From an oppressor to an oppressed, the transferring of power is always accompanied with sorrow and shock. Under the background of post-apartheid South Africa, Lurie, the protagonist in J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, is one of the typical cases which experience this transferring. From his perspective of adjusting into new South Africa, the intensified race corruption and culture contradiction is shown; meanwhile, one can also explore the historical periods and identities of the colonial South Africa by inferring how those contradictions were formed.
South Africa’s race contradiction can trace back to the apartheid policies. Apartheid was abolished in 1948, put segregation in public facilities, social resources, employment opportunities, and so on upon people in South Africa. Ever since South Africa gradually transformed into democracy and annulled apartheid, people have been stepped into a gestation period in which to contemplate collective guilt and search the origin of the committed violence (Diala 50). Thus, J. M. Coetzee composed Disgrace and attempt to explore the historical roots of racist perspective in post-apartheid South Africa.
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In Chapter 9, when Lurie is watching soccer on television, he understands not a little bit; because the commentary alternates using Sotho and Xhosa, both beyond Lurie’s understanding. As a college professor of modern languages, it’s impossible for him to lack the language ability. The only reasonable excuse is, Lurie has been long lives in Cape Town and alienated from the black residents, there is no needs for him to learn it. On the contrary, in the country of South Africa, “English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa.”(117) When Lucy is raped by three local men, he lacks the language to communicate with the criminals: “He speaks Italian, he speaks French, but Italian and French will not save him here in darkest Africa.”