Rape in J. M. Coetzee’s Fiction: Disgrace, Diary of a bad year and Elizabeth Costello

Authors

  • Mariana Chaves Petersen Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2017.1.24086

Keywords:

J. M. Coetzee, Rape, Disgrace, Dishonor.

Abstract

Rape is a recurrent motive in J. M. Coetzee’s fiction, it being present in novels such as Disgrace (1999), Diary of a bad year (2007) and Elizabeth Costello (2003). This work’s objective is to analyze each representation of rape in those novels to discuss the views on violence and disgrace presented. I also relate them to Coetzee’s own views such as his vison of what – despite his denial of censorship – might better remain unsaid. In Disgrace, David Lurie sees himself as falling into disgrace after he is charged by the student with whom he had an abrupt affair. Later, his daughter, Lucy, is brutally raped and chooses to keep it as a private affair. She ends up questioning male sexuality as a whole. In Diary of a bad year, Anya believes dishonor to fall over those who raped her, and not over her. However, Señor C disagrees, seeing dishonor as miasma. Finally, in Elizabeth Costello, the protagonist remembers an experience with evil she passed through with a man. She then defends that some things should not be read or written and discusses the risk that writers go through by exploring darker areas of human experience, a view which echoes Coetzee’s own.

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Author Biography

Mariana Chaves Petersen, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Mestranda em Letras (Estudos de Literatura) do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Integra o projeto de pesquisa “Literatura e ética: corpo, trauma e memória em tempos de póshumanismo”, coordenado pela Profa. Dra. Rita Terezinha Schmidt, e é bolsista da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior. Já publicou trabalhos sobre literaturas de língua inglesa e crítica feminista, como o artigo “‘Suspended between worlds’: Jasmine’s Liberal Feminism.” In: Cadernos do IL, v. 49, p. 126-142, 2014.

References

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Published

2017-12-27

How to Cite

Petersen, M. C. (2017). Rape in J. M. Coetzee’s Fiction: Disgrace, Diary of a bad year and Elizabeth Costello. Letrônica, 10(1), 484–498. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-4301.2017.1.24086

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2017): Sociolinguística & Narrativa Literária no Século XXI: rupturas, tendências e impasses

Section

Literature

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