摘 要

诺贝尔文学奖获得者库切曾说，如果让他回忆起写过什么故事的话，那一定是关于一个男人和他所在的困境作斗争的故事。在《耻》中，有这样的两个男人，用他们的一生诠释了后殖民主义时期社会生活中人类痛苦的根源所在。

本文大致分为三个部分。第一部分简要的介绍了库切的生平和相关作品。第二部分是关于文献综述的。第三部分对于本人所选主题做了一个详尽地分析，利用文章中对两个男主人公的细节描写，对比他们的性格、行为和处理事件的方法，分析他们及露西的悲剧，从而探讨在后殖民主义时期人类悲剧的根源。最后，总结全文，表明个人观点。

关键词：男主角 越界 女性 悲剧 后殖民主义

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

1.1 About John Maxwell Coetzee

John Maxwell Coetzee was born on February 9, 1940 in Cape Town of South Africa. He was the only author awarded the Booker Prize twice — first for Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and again for Disgrace in 1999. In October 2003, he was given the Nobel Prize for Literature for his exemplary contribution to the literary world. Coetzee is highly praised for his insight into actual living, mental and psychological situation of the whites and non-whites in South Africa. He grows up under apartheid system, where people are categorized into three main groups: the white( then becoming lords of the country), the colored and the black, which means racial separation dated back to the beginning of white settlement in South Africa in 1652. As a descendant of both Boer and English who had been the colonies of South Africa for some time, Coetzee has complicated and unique cultural identity as “his boyhood in the Cape Province was dominated by cultural conflicts...he was accustomed to speaking English at home, while conversing in Afrikaans with other relatives”. Coetzee witnessed sufferings and struggles of people during the apartheid and post-apartheid time.

1.2 About Coetzee’s Works

Coetzee’s works have won him almost every Commonwealth literary award, which have guaranteed his reputation as one of the most highly respected and most frequently studied writers living today. He began his writing in 1969 and published twelve novels in a succession after publishing his first novel Dusklands in 1974 and showing his talent and potential in writing. In 1999, Coetzee's masterpiece Disgrace came out and made him a two-time winner of Booker Prize.

Disgrace is yet set in an era of reconstruction of the colonial war, also called the post-apartheid era, in which racial groups struggle to define their new place in a new social order. In that time, South Africa is called the “crime capital of the world” with one of the highest murder rates. Violence like rape, robbery, hijacking and burglary is rampant and commonplace. The racial and social issues discussed in Disgrace also include most of the current plights of South Africa.

In Disgrace, Coetzee adopts a third person narrative, focusing on a 52-year-old divorced white South African literature professor David Lurie. His “disgrace” comes when he seduces his girl student and raped her, then he was dismissed from his teaching position and takes refuge in his daughter Lucy’s countryside. Lucy is raped by three black men that instigated by Petrus who Lucy chooses to marry in order to seek shelter from and give her countryside to as dowry. Lurie loses his grace to be a white man and devotes himself to country life.

1.3 Need for the Study

In Disgrace, it can be found that when there is no racial segregation in society, weaknesses of human nature in some people are exposed. The black also take advantage of their race and region, as the whites did during the colonial period, bringing suffer to innocent white people.

Many scholars have studied various kinds of tragic endings resulted by cronus during post--apartheid. There are also many studies on Lurie separately. This thesis is going to dig up the root of these tragedies by analyzing two men protagonists together. Practically speaking, we can find human’s common weaknesses and the tragedy of women in that era by comparing actions, thoughts and images of the white man and the black man. Moreover, the author will also consider factors of male chauvinism and the social background after the Black Liberation Movement.

Chapter Two

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Studies on Cronus

Liu Jianping (2013) noted that two kinds of cronus are given in this novel—one is the romantic cronus of Lurie, another is the violent cronus of Petrus.

As a professor, Lurie’s behavior to his student Melanie is against two set borders for him: he goes beyond the normal relationship between a teacher and a student, he also goes beyond the regarded relationship between an aged and a young. Actually, Lurie should also be able to realize what cronus would bring him in the relationship with Soraya, a prostitute. Without thinking of the moral things, we can tell that in human being’s society, there are some borders where any behavior that is going beyond the border should be paid some day. That is: Lurie’s cronus behavior to Soraya finally leads to her disappearance from his life. Lurie’s cronus behavior leads to Lucy’s aversion to him. When he comes to Lucy’s farm, he finds everything uncomfortable and awkward to him. After Lucy’s suffering from the rape, the relationship between the father and a daughter turns into the relationship between male and female. Women have their borders of life and they have every right to keep any intruders out. So each time he wants to get close to his daughter, this cronus behavior always ends with the rejection of Lucy. Many gaps and realities make him feel humiliated. The soc-called “romantic” cronus of Lurie brings him disgrace— losing the job and alienating his daughter. Compared with the cronus of Lurie, Petrus’s violent cronus blooms finally. In post-apartheid South Aferica, the black gain their dominance over their own lives. Being under the ruling of the westerners for so long a time that once they get an opportunity they begin to repel against the once-dominants. The violent and bloody cronus of Petrus lies in that he conspires every plot against Lucy and succeeds in usurping Lucy’s farm and land marrying Lucy. His cronus behavior is just like the cronus of the colonialism through violence, blood, long time hypocrisy, conspiracy, cruelty, dirty tricks and greed. The violent cronus of Petrus brings him power and wealth.

Zhang Chong(2010) noted that the cronus of colonialism pays the price by both western people and western culture. On one hand, western people suffer a lot at that time. They are lonely and helpless in South Africa. Also, the essence of the rape is that: Lucy becomes the scapegoat of colonialism. On the other hand, western culture is deserted on that land: the black are more skilled in farming , English and law is useless in Africa.

In a word, not only between personal relationships but also among different cultures, cronus must be paid some day in the future.

2.2 Previous Studies on Lurie

Ma Shanshan (2010) noted that the world of Lurie is full of lust. Although his second wife, Rosalind, always reminds him that he is no longer attractive, he is always erotic when knowing a new woman, which is his attitude towards women—sex. As a middle-aged man, it is too late for him to own freewheeling relationships with any woman. The disgraceful events in novel prove that "sex" really has become one of his problems, a troublesome thing.