David Lurie’s depiction of what a woman should be in his assumptions
Quote One
The quote introduces the reader to David Lurie’s depiction of what a woman should be in his assumptions. It demonstrates that David only saw women according to their physical appearance, which satisfied his sexual gratifications. To David, the women around him were just sexual tools that he used when he felt like having a good time. This is depicted when Coetzee writes, “he does not like women who make no effort to be attractive, it a resistance he has had to Lucy’s friends before” (72). This shows that, to him, women had to make an effort to look beautiful so he could accept them or fit into his narrative of what defines a woman. However, this is strange and hypocritical because he does not avoid Lucy because she is his daughter as she walks on the farm barefoot. This shows that to him, women who are close to him or that he cannot have sexual intercourse with, such as his daughter Lucy’s lack of an effort to look attractive is not a big deal. This shows the contemporary male chauvinist who treats women as sexual objects but expects their daughters or other female family members to be treated with respect. He knows he must shun these ideas, but he instead chooses not to be bothered because, after all, they are just women who should look beautiful just for attracting men. Male masculinity and chauvinism are thus depicted in this phrase because David thinks all women should adopt his opinion and liking.
Quote Two
- The quote is used by Coetzee to show the change in governance. It depicts that the scapegoating now was powerless, and black people in South Africa were more enlightened after the end of the apartheid system that had given the white power to get away with everything. The author writes, “You loaded the sins of the city on to the goat’s back and drove it out, and the city was cleansed” (91) to show that David still believed that being white privileges even existed after the post-apartheid system. Still, he never knew that the black community in South Africa had become familiar with the free. Melanie’s boyfriend is well aware of the freedom of speech and uses it against David, who is expelled from the University for Sexually abusing black students. David is caught by surprise because he expects just like in the bible where it called for Africans to respect and obey their “master” in this case, white men no longer applied to the actions of black people in South Africa. When he goes out to live with his daughter Lucy, they are attacked, and Lucy is raped, which shows that the gods had died to symbolize that white supremacy was over, and the black people were angry for revenge from the white settlers living in South Africa. The black people were ready to purge the white people after the apartheid era, and purgation was no longer effective in controlling the black people in the county. This quote defines the end to apartheid and the life of white people in the post-apartheid regime.
Quote 3
- The quote is relevant in showing how life had changed in South Africa after the end of the apartheid regime. Coetzee writes, “A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes” to show how life had become dangerous and how the levels of crime in the country had become an everyday occurrence. There was a feeling that the white people had taken everything, and the local black people were fighting to take the few resources that existed in the country. David acknowledges that there are limited resources, and thus crime is inevitable because everyone needs the resource to survive at least for a day. The schematic aspect that exists in post-apartheid South Africa requires the sharing of resources and the people who had something such as the white people had to share or accept to be mugged for the society to sustain itself. David saw pity and terror as irrelevant because it was what had to be done in the country for people to feel somehow equal. The terror is influenced by the uneven economic status where the whites are more economically stable than the majority of black people who feel that they have to steal from the whites to sustain the financial difficulties in the country. The phrase shows the real-life challenges that existed in the post-apartheid system.