Peter Lehu

8 December 2003

Representing, Understanding, and Accepting History in Morrison’s Beloved and

Coetzee’s Disgrace

Both Toni Morrison’s Beloved and J. M Coetzee’s Disgrace are historical novels.

Both are set in a particular time period and the characters of both novels are intricately

involved in the larger social context they inhabit. Moreover, the characters contend with

social issues that affect groups that surpass the scope of the novels. Sethe must deal with

the ghosts of the past and Baby Suggs reminds the reader of the universality of her

daughter-in-law’s plight: "Not a house in the country ain’t packed to the rafters with some

dead Negro’s grief" (5). In Disgrace, Lucy Lurie refers to the men who rape her as

"they," meaning native Africans, and many of the characters’ actions parallel social trends

in South Africa (158). Morrison was inspired to write Beloved by the true story of

Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave who murdered her child to spare it from a life of

bondage. Coetzee was writing his novel in present day South Africa where the novel’s

violence was being echoed in daily newspapers. Yet, even though the novels are grounded

in historical accuracy, they only occasionally directly reference history. Sethe does not

have conversations with her neighbors about the Black Codes. David Lurie does not

reminisce about what life was like before the African National Congress became the

ruling party in South Africa. In fact, both novels are more likely to send an ignorant

reader to the encyclopedia than teach him or her about history. Of utmost importance to

the authors is the telling of a story, one that it is faithful to the propensities of its human

characters. Because the novels are about people more than they are about events or eras
they say more about the difficulties of understanding and accepting history than about

history itself. Sethe and David both struggle with accepting their places in history and

understanding how history informs their emotions and psychological states.

Beloved and Disgrace are both set in an era of reconstruction, in which racial groups

struggle to define their new place in a new social order. Beloved takes place in the United

States during the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, after four million blacks gained their

emancipation but faced barriers at every turn in the form of discriminatory legislation,

hate crimes, and low economic status (Browne 13). Coetzee sets Disgrace in post-

apartheid South Africa soon after Africans were given the same liberties as their white

neighbors, who in turn had to adjust to no longer being the privileged race. Both novels

benefit from the irony of their historical context--that after a supposed victory for social

equality and human rights, conditions seem to be no better than they were when

inequality was government-sponsored. The major difference between the two books is

that their main characters come from opposite sides of the social spectrum. Sethe is a

former slave who bears the scars of her masters’ whips. David is a descendant of

imperialistic colonizers, echoed in his preference for "exotic" prostitutes. Thus, it is

noteworthy that the novels share many thematic similarities. In both novels, the lack of

explicit historical references signifies the main character’s inability to apply historical

circumstance to his or her personal conflicts, even though both main characters have a

firm understanding of their socio-historical circumstances. Both novels end with the main

character showing his or her ability to overcome personal conflicts through the

understanding of the inherent injustice of history. In both reconstruction eras, the social

status’s of opposing racial groups were thrown into question which is why the story of
David, a member of the oppressing group, can so closely resemble that of Sethe, the

former slave.

History plays a major role in Beloved. Not only do historical circumstances

provide the impetus for Sethe’s crime--the central scene and act of the novel--but the

book is composed of flashbacks that display the life of African-Americans living in both

the South and the North, before and after the banning of slavery in the South. To paint a

larger picture of the Reconstruction Era, Morrison not only introduces but also provides

biographical summaries in the form of flashbacks for a wide array of characters.

Although Sethe’s story holds center stage the minor characters have their own

importance; Morrison could have just as easily constructed a novel with Paul D, Baby

Suggs, or any other minor character in the starring role. For instance, when the reader

first encounters Stamp Paid he has a purely functional role: getting Sethe across the Ohio

river and informing Paul D about Sethe’s past. But Morrison does not abandon him after

he serves his function; Stamp returns to the novel as a complete character in his own

right. His perspective of the happenings at 124 in the beginning of Part II is an important

example of another former slave’s take on Sethe’s condition, and later the reader learns of

Stamp’s past, including the infidelity of his former wife, Vashti. This information is

inconsequential to the primary plot of the novel, but not to the representation of a time

period in which, because slaves were not autonomous beings under the law, marriage

among them was not recognized by the law, and they could be sexually used by their

masters (Berry 8). Morrison devotes chapters to life on the Sweet Home plantation and

Paul D’s travels. She even provides a window into the life of a white abolitionist.

Interrupting the action of the novel’s climax, Morrison writes from the perspective of a
yet-to-be-introduced character, Mr. Bodwin, who is feeling particularly nostalgic as he

drives his cart down Bluestone Rd. to pick up Denver. His inclusion in the scene as a

white abolitionist is important to the development of the story, but his memories of his

political past and his ruminations such as "A tranquil Republic? Well, not in his lifetime"

function independently of the novel’s plot as select details of historical background (260).

Similar to the way she makes room for the memories of minor characters, Morrison will

occasionally incorporate social commentary into the plot of Beloved, or interrupt her

narrative to make a claim or provide a fact that cannot be attributed to the thoughts of any

character. Sethe steals from the kitchen at Sawyer’s Restaurant not because she cannot

afford to feed her family but to avoid the shame of waiting at the back of the grocery

store with the "cluster of Negro faces” waiting "till every white in Ohio was served" first

(189). The sarcastic exaggeration in this statement is expressed by both Sethe and the

frustrated narrator, whose views are clearly shared with Morrison herself. A similar

statement with more than one speaker concerns the numbness felt by the members of Paul

D’s chain gang: "in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon--everything

belonged to the men who had guns" (162). This sentiment, while exaggerated, reflects the

views of the prisoners, the guards, the narrator, and any group of subjugated people.

Characters openly share the narrator and author’s social viewpoints, stressing the veracity

and logic behind the storytellers’ opinions.

Furthermore, occasional statements in the novel can be attributed solely to the

narrator. Near the end of the novel when Sethe is under Beloved’s spell, the narrator

wryly remarks: "If whitepeople of Cincinnati had allowed Negroes into their lunatic
asylum they could have found candidates in 124" (250). Although Morrison makes this

statement in the context of Denver’s thoughts, it is very unlikely that Denver, having

grown up with little opportunity for social interaction, would be privy to the segregation

laws of a specific city. Similarly, only Morrison, the writer, could make use of italics in

the sentence explaining how life changed for blacks after slavery: "All taught her how it

felt to wake up at dawn and decide what to do with the day" (95).

Beloved is deliberately and self-consciously about history even though it is foremost a

fictional story. Morrison makes occasional references to history but does not bother to

provide a fact-based backdrop to educate readers in the style of Defoe’s Journal of A

Plague Year, or to comment on historiography, in the vein of Moby-Dick or Graham

Swift’s Waterland. Instead, Morrison merely hints at these motives. For instance, Stamp

Paid remembers the topics discussed in the Clearing during Baby Sugg’s gatherings. He

lists historical terms ("the Fugitive Bill, the Settlement Fee, God’s Ways and Negro

pews,...") without providing their definition, therefore rendering them a jumble of

buzzwords to the uneducated reader (173). The list acts as an invitation for readers to

learn more on their own. At the same time the dryness of the list stands in contrast to the

emotional personal histories that dominate the novel. Stamp Paid’s list, as well as terms

mentioned in Mr. Bodwin’s reminiscence of the abolition movement, reveal what is

lacking from the information that a history book can provide. Just as Morrison’s novel

provides few historical details, the definition-based concentration on politics that

dominates traditional historical pedagogy also paints an incomplete picture of the past.

Coetzee incorporates history into Disgrace in a fashion similar to Morrison’s. Like

Beloved, Disgrace is centered around one person’s psychological state; a shift in

historical circumstances requires that person to come to terms with the way he views

himself and his world. Coetzee’s narrative technique is similar to Morrison’s in that,

although it is written in the third-person, the narrator adopts the exclusive perspective of

one character. However, Coetzee’s style is different in that his novel is much more

focused on the main character, David Lurie; unlike Morrison whose many-voiced

narrator is able to include passages that cannot be attributed to any character, Coetzee

exclusively speaks from the mind of David. While this makes the novel more of a

character study, it also means that Coetzee must be more careful and cunning in

incorporating historical themes and information in the novel without making David too

self-aware or sound too much as though he is lecturing the reader. History plays just as

large a role in Disgrace as it does in Beloved, but to the casual reader it does not seem

that way because the narration is intricately elusive.

Disgrace does not come off as an historical novel because there are so few explicit

references to the historical circumstances of the plot. Furthermore, when there is a

reference it is often isolated and vague. The first reference comes from Dawn, the

departmental secretary with whom David has a brief, unsatisfactory affair: during dinner

with David she speaks cryptically, comparing public safety "now," when “people just

pick and choose which laws they want to obey,” to the past when “whatever the rights

and wrongs of the situation, at least you knew where you were” (9). Coetzee is testing his

readers. Will we peg Dawn as an uninteresting conversationalist and feel sorry for David

for having to listen to her, or will we recognize the importance of the social reference and

blame David for not doing the same? Of course, the irony of Dawn’s statement is that in

the past “right” and “wrong” were easily distinguished because they were defined by
white supremacists. There are multiple occasions in which characters make uninformative

social comments: "It’s no joke...in these days," "Not in our day," "in old days" (51, 89,

124). The characters have a collective understanding of history and naturally in their

dialogues (and internal monologue, in David’s case) they do not reveal commonly-known

details. Even a reader who is familiar with South African post-apartheid social conditions

and is able to interpret all the obscure references might not identify history as a main

theme of the novel since the mentions are so few. As in Beloved, historical circumstances

are clearly the impetus for the central scene of the novel but, unlike Beloved, Disgrace

can be selectively read as being primarily about David’s psychological and social

struggles, with history merely providing the setting and the catalyst for the events of the

plot.

However, history is a primary theme in Disgrace, one which is strongly related to

David’s struggles. In fact, David’s life functions as a social and political allegory for

South Africa’s race relations during the country’s transition from apartheid to post-

apartheid leadership.1 During apartheid, the white-controlled National Party supported

and passed legislation that allowed whites to maintain a certain standard of living at the

expense of the quality of life and social status of black Africans. David’s actions in the

beginning of the novel represent racial exploitation. His weekly visits with a Middle-

Eastern prostitute named Soraya, who is described as "exotic" and having a "honey-

brown body," have "solved the problem of sex" (7, 1). In seducing his student Melanie,

who has "wide, almost Chinese cheekbones"2 and "large, dark eyes," David says, "A

woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into this

world, " evoking the white minority’s dependence on black labor (11,16). Also similar to
the attitude of the majority of whites in South Africa during apartheid, David is passively

solipsistic. Whites largely ignored the millions of poverty-stricken Africans forced to

make their home in overcrowded reservations. Beinart writes of the South African white

perspective, "Homelands, passes, group areas, social amnesia, and powerful ideologies

put [blacks] out of sight, literally and metaphorically" (186). David similarly acts with

only himself in mind when he disturbs Soraya at her family’s home, risking the disclosure

of her disgraceful profession. He has a one-night stand with Dawn but when he finds

himself repulsed by her sexual excitability he avoids her in the office. David largely

ignores how his actions affect the feelings of others and in doing so acts as a

representation of a historical trend.

When David’s affair with Melanie is found out, he must face a judicial committee which

is an analogue of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an institution put into place

in 1996 by the post-apartheid ANC government to publicly entreat former government

leaders to confess to apartheid-related crimes. David’s commission, like the TRC,

technically has no legislative power. Just as ANC government leaders withdrew their

immunity from prosecution so that both governments would be treated equally, a panel

member of David’s inquiry supports fairness as he concedes that everyone is afflicted by

desire (Arnold 23). Just as the TRC hearings were public and often televised, a student

member of the Coalition Against Discrimination is allowed to sit in on David’s hearing

(Beinart 342). And just as the members of the pro-apartheid National Party who agreed to

go before the commission admitted that injustices and atrocities toward Africans occurred

but resisted taking the blame for particular cases, David similarly evades confession

during his hearing by admitting his actions but blaming them on the universal urge of
sexual desire, romantically labeling himself a "servant of Eros" (52). David also follows

the example of Prime Minister Pieter Botha and other former leaders who, instead of

going before the TRC, left town and found refuge in other countries (Arnold 26). Arnold

writes of the leaders brought before the TRC what could just as easily refer to David:

“those who did ask for amnesty did so to avert legal action rather than from remorse at

their past conduct” (27).

Research shows that Coetzee’s novel is an accurate portrayal of South African life in the

late Nineties. David’s move from Cape Town to Salem represents the social change that

occurred when apartheid ended and the predominately white National Party was replaced

by the ANC in 1994. Salem is located in eastern Cape Province near the old African

homelands, where most Africans were forced by the white government to live; it is also

one of the poorest and most crime-ridden areas of South Africa (Beinart 295). Once in

Salem, David must confront the trends that are shaping the new South Africa. Africans

are no longer dependent on whites for employment since, through the Restitution of Land

Rights Act and the Land Reform Bill, they receive money from the government to buy

land (Beinart 319). Gangs proliferate as African youth, who have a new sense of power

but still no economic opportunities, resort to theft and violence (Cowell 37). As a result,

rural white farmers, many of whom still do not see Africans as equal citizens, put up

security gates, carry Berettas, and breed attack dogs.

The allegory continues in the second half of the novel as Coetzee represents social trends

both literally and symbolically. David apologizes to Melanie’s father in the town of

George, the mid-way point between Cape Town and Salem, suggesting that he begins to

do his part to bridge the gap between white-dominated and black-dominated eras and
regions. In his old English office at Cape Technical University David spots a poster of

"Superman hanging his head as he is berated by Lois Lane," signifying the demise and

replacement of European literary culture and connecting social change with David’s

recurring feelings of emasculinity (177). Finally, the dogs in the novel represent

powerless social groups. David first thinks that there are too many but eventually learns

to respect and appreciate them (142). Katy the bulldog’s snuffles and pants "no longer

seem to irritate him" and he grows fond of “Driepoot,” the maimed young male. (206,

215). David recognizes that dogs must be killed, just as thousands of Africans were

massacred by the police--just as any subjugated group suffers. David must witness their

deaths in order to recognize his guilt and to make up for white South Africa’s passive

compliance with apartheid. Petrus is initially identified as the "dog-man"; by the end of

the novel the positions have been reversed and Lucy is "like a dog" (64, 205).

Laforest correctly suggests that Coetzee “alternates between a metaphorical and a

literal use of [the word ‘dog’]. At times the dogs are the animals themselves; in other

instances, they stand for black Africans” (156). This is true of much of the symbolism in

the novel. Many passages in the novel operate on multiple levels as characters and

situations change, especially between the shift from Cape Town to Salem. For instance,

the treatment of women by men in the novel initially acts as a metaphor for white

subjugation of non-whites but after David moves to Salem the metaphor is replaced by

literal race relations and Lucy’s rape is free to represent the high occurrence of rape and

the overall mistreatment of women in South Africa (Beinart 333). Morrison does the

same; Beloved represents both the literal murdered child of Sethe and, symbolically, the

millions of Africans who died in the slave trade as well as the past in general, which
prevents Sethe from realizing a future.

As shown, Morrison and Coetzee both intimately pattern their novels on history.

Morrison shows a wider range of nineteenth century American life through her

characters. Coetzee chooses to write as realistically as possible, making his historical

references harder to access but worth the effort since he manages to embody the social

complexities of South Africa through the perspective of one character. The novelists’

concentration on history despite the lack of overt historical references parallels their main

characters’ understanding of history despite their inability to apply their understanding to

their personal situations. The lack of references demonstrates that the characters have

become so familiar with their socio-historical circumstances that they fail to recognize

the significance of these circumstances. Sethe and David understand history’s importance

and its implications, but until the end of each novel they fail to accept its vital connection

to the conflicts in their lives.

The reader meets Sethe eighteen years after she ran away from Sweet Home,

moved into 124, and murdered Beloved to free her from a slave’s life. The events of the

novel take place in only a few months, from winter to spring. When Paul D appears at the

porch in the opening of the novel, Sethe has had time to for the most part come to terms

with her crime. She is comfortable with talking about the past. Sethe implores Paul D to

stay because “Can’t nobody catch up on eighteen years in a day” (11). This is in contrast

to immediately following Sethe’s attack on her children when she was unable to speak;

her dress caked in dried blood was “stiff, like rigor mortis,” signifying that her emotional

self was numb to everything and, effectively, dead. The reader deduces from Denver’s

familiarity with her birth that Sethe has been telling stories of the past for a long time.
Sethe fearlessly contends with her dangerous memories. She accepts the ghost at 124 as a

part of daily life and she promptly begins to share old memories of Sweet Home with

Paul D upon their reunion. She even freely answers questions about her murdered

daughter. Morrison writes of Sethe, “All her effort was directed not on avoiding pain but

on getting through it as quickly as possible,” which explains her motive for remembering

the past. Sethe refers to her early morning job of kneading dough as good preparation for

“the day’s serious work of beating back the past” (73). To Sethe, contending with the past

is no different from manual labor; her strength and endurance allow her to complete the

task without disturbing her dormant emotional self.

Just as Sethe is cognizant of her past, she also is aware of the social circumstances that

have shaped it. She is aware that her white masters had some virtues, but she is not fooled

by their occasional kindness. The Gardners allow Sethe and Halle to be married and Halle

to buy his mother’s freedom, but they are also supporters of slavery who regard blacks as

having “animal characteristics” (193). In her youth Sethe reveals a generally positive

impression of whites. She argues with Halle in favor of the Gardners, claiming that they

are “not like the whites I seen before” (195). Talking to Baby Suggs she says of whites,

“Oh, some of them do all right by us.” However, Baby Suggs’ rebuttal leaves its mark on

Sethe, and years later she explains to Paul D that her crime “worked” because her

children “ain’t at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain’t got em.” (165). Sethe rationally

composes her opinion of slavery: it is a horrible indignity and injustice but it is not

indicative of the sentiments of every white person. Through the editorial exaggerations of

the narrator and Baby Suggs’s opinion that “there is no bad luck in the world but

whitepeople,” a racist response to slavery threatens but only at the end of the novel does
Sethe show that she is affected by these influences when she instinctively attacks Mr.

Bodwin (104). For the most part, Sethe assesses her experiences without bias and resists

making racial generalizations.

However, for Sethe, a clear understanding of social order is not enough for her to

rid herself of the guilt she feels in order to find value in her identity. It is not enough to

allow her the ability to see herself as an individual apart from the influences of history. In

bed with Paul D she thinks, “though she could remember desire, she had forgotten how it

works” (20). Having had the experiences that taught her about life and remembering

them, she is still unable to apply what she knows and remembers to her current situation.

After Sethe tells Denver the story of her birth she says to her daughter, “It’s so hard for

me to believe in [time]. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay....Places, places

are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and

not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world” (36). Sethe admits to having an

incomplete memory. The places--the physical aspects of the past-- remain in her mind. In

her flashbacks she remembers senses, pain, and every word of dialogue. But “some things

go” because she has to live with the emptiness of running from her past with the

injustices of history remaining unresolved. The memories, because the injustice they

portray are without resolution, only bring Sethe pain and so she fights to forget them.

With the arrival of her dead daughter and her opportunity at the end of the novel to relive

the scene that haunts her the most, Sethe is given a chance to resolve her past, finally

accept the history she has known all along, and apply it to her sense of identity. At the

end of the novel Sethe thinks about the ways she has been hurt and still feels empty. But

when Paul D says, “You your best thing, Sethe. You are,” she answers, “Me? Me?” (273).
She is at least willing to consider her identity. Being empty is better than being filled with

memories of unresolved injustice. Paul D says, “we got more yesterday than anybody. We

need some kind of tomorrow” (273). History is revealed as intrinsically unresolved and

Sethe will only heal if she forgets history and concentrates on the future.

David is also aware of history’s unfairness but he too must learn to apply that

awareness to his life. His career as an English professor already marks him as perceptive

and intelligent, and his penchant for making literary references further demonstrates his

ability to assess and relate situations and information. Also, despite his self-centeredness

and the lack of consideration he has for others, David is not an unemotional person. The

reader learns of David’s genuine love for Romantic literature, his sensitivity to stressful

situations, and his dependence on non-sexual relationships, as with his ex-wife Rosalind.

In this way, he, like Sethe, is capable of an unbiased understanding of the emotional

needs of others in foreign social groups as well as his country’s social history and its

implications in his personal experiences.

At the beginning of the novel David is too isolated in his weekly routine to make

many social observations. He only does so when history personally affects him, as it will

greatly once he moves to Salem. In Cape Town, he mentions that the changes at his

university are “part of the great rationalization” as technology and communications

courses replace the liberal arts (3). However when Dawn reveals her pro-apartheid colors

David remains silent since as a Cape Town resident with a well-paying job the change in

social order largely does not affect him (9). David only begins to regularly make

references to history once he moves to the East Cape, leaving his comfortable, insular

world behind. Once there he observes his daughter’s lifestyle and thinks, “perhaps it was
not [he and her mother] who produced her: perhaps history had the larger share” (61).

David is forced to no longer see himself at the center of the world. He takes particular

notice of the elderly Afrikaner vendors at the market who have fewer customers than

Lucy and he even though they have more goods for sale (72). He is aware that the elderly,

representing the old way, are being left behind while youth prospers; of course, he can

partially apply this to his own life. Later, David rationalizes his attackers’ massacre of

Lucy’s dogs “in a country where dogs are bred to snarl at the mere smell of a black man”

(110). Having experienced the injustice of his society first hand, David becomes more

understanding. During the attack he uses social observations to comfort himself: “It

happens every day, every hour, every minute...in every corner of the country” (98).

Indeed, in the Nineties, South Africa was the most violent country outside of a war zone

(Arnold 85). When David argues with Lucy about accepting the rape he correctly

surmises about his daughter’s reaction that “if they had been white you wouldn’t talk

about them in this way” (159). In Salem, David is forced to confront truths about his

historical circumstances that he has always been aware of but, up to this point, has

ignored.

As David reacquaints himself with his social circumstances, he continues to resist

understanding his role in history. Aware of the social unrest caused by decades of white

rule that has scarred South Africa, he fails to see himself in the role of the white

oppressor, both in his compliance to a racist social order and in his analogous treatment

of women whom he considers potential sexual partners. Like Sethe, David understands

history but not in a personal enough way to resolve his issues. As David loses the pieces

of his life that have formed his identity- his attractiveness to women, his reliable job, his
role as a father- he becomes more interested in self-preservation, blind to the irony that it

is this instinct that caused his problems in the first place. If he had not catered to his lust,

he would not have lost his job. If he had not regularly taken advantage of women, he

would not treat his power over them as the basis of his identity. If he and other white

South Africans had not been passive supporters of apartheid, Africans would not feel the

need to reciprocate with their own unjust methods of usurping power. In Salem, David

and Lucy are no longer privileged, but instead vulnerable. Their vulnerability allows

Lucy and, eventually, David to recognize the inequality in their society as they become

victims of it. After the attack, David and Lucy debate over what they should do in

response to their new social position. It is David’s argument that Lucy should sell the

farm and move to Holland which is more logical, even though Lucy’s acceptance of her

subjugation makes more sense from a historical perspective. The irony is that when

David’s stance of self-preservation becomes the reasonable reaction, Lucy reacts

according to the influence of history, which has never been dictated by reason. The

damage of apartheid has been done and it is David’s turn to suffer.

David begins to understand his place in history as he becomes less self-centered,

though he resists understanding until the very end of the novel. He unselfishly sleeps with

Bev Shaw because she desires it (though he still cannot resist comparing her to a

desperate Emma Bovary). David’s apology to Mr. Isaacs is not entirely genuine since it

comes soon after he ogles Melanie’s sister and he follows it by wryly labeling the Isaac’s

“exemplary.” (171). Yet, his instinct to stop at George and gain a better understanding of

Melanie’s past is a sign that he feels guilty and that he is associating his guilt with his

past indifference to the feelings of the former victims of his lust. When David arrives
back in Cape Town and finds his house broken into he accepts the situation in

exasperation, being “too depressed to act” and thinking “let it all go to Hell” (176). He

sarcastically calls the burglary “part of the great campaign of redistribution” and does not

bother to notify the police (176). Although he accepts the futility of fighting for equality,

he does not accept his “rape” nearly as readily as Lucy does hers. Back in Salem David

meets and assaults Pollux, one of Lucy’s rapers, but afterwards regrets it. He is torn

between the demands of his tattered dignity and the new rules of the social order. The

novel ends with David and Bev euthanizing unwanted dogs as their weekly Sunday

chore. David considers the dogs’ view, how the dogs “will not be able to work out...how

one can enter what seems to be an ordinary room and never come out again” (219). David

who once only thought about himself, partially due to his inherent solipsism but also to a

life sheltered from the suffering of others, is finally able to adopt the perspective of the

oppressed. He carries the last dog “in his arms like a lamb,” finally implementing the

necessity of sacrifice in an unfair world (220).

Like David, for Sethe to overcome the sins of the past, she must do more than understand

and acknowledge social injustice; she must also complete an act that stands in contrast to

the unjust trends of history. For both characters, the act must be physical. The attackers

disfigure David, turning him into someone considered lesser in society: “one of those

sorry creatures whom children gawk at in the street” (120). Sethe is also disfigured by the

tree on her back. To make up for what history has done to her, she must in turn disfigure

her oppressor. Sethe runs at Mr. Bodwin with an ice pick. She relives the scene of

eighteen years ago but instead of attacking her child, and indirectly herself, she acts in a

way opposite to history, attacking who she recognizes as the traditional attacker.
Similarly, the Luries are attacked rather than being the white attackers and David

volunteers at the animal clinic, performing a charitable deed rather than his traditional

selfish one. His weekly ritual with Soraya is replaced by his weekly chore with Bev. The

only way to make up for history is to relive it in reverse. The grim irony of this is that in

making up for the wrongs of history, David and Sethe enact more wrongs. The dogs,

representing the powerless, are killed, not only by the rapists, but also by David. Sethe

attacks the very person who has stood up for her freedom. Neither attacks are mistakes,

though both would be tragic (had Sethe reached her target). David consciously assists the

execution of innocent dogs and Sethe’s attack is directed at a white person, any white

person, because history has convinced her instinctively that white people in general are

out to harm her, even though rationally she knows this is untrue. The only way to

counteract violence is to be violent in return. To only way to counteract suffering, is to

suffer. The black Africans rape because they have been raped. African-Americans show

malice towards whites because it is the only way they can rid themselves of the ghosts of

the past.3 At the end of both novels history is revealed as an endless cycle of injustice

which kills many and leaves it survivors psychologically-scarred.

In Disgrace, Melanie responds to David’s inquiry about literary passions: “We did

Adrienne Rich and Toni Morrison in my second year....I got pretty involved. But I

wouldn’t call it a passion exactly” (13). While there is no direct relationship between the

two texts it can be assumed that Coetzee is familiar with Morrison’s work and that he

assigns her novels as favorites of Melanie because he recognizes Morrison as an

archetypal writer of the voice of the oppressed in an era of race relation reconstruction.

Laforest points out that Coetzee’s novel, Foe (1986), which is set in the United States and
deals with American slavery, was published less than a year before Beloved. She writes,

“both novels are inhabited by a chain of echoes which cannot be easily ignored. They

throw light on what it has meant to interrogate slavery and its aftermath at the end of the

twentieth century” (136). Later in the same article she identifies Disgrace “as a sort of

‘sequel’” to Foe (156). Despite differences in gender, race, nationality, and writing style,

Morrison and Coetzee share a common view of the history of race relations in their

novels. This is testament to the similarity between racial politics in the United States and

South Africa and also to the universality of the lingering of the psychological

repercussions of racist politics that inevitably resists racial reconstruction efforts.

1In his article “Melanie: Voice and its Suppression in J M Coetzee’s Disgrace,”
John Douthwaite makes the case for this allegory. He examines the first four
chapters of the novel to show how Coetzee’s word choice and syntax symbolize a
postcolonial relationship between David and his sexual partners.
2In the early twentieth century, South African whites imported laborers from
China to work gold and diamond mines. Chinese and other Asian citizens of
South Africa were subjugated just as blacks were during apartheid.
3After the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves in the United States, there
was not peace. Campaigns both for and against black civil rights often flared into
violent race wars (Franklin 256). The malice that blacks feel toward whites is
hinted at earlier in Beloved. At the carnival, the black spectators “get a big kick
out of the helpless meanless” in the eyes of the white One-Ton Lady (48).