Discourse and Power in J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyses the role and presence of Foucauldian discourse and power in sexual and social relations in J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace". It looks at some of the existing discourses and power relations in "Disgrace" in order to see how the characters are dominated by the power and discursive representations as the controlling forces found in the novel. In addition, the paper also studies the reactions of the antagonist and the protagonists to the social codes which are defined, legalized, and applied by the forcing discursive systems and power relations.

Outline:
Introduction
Power And Discourse: A Foucauldian Analysis
Postcolonial Power Relations And Discourse
Conclusions

From the Paper:

"The study of power in sexual and social affairs in Disgrace promotes making a paradigm in which the modality of colonizer/colonized binary opposition is destroyed. Petrus is not a colonized Negro, but a man who "has a vision of the future in which people like Lucy have no place" (156). This sentence shows that the power shift is still in progress, because Lucy lives in the vicinity of Petrus, and she may marry him and submit her land to him. This alteration in power relations causes the formation of the specific discourses which brings about the blacks' reaction to the white's presence. These discursive collections do not eliminate David's pessimism to Petrus. He thinks that "Petrus engaged three strange men to teach Lucy a lesson, paying them off with the loot" (157). If so, David's unconscious signals the growth of the postcolonial power transition from colonizer to colonized. Lucy is aware of the reason for the blacks' hatred of the whites. She "acknowledges that whites are on the debit side of the ledger and henceforth will live as intruders in South Africa" (Bonnici 90). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bonnici, Thomas. "Coetzee's Disgrace and postcolonial power." Acta Scientiarum, Maringa 23.1 (2001): 87-92.
• Coetzee, J. M. Disgrace. Bath: Chivers Press, 2000.
• Danaher, Geoff, Tony Schirato, and Jen webb. Understanding Foucault. London: Sage Publications, 2000.
• Dreyfus, Hubert L, and Paul Rabinow. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermenutics. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1982.
• During, Simon. Foucault and Literature. London: Routledge, 1992.

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