Desire and Its Discontent in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

• Main Authors: Yeh Ian Cheng, 葉彥呈
• Other Authors: Joel J. Janicki
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/78jewm

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 英文學系   === 102 === This thesis aims to interpret J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace by employing critical theories of desire to look into the post-apartheid situation in South Africa, where racial unfriendliness still exists between blacks and whites. Desire is traditionally defined as a mental state of longing or hankering, but, in Graham Oddie’s and other contemporary critics' theories, it is a psychological status associated and interacted with social values. Modern civilization and social regulations have formed people's value systems, and individual human desires under such social/moral restraints often lead to discontents and even social problems of racial hostilities, stereotypes, and discriminations. Oddie’s theory exemplifies how human desires can create either positive or negative power under the influence of social norms and education backgrounds. The three characters in Disgrace -- David, Lucy, Petrus -- represent the negative, positive, and neutral characteristics of discontented desires in terms of Oddie’s theory. This thesis explores different types of human desires developed and repressed in different circumstances, and how they are mutually and socially involved in the new black-and-white relationship in South Africa.