시대착오적 방어와 자기기만으로서의 낭만주의: J. M. 쿳시의 『추락』

This essay investigates the processes of change in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace as they are articulated through the degradation of the characters’ physical and social status, for which the sociopolitical shifts underway in post-Apartheid South Africa is largely responsible. Through David Lurie, the protagonist, Coetzee situates both the factors of romanticism and retrospective desire, which are betrayed in anachronistic self-deception and sentimental evocation. Romanticism, just like it had contributed to the mystification of the Colonialism, this time, is manipulated by Lurie as a means of justification. Disgrace has enjoyed numerous criticisms since it provokes festering debates on the racial history of The Republic of South Africa, providing critical perspectives on the influence of Romanticism upon general field of literature and Colonialism. When the issue of racial history is South Africa-exclusive, the one on romanticism is applicable to the world history which has maintained itself within the principle of colonialism, which romanticism endows with a fair justification. On the conduct of Lurie, critics point out that he displays the typical way of thinking as a white-descendant who reminds us of the colonial history of exploitation. Especially the anachronistic self-deception and sentimental evocation he shows in Disgrace distorts the core of romanticism in that his attitude toward the racial other and women is profoundly self-centered and equivocal. This suggests that Lurie be examined as a negative romanticist which adorns colonialism through mystification. Having gone through disgrace throughout the novel, Lurie and his daughter, Lucy come to realize the order of Eastern Cape, the area of the black, which they moved into, is governed by completely new order of post-Apartheid era. Lurie and Lucy, after finding themselves in the realm of others, respectively as a dog-man and a victim of rape, are forced to encounter the abjection. After the rude awakening of the circumstances surrounding them and a complete loss of the privilege once held by the white, they decided to accept the reality and proceed to the forthcoming new era.