Lucy’s Choice in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace: Toward a New Interpretation

This paper deals with the debatable issue, Lucy’s choice to stay behind on the farm of South Africa even after the crime of her gang-rape by the blacks in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Independently from most critiques about Lucy’s shocking choice, this paper argues that her choice has more to do with her strong attachment to the land, her way of survival and her longing for the family she has never had in her life. Lucy in the novel is not just a white woman in a post-colonial environment, but also serves as a metonymy of the homeless, the marginalized, the deprived, the social outcast, whose fate also symbolically corresponds with colonized blacks back in history. According to such an interpretation the garden-scene that many critics regard as the great moment of aesthetic epiphany, is climactic in highlighting Lucy’s peace with nature, her final belonging to the familial land as well as her father’s mute reconciliation with his daughter. Accordingly, the characterization of the puzzling character Lucy is standing out as being very creative and successful in consequence.