Self-Reflective Individual and Disciplinary Power in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

This paper takes issue with the critical view of David Lurie, the protagonist in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, as a sinner. It argues that David’s resistance is ultimately a cry for individual will and freedom, to keep his private sphere intact from the encroaching influence of the institutional power. The paper investigates how the prototype of institutional domination found in Catholicism is worked into the mechanism of the hearing. In doing so, the parallel between Roman Catholicism’s Sacrament of Penance, the purge of the intellectuals in Mao’s China, and the committee’s demands for David is examined. The ramifications of the hearing’s failure that question the effectiveness of the institutional disciplining of individuals are also explored. Reading David as a resistant hero hints at the possibility that the reconciliation of the history’s past and present, and the vision for a new-fangled future may begin with the distancing of the ruling consciousness from itself sans systematic or external intervention.