Coetzee and Laurie, Intertwined

The similarities and parallels between Coetzee and Laurie.

A Time of DisgraceWhere does one turn when troubled by doubtDoes he let it creep in or will he force it outEntertain thoughts of failure and fearClouding his judgment, his conversation unclearTurn to his sins which he never talk backOnly to encourage his mind’s heart attackIndulge in self pity, deny any threatsFeel no remorse, not all dogs are petsAdvantage is stolen from the innocent’s bedReplaced only by remorse that is deadA cycle that allows victims to victimizeActions repeated, traumatees traumatizedWounds become scabs which bleed when picked onDone even in dreams reveal blood when it’s downRelationships raped now mangled from desireScars from the burns, burns from the fireReaping during drought harvest evil that was sownShameful reputations he has purchased now he owns.

By: Ian Dial

Geography - Childhood• J.M. COETZEE• John Maxwell Coetzee was born in Cape Town on 9 February 1940 to an attorney father

and a schoolteacher mother. He spent most of his childhood in Cape Town and Worcester.• Coetzee spent many of his vacations as a child on his uncle's farm in the Karoo, the

semidesert region of the Cape Province. In all probability his perennial fascination with the primeval aspect of the South African landscape stems from his boyhood visits to this region.

• Coetzee's parents were bloedsappe, Afrikaners who supported General Jan Smuts and dissociated themselves from the Afrikaner nationalist movement that eventually came to power in South Africa in 1948. Although Coetzee came from an Afrikaans-speaking background, he attended various English middle schools and, after graduating from a Roman Catholic boys' school in 1956, went on to study English literature and mathematics at the University of Cape Town, receiving his B.A. in 1960 and M.A. in 1963. This bilingual upbringing has enabled Coetzee to depict English- and Afrikaans-speaking characters in his fiction with equal facility--an uncommon occurrence in South African literature, which, as part of the legacy of a divided society, usually is riddled with ethnic stereotypes.

Geography – Adulthood• Having found his studies at the University of Cape Town, particularly in

English, tedious, Coetzee left South Africa for England in 1962 to pursue a career as a computer programmer, working for International Business Machines (IBM) for two years and then for International Computers from 1964 to 1965. Coetzee completed his master's thesis in 1963. Evidently, computer programming did not prove rewarding; "I don't find working for IBM very satisfying at a human level. I don't find it fulfilling." Under a Fulbright exchange program, Coetzee, after only four years in England, left for the United States and commenced work on a doctoral thesis in English at the University of Texas at Austin.

• Coetzee stayed in the United States while writing his dissertation, which he completed in 1969; as an assistant professor he taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1968 to 1971.

• From 1972 until 2000 he held a series of positions at the University of Cape Town, the last of them as Distinguished Professor of Literature.

• In 2002 Coetzee emigrated to Australia.

Geography – Parallels and Conclusions

DISGRACE• David Lurie's early years are a mystery• The age of David Lurie roughly parallels JM

Coetzee’s when he wrote the novel• We know David Lurie spent a number of years

in Cape Town, as did Coetzee• The location of Lucy roughly parallels where he

spent his childhood• The number of years spent teaching can be

estimated to about the sameCONCLUSIONS• -JM Coetzee to some extent did use the

movements of his own life as inspiration for Disgrace, but left many things for us to wonder about. One of these things was if David Lurie traveled any before the start of the story. With Coetzee having lived in the United States for a number of years, it would make sense that would influence him to some degree.

Ignorant Point of ViewMy whole life I've lived this certain wayHow can you come in with your objections and sayThat my right is wrongAnd has been all alongOn my way of life, you frownOn your pedestal, with your nose straight up, never lookin' downCome on now, remove your crownAnd join me back down on the groundYour perspective is in the lost-and-foundCuz it's on mute, it's never made a sound

And now we're here and you disrespect meAnd then expect me to respect youNuh-uh, I reject you, no matter what I doI refuse to reflect youCuz your point of view is just a point of YouJust a pseudo truth, you're just a man in a boothSellin' lies to these youth

So you keep on and catch 'em while they're youngBefore they write their song that has yet to be sungAnd I understand that you're just speakin' your mindBut by losing some wars, some answers you'll find

By: Ian Dial

Life During Apartheid• The Apartheid as it affected JM Coetzee, and in turn, affected

Disgrace:• • JM Coetzee grew up with anti-nationalist parents who opposed

the Apartheid movement. We can only assume that his parents left a lasting impression in him that left him anti-apartheid as well. This shows up in Disgrace in several places.

• The first such occurrence is the Melanie rape, and the aftermath. The rape of a black student by a white teacher comes to symbolize the rape of the native population by the Dutch. David, the rapist in the case of Melanie, is punished. This is a commentary of how Coetzee feels toward the rapists of South Africa, the Dutch.

Life During Apartheid Cont.• Another occurrence is the situation with

Petrus. It is an ironic situation because during Apartheid, the native South Africans would be doing work for the white foreigners. This is more commentary on how Coetzee feels about the history of Apartheid.

• One of the more obvious times Coetzee's view on Apartheid affects the writing of the novel is the rape of Lucy, David’s daughter. This is another case of irony. Along with helping the character David Lurie come to a realization about his life, the rape of Lucy helps to provide more insight about Coetzee. It is almost as if he is saying that after the end of Apartheid, the native South Africans should be able to get some payback from their oppressors. If we are to look at it in this light it is unjust because Lucy is obviously not a perpetrator of being racist, yet the rape still is very symbolical.

Animal Cruelty• Coetzee is a vegetarian, unlike David Lurie, who

explicitly described a craving for meat at one point in the book.

• Coetzee strongly denounces animal cruelty and favors the animal rights movement. On the 22nd of February 2007, Coetzee raised his voice against the present animal husbandry (the breeding and raising of animals) industry in a Speech for Voiceless, a non-profit organization of Australia. Also J M Coetzee’s fiction novels such as Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello & the Lives of Animals throws light on issues related to animal cruelty and animal rights.

• Coetzee argues that our failure to identify with animals is the same failure of imagination that leads to crimes against our fellow humans. So it comes as no surprise that Coetzee's feelings towards animals shows through and is represented in his works.

• In 1999, Coetzee published The Lives of Animals, which included some of his own lectures on animal rights.

• David Lurie's views on animal rights are obviously very different from Coetzee's.

Animal Cruelty Cont.• “To any thinking person, it must be obvious that there is something badly wrong in relations

between human beings and the animals that human beings rely on for food; and that in the past 100 or 150 years whatever is wrong has become wrong on a huge scale, as traditional animal husbandry has been turned into an industry using industrial methods of production.”

• “The transformation of animals into production units dates back to the late 19th century, and since that time we have already had one warning on the grandest scale that there is something deeply, cosmically wrong with regarding and treating fellow beings as mere units of any kind. This warning came so loud and clear that one would have thought it impossible to ignore. It came when in the mid-20th century a group of powerful and bloody-minded men in Germany hit on the idea of adapting the methods of the industrial stockyard, as pioneered and perfected in Chicago, to the slaughter - or what they preferred to call the processing - of human beings.”

• Coetzee doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to animal cruelty. He has such strong feelings against the mistreatment and slaughter of animals that this has been a theme in many of his novels. In Disgrace, Coetzee takes a more subtle approach to his stance. Lurie represents someone who clearly has issues when it comes to ethics and humanity. At the very least the reader acquires feelings of sentiment towards the “victims” in Lurie’s life. Throughout the book Lurie puts dogs down as if it’s just another item on the list of chores to do. His complete and utter disregard for the lives of these animals subconsciously causes the reader to have feelings of remorse whether they think about it or not. That certainly is one way to instill your ideas in the minds of your audience, and he does so wonderfully.

Further Conclusion on Animal Cruelty

• Coetzee doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to animal cruelty. He has such strong feelings against the mistreatment and slaughter of animals that this has been a theme in many of his novels. In Disgrace, Coetzee takes a more subtle approach to his stance. Lurie represents someone who clearly has issues when it comes to ethics and humanity. At the very least the reader acquires feelings of sentiment towards the “victims” in Lurie’s life. Throughout the book Lurie puts dogs down as if it’s just another item on the list of chores to do. His complete and utter disregard for the lives of these animals subconsciously causes the reader to have feelings of remorse whether they think about it or not. That certainly is one way to instill your ideas in the minds of your audience, and he does so wonderfully.

Divorce The Divorce of JM Coetzee and its parallels to David Lurie: • Coetzee was married from 1963 until 1980. Coetzee’s separation from his wife before

his divorce was widely expected by his friends as many labeled him as a reclusive and private man, much like how Lurie is portrayed in much of the novel. They had one son and one daughter. Their son died in an accident at the age of 23, and was said to deeply affect Coetzee. He has now moved to Australia with a "partner" named Dorothy Driver.

Comparing and Contrasting between Lurie and Coetzee:• They were both divorced at some point in their lives• Both marriages produced children (Lurie-1, Coetzee-2).• Coetzee is currently with a partner, perhaps demonstrating Coetzee's desires to be

with women much like Lurie.• As Lurie has no son in Disgrace, it could be argued that the effects of the death of

Coetzee’s son still linger.• Coetzee’s daughter is never raped (as far as we know), but the death of his son could

come out somewhat in this.

Professor Coetzee and Professor Lurie

• J.M. Coetzee was assistant professor of English at the State University of New York in Buffalo from 1986-1971. His request for permanent residence in the U.S. was denied due to his involvement in anti-Vietnam War protests so he returned to South Africa in 1972. Interestingly, Coetzee was arrested for criminal trespass at the University of New York in Buffalo. It is unclear whether or not he was fired but this situation loosely parallels David Lurie's situation after raping Melanie. Upon his return to South Africa, he was a professor of English literature at the University of Cape Town. He worked there from 1972-2001 and was recognized as the Distinguished Professor of Literature between 1999 and 2001.

Professor Duality Conclusions• Comparing and Contrasting David Lurie

and Coetzee as a Professor• Lurie and Coetzee are both professors of

English.• They both got in trouble for doing

something against the law.• Coetzee seems to be a better professor than

Lurie. Lurie has a lack of passion for his job that Coetzee seems to possess.

• Unrelated to the professor subject, a colleague of Coetzee's noted that he has only seen him laugh once. In the novel does David laugh at all? He is also known to spend at least an hour at his writing desk per day. This is slightly related to David spending his time writing the opera but Coetzee is obviously more dedicated than David.

Sources and Citations For Geography

• Geography Childhood• http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1570/PreviewComp/SuperStock

_1570R-9004.jpg• Geography Adulthood• http://www.clv.com.au/clvAustraliaNZ/global_images/campus_images/killer_

travel.jpg• Geography Conclusions• http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/south_africa_reliefmap.jpg• Sources:• South African Writers. Ed. Paul A. Scanlon. Dictionary of Literary Biography

Vol. 225. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. From Literature Resource Center.• Dan R• Ignorant Point of View• http://www.mainlesson.com/books/winter/aesop/zpage036.gif• Ian Dial

Sources and Citations cont.• Animal cruelty• http://farm1.static.flickr.com/68/204778482_a0e6fe67ce.jpg• Andrew• Further Conclusions Animal Cruelty• http://images.art.com/images/products/large/10069000/10069671.jpg• Ian Dial

• Professor• Professor Conclusions• http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/coetzee-bio.html• http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authordatabaselarge/Coetzee,%20J.M..jpg• Sources:• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee• http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/coetzee-bio.html

Sources and Citations Cont.

• Apartheid• http://maaadddog.files.wordpress.com/2009/

03/ospaal_anti-apartheid-poster1977.jpg• http://mediafilter.org/caq/caq63/images/caq6

3apartheid10.jpg• Dan R• Divorce• http://www.settlepro.com/images/divorce_pic

.jpg• Jennifer• Dan R

Sources and Citations Cont.

• Powerpoint and graphics assembled by Hunter Leo

• Hope it was informative!