re very lovely,’ he says. ‘I’m going to invite you to do something reckless.’ He touches her again. ‘Stay. Spend the night with me.’

Across the rim of the cup she regards him steadily. ‘Why?’

‘Because you ought to.’

‘Why ought I to?’

'Why? Because a woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.’

His hand still rests against her cheek. She does not withdraw, but does not yield either.

‘And what if I already share it?’ In her voice there is a hint of breathlessness. Exciting, always, to be courted: exciting, pleasurable.

‘Then you should share it more widely.’

Smooth words, as old as seduction itself. Yet at this moment he believes in them. She does not own herself. Beauty does not own itself.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Melanie Isaacs (speaker)
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

He takes her back to his house. On the living-room floor, to the sound of rain pattering against the windows, he makes love to her. Her body is clear, simple, in its way perfect; though she is passive throughout, he finds the act pleasurable, so pleasurable that from its climax he tumbles into blank oblivion.

Related Characters: David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away.

Related Characters: David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Note that we are not asked to condemn this being with the mad heart, this being with whom there is some­ thing constitutionally wrong. On the contrary, we are invited to understand and sympathize. But there is a limit to sympa­thy. For though he lives among us, he is not one of us. He is ex­actly what he calls himself: a thing, that is, a monster. Finally, Byron will suggest, it will not be possible to love him, not in the deeper, more human sense of the word. He will be con­demned to solitude.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Melanie Isaacs, Ryan
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Don’t expect sympathy from me, David, and don’t expect sympathy from anyone else either. No sympathy, no mercy, not in this day and age. Everyone’s hand will be against you, and why not? Really, how could you?

Related Characters: Rosalind (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

We are again going round in circles, Mr Chair. Yes, he says, he is guilty; but when we try to get specificity, all of a sudden it is not abuse of a young woman he is confessing to, just an impulse he could not resist, with no mention of the pain he has caused, no mention of the long history of exploitation of which this is part. That is why I say it is futile to go on debating with Professor Lurie. We must take his plea at face value and recommend accordingly.

Related Characters: Farodia Rassool (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Very well. I took advantage of my position vis-à-vis Ms Isaacs. It was wrong, and I regret it. Is that good enough for you?’

‘The question is not whether it is good enough for me, Professor Lurie, the question is whether it is good enough for you. Does it reflect your sincere feelings?’

He shakes his head. ‘I have said the words for you, now you want more, you want me to demonstrate their sincerity. That is preposterous. That is beyond the scope of the law. I have had enough. Let us go back to playing it by the book. I plead guilty. That is as far as I am prepared to go.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Farodia Rassool (speaker), Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

‘My case rests on the rights of desire,’ he says. ‘On the god who makes even the small birds quiver.’

He sees himself in the girl’s flat, in her bedroom, with the rain pouring down outside and the heater in the corner giving off a smell of paraffin, kneeling over her, peeling off her clothes, while her arms flop like the arms of a dead person. I was a servant of Eros: that is what he wants to say, but does he have the effron­tery? It was a god who acted through me. What vanity! Yet not a lie, not entirely. In the whole wretched business there was some­thing generous that was doing its best to flower. If only he had known the time would be so short!

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

‘There was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offence like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.’

‘So males must be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked? Is that the moral?’

‘No, that is not the moral. What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Let me not forget this day, he tells himself, lying beside her when they are spent. After the sweet young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is what I have come to. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even less than this.

‘It’s late,’ says Bev Shaw. ‘I must be going.’

He pushes the blanket aside and gets up, making no effort to hide himself. Let her gaze her fill on her Romeo, he thinks, on his bowed shoulders and skinny shanks. It is indeed late. […] At the door Bev presses herself against him a last time, rests her head on his chest. He lets her do it, as he has let her do everything she has felt a need to do. His thoughts go to Emma Bovary strutting before the mirror after her first big afternoon. I have a lover! I have a lover! sings Emma to herself. Well, let poor Bev Shaw go home and do some singing too. And let him stop calling her poor Bev Shaw. If she is poor, he is bankrupt.

Related Characters: Bev Shaw (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

One word more, then I am finished. It could have turned out differently, I believe, between the two of us, despite our ages. But there was something I failed to supply, something’—he hunts for the word—‘lyrical. I lack the lyrical. I manage love too well. Even when I burn I don’t sing, if you understand me. For which I am sorry. I am sorry for what I took your daughter through. You have a wonderful family. I apologize for the grief I have caused you and Mrs Isaacs. I ask for your pardon.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Melanie Isaacs, Mr. Isaacs
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:

‘So,’ says Isaacs, ‘at last you have apologized. I wondered when it was coming.’ He ponders. He has not taken his seat; now he begins to pace up and down. ‘You are sorry. You lacked the lyrical, you say. If you had had the lyrical, we would not be where we are today. But I say to myself, we are all sorry when we are found out. Then we are very sorry. The question is not, are we sorry? The question is, what lesson have we learned? The question is, what are we going to do now that we are sorry?’

Related Characters: Mr. Isaacs (speaker), David Lurie, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis: