Greg Sgambati Scott Inguito English 2A 20 May 2013 Essay #5 The Dangers of Remaining Unaware The characters in J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace deal with major social and personal issues. It can be difficult to comprehend the true meaning behind the events that Coetzee presents in this novel, but this is rightly so as these are difficult matters to discuss. The moral train wreck that is the character of David Lurie provides for the reader a looking glass through which to view this world and hopefully glean a lesson from. However, David Lurie’s perspective of this world is so warped, that it is this perspective and the evolution David undergoes to broaden it that provides the greatest lesson for the reader. By the end of the novel, Coetzee provides a poignant …show more content…
The principle example of this can be seen in David’s interactions at the animal shelter. When he first assists Bev Shaw with putting down the dogs, he finds her compassion for these animals absurd and scoffs at the idea of wasting the effort to comfort them, but as he continues to do this work and develops relationships with these dogs, David Lurie develops genuine compassion for another living thing. “He has learned by now, from her, to concentrate all his attention on the animal they are killing, giving it what he no longer has difficulty calling by its proper name: love” (219). He eventually comes to learn that there are certain things in the world that, not only do not affect him, but also are so separate from him that he can never understand them as they would relate to him. For example, by the end of the novel, Lucy has had the baby that resulted from the rape and is living happily on her own in a smaller plot of land than before, but David can appreciate the simple fact that his daughter is happy with her life, having given up the effort to understand her actions regarding the