Disgrace, by JM Coetzee, is a deceptively short book. On the surface it seems like a simple personal narrative, but it's much more complex than that. The novel not only addresses the sensitive issue of rape, but also examines the intricate racial complexities of a new post-apartheid South Africa. Encompassing all these themes comes another question: What is the nature of human-animal relationships? The novel's three levels – personal, racial, and biological – each offer a different perspective on the story's dominant motif: the question of redistribution, both of power and wealth. Although redistribution occurs on all three of these levels, the redistribution of power in human-animal relationships is unique in that, unlike the others, the benefit is not unidirectional, but bidirectional. Both humans and animals benefit from this exchange. To better understand this process of redistribution, we examine it from three different perspectives: personal, racial, and biological. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, let's look at the redistribution that happens at the personal level, namely at David Lurie. At the beginning of the novel, David is a communications professor at Cape Technical University. As a professor, he is assured the economic power and social status that come with a position like his. In fact, he takes advantage of it and uses his money to pay the prostitutes who sleep with him, as in the case of Soroya. David also uses his social status and power as a professor to convince one of his students, Melanie, to go to bed, even when she tries to resist. He too acknowledges that although “it's not rape, not quite that… [it was] still unwanted, unwanted through and through” (25). Coetzee uses words like “intruder,” “heavy as clubs,” “crumpled like that of a marionette” (24) to describe the sexual act, words which all carry a connotation of violence, as well as describing David as someone with candies. However, this power is soon redistributed when David is accused of harassment and misconduct and loses his job. Without his job as a professor, David loses both his source of income and his social status. She becomes dependent on her daughter, admitting, "Who would have imagined, when her son was born, that in time he would come crawling to her asking to be taken in?" (179). Not only does he lose his economic and social status, but he also loses his sexual potency throughout the novel. While before "with his height, his good bones, his olive skin, his flowing hair, he could always count on a certain magnetism", now people look at him without realizing it. “Overnight he became a ghost” and had to learn “how to buy [women]” (7). His relationship with Bev Shaw perhaps best demonstrates this loss of sexual potency. David reminds himself to “don't forget this day… After the sweet young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this [Bev] is what I've come to. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even less." (150). He stops “calling her poor Bev Shaw [because] if she's poor, he's bankrupt” (150). It is evident that on a personal level, David Lurie's wealth, status, and sexual power have changed by the end of the novel. Where, however, was it redistributed? This question leads to a more complex analysis of this redistribution as a power struggle and places it in a historical context. When analyzing this novel, we must keep in mind that it is set in post-apartheid South Africa, a country with a complex racial and political history. It is in this context that our story takes place.When David's daughter Lucy is raped by three black men, he describes it as “the story that speaks through them… A story of mistakes” (156). Lucy recognizes rape as “the price one has to pay for staying on the [farm]…[The rapists] see me as owing something. They see themselves as tax collectors, tax collectors” (158). When David's house is burglarized, he describes it as “Not a normal burglary. A group of raiders entered, cleared the site, and retreated loaded with bags, boxes and suitcases. Loot; war reparations; another incident in the great redistribution campaign” (176). This redistribution of wealth and power from the white colonialists to the indigenous group is perhaps best represented by the child who will soon be born. In a way, it can be seen as a form of genetic redistribution – a mixing of genes from two different races. However, the way the child was conceived best illustrates the nature of these often violent and forced redistributions. They only benefit one group at the expense of another. In each of the cases listed above, there is a strong sense of winners and losers. There is a one-way flow of money and power. This is clear in the case of David Lurie, who loses and never regains his wealth and social status. It is also clear in the struggle between the two different racial and social classes: power is inexorably leaving the hands of the white colonialists to end up in the hands of people like Petrus. A striking similarity between the two cases of redistribution – personal and racial – is the use of economic language. Rape is described as a form of tax collection. David's sexual impotence is described as being "bankrupt." Marriage is also represented as a business transaction. Petrus offers Lucy marriage because he wants her to "become part of his establishment" (203). Lucy recognizes that “Petrus is not offering a church wedding… He is offering an alliance, an agreement. I bestow the land, in exchange for which I am permitted to creep under its protective wing” (203). This element of economic utility in describing marriage, sex and rape is troubling and dehumanizing. This observation brings us to another, slightly more subtle form of redistribution in the novel. Throughout the novel, Coetzee strips humanity from his human subjects and gives it instead to animals. It does this by giving the animals personalized attention. An obvious example is the rape scene. One would expect him to describe the violence done to Lucy; instead, Coetzee never describes rape. Instead, she describes, in vivid detail, the violence she suffered from Lucy's dogs. By shifting the narrative focus from Lucy to the dogs, Coetzee transfers humanity to the animals. This undeniable parallel between animals and humans is also evident in much of the imagery used by Coetzee. For example, when David forces himself on Melanie, she is described as "a mole digging a hole, [with] her back to him" (25). She "relaxes, dies within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the fox's jaws close on her neck" (25). When David sends the bodies of the dead animals to the incinerator, he wishes to give them a proper burial, which is a humane ritual. Throughout the novel he talks about a dignified death, but honor and dignity are both human attributes. In his attempt to give the animals these human rituals and attributes, David is also transferring humanity to these animals. Unlike other forms of redistribution, however, this shift in narrative focus from humans to animals has benefits in both directions. While the animals gain humanity from Coetzee's individualized attention to them, the main character, David, also benefits from his.