He Has Changed

At the start of the novel Disgrace, we are introduced to a 52-year old white professor named David Lurie. He had divorced twice, paid a prostitute for weekly sex, and his latest act was finding sexual relief from a 20 year old student of his, named Melanie Isaacs. But when the college finds out about his relations with Melanie, David Lurie pleads guilty to the case, and then decides to leave the college and move to the country to see his daughter. Although David keeps insisting that he is at an age where he cannot change his ways, his leave to the country makes David evolve. This move to the country evolves his perspective on the superficiality he has with women, his relationship with his daughter, and his view of the reality of his relationship with Melanie.

Before moving to the country, David Lurie truly appreciated women basically as objects of beauty and remarked how they needed to share that beauty with the world instead of just keeping it for themselves. He basically only looked at and paid attention to the girls that he thought looked “attractive,” and thought other women that did not even try to look attractive, such as Bev Shaw, had nothing to be proud of. Though he still resorts to keep his perspective of women as he lives in the country, it has been altered just a bit because of his relationship with his daughter and even Bev Shaw. Lucy does not make herself look attractive, which means she is one of those women that David cannot stand. However, as time goes on, he does not just base his appreciation of her on her physical attractiveness, but he finds that he respects her for what she does and says. He respects her view on the world around her and does not judge her view as being of the younger ignorant generation, which is how he viewed his college students that he taught. As he grows to appreciate and respect her in this way, he even starts seeing how she could be attractive to other men. As he grows respect and appreciation for Lucy everyday, he slowly gains appreciation for Bev Shaw. When he first meets Bev Shaw, David describes her as this very unattractive woman, and gives the indication that he does not have any interest of getting to know her due to her appearance. However, when Lucy tells David to go and help her out at Bev’s little animal clinic, he slowly starts to respect her. David though did not truly appreciate Bev Shaw until the robbery at Lucy’s place. When she took the two of them in and helped him out with his bandaging, he felt a particular peacefulness with her. She was willing to help him and his daughter, even though he had not done much for her. Even though Bev Shaw’s appearance is not attractive, David realizes that her being attractive is not the most important aspect to make him appreciate her, but her kindness and generosity was something he realized that he should appreciate. In the country, he is truly realizing that he can respect women that are not attractive, and that is not their only characteristic that truly distinguishes them.

By moving to the country, he has also improved his father-daughter relationship with Lucy. Before going to the country, David had not kept close contact with his daughter. He did not really have the chance to take on the fatherly role with her. However, when two men and a boy invade Lucy’s place, he expresses fatherly characteristics. When the men had trapped Lucy in the house, all he wanted to do was find a way to get into the house and dive into the danger of these men to save his daughter. When he forces his way into the house, he is knocked out by the men and locked into the bathroom. Though he had just been knocked out and feeling incredibly dizzy, all he could think about was the safety of his daughter. He was not concerned about his well-being, but only his daughter’s. He was willing to risk his own life, as he shows by persisting to engage with the men even after he had been knocked out, to save her life. Also, when one of the men throws methylated spirits on him and lights him on fire, after recovering from the burns, all he thinks about is saving his daughter. He does not let go of this instinct to save his daughter from harm, and by doing this, he allows himself to continuously get hurt. Before moving to the country, he never had truly shown fatherly characteristics, but when he moved to the country, he got to reveal his true love for his daughter and discover the innate feeling that parents have to protect their children.

Being in the country also allowed David Lurie to see his harassment case that he committed, at the college where he taught, in a new perspective. This new perspective occurred because of how the two men and one boy robbed his daughter’s place. These men did not just steal the items of the house and set David Lurie on fire, but they also supposedly raped Lucy. Lucy never tells David that she had been raped, but by her not wanting to talk about what happened to her and by her always being in a state of thought, David only assumes that rape had occurred. This made David look upon these men and what they did and made him even realize that there were some similarities with what they had done to Lucy and what David had done to Melanie. He was realizing that maybe what he did with Melanie was on some level rape. He put himself upon her just as these men put themselves upon Lucy. They wanted power, so they got it by taking away Lucy’s, just like David Lurie only wanted a passive lover, not an active woman. He wanted a woman to give him what he wants, not really concerning if she was into it or not. He now perceives some idea of how Melanie may have felt in their situation because of his own daughter getting raped.

So far, to where we have read, David’s move to the country has only started to barely change his ways. Just within the first couple of weeks that he has stayed with his daughter, he slowly does what he thought was impossible; he has changed.