The Disgrace of Melanie Isaacs
In a Post-Apartheid South Africa, J.M. Coetzee introduces us to a set of characters and their respective stories, their lives and, in them, the multiple faces of the disgrace. The novel Disgrace begins, and circulates around David Lurie, a divorced middle-aged, teacher by profession, father, lonely, and, in many aspects, a failure, one would say, although he does not recognize himself that way. Throughout the novel, sex is shown as a symbol for power, namely with David Lurie himself, linking the idea of authority with the body, explaining his patriarchal views towards females and sex. (Pearson, 2015). However, the study that will be carried out in the next lines would not be on this character but in, perhaps, an even more complex one, which, in this story, suffers the unfortunate coincidence of crossing paths with Lurie and succumbing to his dark intentions with her.
As a portrait of an abstract innocence and the passivity of a wounded race, we are introduced to Melanie Isaacs, a small, slender, young and gorgeous woman in the prime of her life and under David Lurie's tutelage. She is a drama student taking his Romantic Poetry class. "Not particularly bright", but failing that, beautiful. Beauty. A bounty that, according to David, “does not belong to her alone, but it is to be shared” (Coetzee, 1999), and this is
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There comes a point where it's pretty clear that she doesn't want to have sex with David, and he seems to know that too: "Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core" (Coetzee, 1999). So, it can be said that Melanie was indeed a victim of sexual abuse, but could this situation be actually considered as rape? Though definitions vary, rape is defined in most jurisdictions as sexual intercourse, or other form of sexual penetration, by one person, the perpetrator, without consent of another person, the victim (Wijnhoven,
Richard Gregory in ‘Shame’ described incidences of his childhood when he was made shameful every time by his ethnicity or by the fact that he did not have a dad. He describes a his childhood where he was humiliated in front of the whole class by his teacher and also loved helene . The teacher pointed out that he lived on the relief money collected by the class and had no dad which got him a scar in his memory as a shameful event . He could not forget how he was being on the side and everybody felt sorry for him, it was something that made him feel weak and guilty for no reason. Both of the essays portrayed the protagonists very strongly and had some of their weaknesses revealed which has notions connected with the perception of the people and society.
Professor’s comment: This student uses a feminist approach to shift our value judgment of two works in a surprisingly thought-provoking way. After showing how female seduction in Malory’s story of King Arthur is crucial to the story as a whole, the student follows with an equally serious analysis of Monty Python’s parody of the female seduction motif in what may be the most memorable and hilarious episode of the film.
Alma Schmidt is described as “nothing but a common whore” (Jones 235) by Prewitt and is later referred to as a “professional whore” (Jones 671) throughout much of the novel. These objectify...
The concepts of honour and loyalty seem intrinsically linked, packaged together under the overarching category of general chivalry. However, a closer look through the lens of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Virgin Suicides reveals this to be a misconception. One can exist without the other; in fact, none of the Lisbon girls’ peers display both. While the neighbourhood boys may be loyal, they are not honourable. Furthermore, Trip Fontaine, who stands apart from the collective conscience of the other boys, can be considered the opposite. By examining this juxtaposition of vastly different approaches to interacting with the Lisbon girls, the falsity of both methods can be revealed. This, observed in conjunction with humanistic psychological theory,
It is rather a minimalist piece of absurd literature that is about beautiful people as much as Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano (La cantatrice chauve) is about bald sopranos. Truth be told, both beautiful people and bald sopranos (and their equally juxtaposable positions) are only pretexts for the setting in of the absurd in a kind of literature that is absurd only inasmuch as its absurdness does not become an absurdity on its own merits. And the essential difference between the absurdness of a piece of absurd literature and the absurdity that it may fall prey to by all accounts is the optimal gauge of the absurd by which measure one is to know the proper length of a literary text that is edging on the absurd itself.
“There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles,” George Eliot. Beauty has caused men to move mountain, and jump through countless hoops. It is a quality that is subjective and affects the beholder differently. In Poe’s Ligea and Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, Ligea, Rowena, and Georgina all had different orders of beauty that similarly affects how their husbands saw them. In these two pieces of literature there was an exaltation of beauty as an abstraction that hid the depth of the women and led to deceit and the sense of superiority in their husbands.
The novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte, and the novella “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, both display the treatment of pride for upper and lower class similarly. Furthermore, the treatment of pride will be compared and contrasted in this essay to examine and understand how pride is treated. In novel and novella both the lower class characters believe their pride makes them superior beings. Although the pride of lower and upper-class characters led them to their corruption. Moreover, the upper-class characters in each narrative maintain their respectability by their pride. However, in “Jane Eyre” all casts must have their emotions controlled by their pride, or this will lead to inappropriate behavior. Nevertheless, in “The Turn of
Accordingly, this emphasis has impacts on the types of pleasure that men request and want to receive that primarily focuses on their pleasure and not that of the women (Kimmel & Holler, 2011, p. 292). Hence, this demonstrates the power of men that is demonstrated by the domination and the submission of women within the sexual interaction (Kimmel & Holler, 2011, p. 124). Thus, gender inequality is reproduced whereby the male is the recipient focus of power (Kimmel & Holler, 2011, p. 291). Additionally, this sex with a prostitute will assist the man in gaining hegemonic status due to his conforming behaviours to the masculinity type (Kimmel & Holler, 2011, p.
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cohen uses one of the most trivial murders during the 1800’s to illustrate the sexiest society accommodations to the privileged, hypocritical tunneled views toward sexual behavior, and the exploitation of legal codes, use of tabloid journalism, and politics. Taking the fact that woman was made from taking a rib from man was more than biblical knowledge, but incorporated into the male belief that a woman’s place is determined by the man. Helen had the proper rearing a maid servant, but how did she fall so far from grace. Judge Weston properly takes credit for rearing her with the proper strictness and education. Was Helen seduced at an early age and introduced to sexual perversions that were more persuasive that the bible belt life that the Weston’s tried to live? Was Helen simply a woman who knew how to use what she had to get what she wanted? Through personal correspondence, legal documentation, census reports, paintings, and newspapers we are able to make our own determinations. Cohen provides more than enough background and history to allow any one to make their own opinion how the murder of a woman could be turned into a side show at a circus.
In City of Dreadful Delight, Judith Walkowitz effortlessly weaves tales of sexual danger and more significantly, stories of the overt tension between the classes, during the months when Jack the Ripper, the serial murderer who brutally killed five women, all of them prostitutes, terrorized the city. The book tells the story of western male chauvinism that was prevalent in Victorian London not from the point of view not of the gazer, but rather of the object. Walkowitz argues that the press coverage of the murders served to construct a discourse of heterosexuality in which women were seen as passive victims and sexuality was associated with male violence. Much of City of Dreadful Delight explores the cultural construction and reconstruction of class and sexuality that preceded the Ripper murders. Walkowitz successfully investigates the discourses that took place after the fact and prior social frameworks that made the Ripper-inspired male violence and female passivity model possible and popular.
Kurtz’s “superb … magnificent” mistress who “[has] the value of several elephant tusks upon her” (Conrad 137) also exemplifies power. The Russian reveals the extent of her influence on Kurtz as he recalls how she once “talked like a fury”, but Kurtz “felt too ill that day to care, or there would have been mischief” (138). The Russian also feels threatened by Kurtz’s mistress, as he “has been risking [his] life everyday … to keep her out of the house” (138). The sexist and racist attitudes of that era, in addition to the idolized Kurtz’s savage behaviour towards the Africans, amplify the anomaly of an African woman instilling fear into colonial white men. Conrad establishes the influence that women can have, as it clearly contrasts Hardy’s insinuation of the powerless nature of females when compared to men.
Paley, Grace. "Samuel." Literature for Composition: Essay, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Longman, 2001. 190-192
Lindberg, Laurie. "Wordsmith and Woman: Morag Gunn's Triumph Through Language." New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence: Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism. Ed. Greta M. K. McCormick Coger. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. 187-201.
On the other hand Brantenberg’s novel exploits the real worlds views of sexuality and applies them in th...
... men in the story are portrayed, exhibits the degradation of the value of the self-expression of a woman.