Not Saying Sorry, Not Speaking Pain: Gender Implications in Disgrace

Bearing Witness to the Ethics and Politics of Suffering: J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Inconsolable Mourning, and the Task of Educators

“…My own analysis of the novel and its pedagogical implications emphasize the notion of refusing to treat history as an apriori system and highlight the ethical concern for the Other (Marais 1998(Marais , 2000a(Marais , b, 2001. I am with Coetzee in casting doubt on the possibility of achieving closure on a painful past; instead, I accept the value of the far more painful process of enduring rather than transcending suffering and appreciate the contribution of the Levinasian ethic of being infinitely (responsible) for the Other (Boehmer 2002).…”

“…The man who once said that he had been ''possessed'' by Eros and desire now assumes responsibility for the Other-who is not human but the ''wholly other'', as Spivak (1991) described it-in this case, the extreme alterity of the stray dog (Boehmer 2002). By relinquishing his care of the lame dog, sacrificing the emotional investment he has made in it, Lurie finds some reconciliation with himself.…”

“…This ethics of otherness constitutes an engagement with history that aims to interrupt all totalities (including political ones) through one's infinite responsibility to the Other (Marais 2000a). For example, the acceptance of reduced lives, of disgrace on several levels-the loss of possessions, of selfesteem-is tied to surrendering reason as the paradigm of understanding others and posing instead a self-emptying respect and responsibility for the other (Boehmer 2002;Marais 2000b). This position facilitates the articulation of ''the far more painful process of enduring rather than transcending the degraded present'' (Boehmer 2002, p. 343, added emphasis), since the possibility of ''adequately saying sorry'' is excluded by the novel.…”

“…For instance, survival in areas of conflict implies accepting that ''perpetrators'' and ''victims'' (not as fixed historical identities, but as shifting ones) are bound together and need to engage in painful compromises. Boehmer (2002) emphasizes that no alternative position for an assessment of Lucy's abuse is made available in the novel. However, Marais (2001) interprets this silence as an alternative otherness outside the cycle of domination and violence.…”

BECOMINGS IN J. M. COETZEE’S WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS AND JOSÉ SARAMAGO’S BLINDNESS

“…In what initially appears to be an act of pity, the magistrate becomes involved with the barbarian girl, who has been maimed and partially blinded by her torturers and whose father has been tortured to death by Joll's men. Nonetheless, his sympathy is selective; he emphatically tells us, for example, that he chooses not to hear the screams from the granary (9). In some respects, the magistrate and Colonel Joll can be seen as two sides of the same coin, the cruel and benevolent colonizer.…”