Disgrace

by

J. M. Coetzee

A young woman in her twenties living in a somewhat dingy farmhouse in Eastern Cape, South Africa. Lucy is David’s only child, and though they get along fairly well, they aren’t close. Still, this doesn’t keep Lucy from welcoming him when he visits after resigning in disgrace from the university. Having heard only a little about what happened, she doesn’t press David for details, instead telling him to stay as long as he wants, saying he can treat her hospitality as a “refuge.” Indeed, Lucy has plenty of room for David, since her partner, Helen, has recently left. As such, she lives a solitary life, though a man named Petrus and his family live on the same stretch of land. When David first arrives, Lucy explains that Petrus helps her with the gardens and with her kennel business, since people leave enough dogs with her that she needs extra assistance. Unfortunately, though, Petrus is nowhere to be seen when three men arrive one day, make their way into the house, lock David in the bathroom, rape Lucy, steal a number of items, and ruthlessly murder all but one of the dogs. Afterward, Lucy refuses to talk about what happened, urging David to focus on his own injuries. Despite this stoic attitude, she changes the way she lives her life, avoiding her everyday activities and drowning in emotional pain. Seeing this, David insists that she should move, saying he’s suspicious of Petrus, though Lucy disregards this and tells him to mind his own business. Before long, they discover that Petrus knows and wants to protect one of her attackers, Pollux, who eventually comes to live with him. Even still, Lucy refuses to leave, and right around the time she tells David that her rapists got her pregnant, he catches Pollux spying on her. In a blind rage, he beats young Pollux, though Lucy stops him and then asks him to move off the property once and for all.

Lucy Quotes in Disgrace

The Disgrace quotes below are all either spoken by Lucy or refer to Lucy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Desire and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

‘Well, you’re welcome to stay.’

‘It’s nice of you to say so, my dear, but I’d like to keep your friendship. Long visits don’t make for good friends.’

‘What if we don’t call it a visit? What if we call it refuge? Would you accept refuge on an indefinite basis?’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker)
Page Number: 63
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

‘I’m dubious, Lucy. It sounds suspiciously like community service. It sounds like someone trying to make reparation for past misdeeds.’

‘As to your motives, David, I can assure you, the animals at the clinic won’t query them. They won’t ask and they won’t care.’

‘All right, I’ll do it. But only as long as I don’t have to become a better person. I am not prepared to be reformed. I want to go on being myself. I’ll do it on that basis.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Bev Shaw
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

‘My case rests on the rights of desire,’ he says. ‘On the god who makes even the small birds quiver.’

He sees himself in the girl’s flat, in her bedroom, with the rain pouring down outside and the heater in the corner giving off a smell of paraffin, kneeling over her, peeling off her clothes, while her arms flop like the arms of a dead person. I was a servant of Eros: that is what he wants to say, but does he have the effron­tery? It was a god who acted through me. What vanity! Yet not a lie, not entirely. In the whole wretched business there was some­thing generous that was doing its best to flower. If only he had known the time would be so short!

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

‘There was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offence like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.’

‘So males must be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked? Is that the moral?’

‘No, that is not the moral. What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Spoken without irony, the words stay with him and will not go away. Bill Shaw believes that if he, Bill Shaw, had been hit over the head and set on fire, then he, David Lurie, would have driven to the hospital and sat waiting, without so much as a newspaper to read, to fetch him home. Bill Shaw believes that, because he and David Lurie once had a cup of tea together, David Lurie is his friend, and the two of them have obligations towards each other. Is Bill Shaw wrong or right? Has Bill Shaw, who was born in Hankey, not two hundred kilometres away, and works in a hardware shop, seen so little of the world that he does not know there are men who do not readily make friends, whose attitude toward friendships between men is corroded with scepticism? Modern English friend from Old English freond, from freon, to love. Does the drinking of tea seal a love-bond, in the eyes of Bill Shaw? Yet but for Bill and Bev Shaw, but for old Ettinger, but for bonds of some kind, where would he be now? On the ruined farm with the broken telephone amid the dead dogs.

Related Characters: David Lurie, Lucy, Bev Shaw, Bill Shaw, Ettinger
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

She does not reply, and he does not press her, for the moment. But his thoughts go to the three intruders, the three invaders, men he will probably never lay eyes on again, yet forever part of his life now, and of his daughter’s. The men will watch the newspapers, listen to the gossip. They will read that they are being sought for robbery and assault and nothing else. It will dawn on them that over the body of the woman silence is being drawn like a blanket. Too ashamed, they will say to each other, too ashamed to tell, and they will chuckle luxuriously, recollecting their exploit. Is Lucy prepared to concede them that victory?

Related Characters: David Lurie, Lucy
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:

‘[…] Do you think what happened here was an exam: if you come through, you get a diploma and safe conduct into the future, or a sign to paint on the door-lintel that will make the plague pass you by? That is not how vengeance works, Lucy. Vengeance is like a fire. The more it devours, the hungrier it gets.’

‘Stop it, David! I don’t want to hear this talk of plagues and fires. I am not just trying to save my skin. If that is what you think, you miss the point entirely.’

‘Then help me. Is it some form of private salvation you are trying to work out? Do you hope you can expiate the crimes of the past by suffering in the present?’

‘No. You keep misreading me. Guilt and salvation are abstrac­tions. I don’t act in terms of abstractions. Until you make an ef­fort to see that, I can’t help you.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker)
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

‘[…] Petrus is not an innocent party, Petrus is with them.’

‘Don’t shout at me, David. This is my life. I am the one who has to live here. What happened to me is my business, mine alone, not yours, and if there is one right I have it is the right not to be put on trial like this, not to have to justify myself—not to you, not to anyone else. As for Petrus, he is not some hired la­bourer whom I can sack because in my opinion he is mixed up with the wrong people. That’s all gone, gone with the wind.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Petrus, Pollux
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

‘I know what Lucy has been through. I was there.’

Wide-eyed she gazes back at him. ‘But you weren’t there, David. She told me. You weren’t.’

You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened. He is baffled. Where, according to Bev Shaw, according to Lucy, was he not? In the room where the intruders were committing their outrages? Do they think he does not know what rape is? Do they think he has not suffered with his daughter? What more could he have witnessed than he is capable of imagining? Or do they think that, where rape is concerned, no man can be where the woman is? Whatever the answer, he is outraged, outraged at being treated like an outsider.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Bev Shaw (speaker), Lucy
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

‘I don’t trust him,’ he goes on. ‘He is shifty. He is like a jackal sniffing around, looking for mischief. In the old days we had a word for people like him. Deficient. Mentally deficient. Morally deficient. He should be in an institution.’

‘That is reckless talk, David. If you want to think like that, please keep it to yourself. Anyway, what you think of him is beside the point. He is here, he won’t disappear in a puff of smoke, he is a fact of life.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Pollux
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
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Disgrace PDF

Lucy Quotes in Disgrace

The Disgrace quotes below are all either spoken by Lucy or refer to Lucy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Desire and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

‘Well, you’re welcome to stay.’

‘It’s nice of you to say so, my dear, but I’d like to keep your friendship. Long visits don’t make for good friends.’

‘What if we don’t call it a visit? What if we call it refuge? Would you accept refuge on an indefinite basis?’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker)
Page Number: 63
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

‘I’m dubious, Lucy. It sounds suspiciously like community service. It sounds like someone trying to make reparation for past misdeeds.’

‘As to your motives, David, I can assure you, the animals at the clinic won’t query them. They won’t ask and they won’t care.’

‘All right, I’ll do it. But only as long as I don’t have to become a better person. I am not prepared to be reformed. I want to go on being myself. I’ll do it on that basis.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Bev Shaw
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

‘My case rests on the rights of desire,’ he says. ‘On the god who makes even the small birds quiver.’

He sees himself in the girl’s flat, in her bedroom, with the rain pouring down outside and the heater in the corner giving off a smell of paraffin, kneeling over her, peeling off her clothes, while her arms flop like the arms of a dead person. I was a servant of Eros: that is what he wants to say, but does he have the effron­tery? It was a god who acted through me. What vanity! Yet not a lie, not entirely. In the whole wretched business there was some­thing generous that was doing its best to flower. If only he had known the time would be so short!

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy, Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

‘There was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offence like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.’

‘So males must be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked? Is that the moral?’

‘No, that is not the moral. What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Melanie Isaacs
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Spoken without irony, the words stay with him and will not go away. Bill Shaw believes that if he, Bill Shaw, had been hit over the head and set on fire, then he, David Lurie, would have driven to the hospital and sat waiting, without so much as a newspaper to read, to fetch him home. Bill Shaw believes that, because he and David Lurie once had a cup of tea together, David Lurie is his friend, and the two of them have obligations towards each other. Is Bill Shaw wrong or right? Has Bill Shaw, who was born in Hankey, not two hundred kilometres away, and works in a hardware shop, seen so little of the world that he does not know there are men who do not readily make friends, whose attitude toward friendships between men is corroded with scepticism? Modern English friend from Old English freond, from freon, to love. Does the drinking of tea seal a love-bond, in the eyes of Bill Shaw? Yet but for Bill and Bev Shaw, but for old Ettinger, but for bonds of some kind, where would he be now? On the ruined farm with the broken telephone amid the dead dogs.

Related Characters: David Lurie, Lucy, Bev Shaw, Bill Shaw, Ettinger
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

She does not reply, and he does not press her, for the moment. But his thoughts go to the three intruders, the three invaders, men he will probably never lay eyes on again, yet forever part of his life now, and of his daughter’s. The men will watch the newspapers, listen to the gossip. They will read that they are being sought for robbery and assault and nothing else. It will dawn on them that over the body of the woman silence is being drawn like a blanket. Too ashamed, they will say to each other, too ashamed to tell, and they will chuckle luxuriously, recollecting their exploit. Is Lucy prepared to concede them that victory?

Related Characters: David Lurie, Lucy
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:

‘[…] Do you think what happened here was an exam: if you come through, you get a diploma and safe conduct into the future, or a sign to paint on the door-lintel that will make the plague pass you by? That is not how vengeance works, Lucy. Vengeance is like a fire. The more it devours, the hungrier it gets.’

‘Stop it, David! I don’t want to hear this talk of plagues and fires. I am not just trying to save my skin. If that is what you think, you miss the point entirely.’

‘Then help me. Is it some form of private salvation you are trying to work out? Do you hope you can expiate the crimes of the past by suffering in the present?’

‘No. You keep misreading me. Guilt and salvation are abstrac­tions. I don’t act in terms of abstractions. Until you make an ef­fort to see that, I can’t help you.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker)
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

‘[…] Petrus is not an innocent party, Petrus is with them.’

‘Don’t shout at me, David. This is my life. I am the one who has to live here. What happened to me is my business, mine alone, not yours, and if there is one right I have it is the right not to be put on trial like this, not to have to justify myself—not to you, not to anyone else. As for Petrus, he is not some hired la­bourer whom I can sack because in my opinion he is mixed up with the wrong people. That’s all gone, gone with the wind.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Petrus, Pollux
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

‘I know what Lucy has been through. I was there.’

Wide-eyed she gazes back at him. ‘But you weren’t there, David. She told me. You weren’t.’

You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened. He is baffled. Where, according to Bev Shaw, according to Lucy, was he not? In the room where the intruders were committing their outrages? Do they think he does not know what rape is? Do they think he has not suffered with his daughter? What more could he have witnessed than he is capable of imagining? Or do they think that, where rape is concerned, no man can be where the woman is? Whatever the answer, he is outraged, outraged at being treated like an outsider.

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Bev Shaw (speaker), Lucy
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

‘I don’t trust him,’ he goes on. ‘He is shifty. He is like a jackal sniffing around, looking for mischief. In the old days we had a word for people like him. Deficient. Mentally deficient. Morally deficient. He should be in an institution.’

‘That is reckless talk, David. If you want to think like that, please keep it to yourself. Anyway, what you think of him is beside the point. He is here, he won’t disappear in a puff of smoke, he is a fact of life.’

Related Characters: David Lurie (speaker), Lucy (speaker), Pollux
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis: