Disgrace

Lurie’s Reality
In J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Lurie, a 52-year-old man, finds himself having failed as a man in many aspects of his life, including as a husband, as a father and as a lover. Twicedivorced and with little to no communication with his daughter, Lurie currently lives in a very isolated world. As a way of grappling with his failures as a man, Laurie objectifies women in order tofell empowered. The result of this is a sense of entitlement, in which Laurie believes he can do no wrong, exposing his warped reality. The crescendo of this lie that Laurie tells himself manifestsitself when he rapes one of his students.
Laurie, having been married twice and divorced twice, is not capable of maintaining a healthy relationship. This is not a mere supposition as he explicitlystates he finds it ridiculous to believe he once “needed a wife, a home, a marriage” (page 5). He no longer seeks loving relationships with the women he interacts with, only sex. Soraya is an example ofthis, being a woman that Lurie is only interested in for her prowess as a prostitute. Emotions or attachments are irrelevant in her profession, and the “ninety minutes a week with [Soraya’s] company areenough to make [Lurie] happy” (page 5). By using Soraya solely for her body, Lurie dehumanizes her into the toy he gets to play with every Thursday. Then, once their habitual meetings end, ratherthan missing her, he quickly forgets about her and finds himself bored with the time he used to fill up with sex (page 11).
In addition to Soraya, Lurie also takes advantage of his student Melanie. Assoon as Lurie sees her, he immediately notices the fact that she’s good-looking; he is attracted to her exotic complexion and skin-baring outfits (page 11). Lurie then devotes a lot of his time andenergy calling her, flirting with her and making sure to impress her with his intelligent references to several poems. Once Melanie finally gives into Lurie’s constant attempts to sleep with her, it...