An Analysis Of Transgression In Disgrace From The Post-colonial Perspective

The white South African novelist John Maxwell Coetzee’s novel Disgrace is ofdeep post-colonial character. Transgression, in a broad sense, refers to illicitcross-border which means randomly going beyond the boundary such as politics,society and morality provided for individual. Transgression is not only thebreakthrough point of the novel, but also it is the masterstroke which runs through thewhole text. Transgression is embodied in the relationships among individuals: thegeneration gap between father and daughter, changes in the relationship betweenLurie and the other female roles in the novel and the incompatible condition betweenthe black and the white under the historical reality are all the reflection oftransgression. From the post-colonial perspective, cultural transgression is closelyrelated to the history of South Africa, and it is also a manifestation of the racism ofSouth Africa in the social life. Specifically, cultural transgression refers to the issueleft over from past to present, which is the South African continent where colonialismis receding and the apartheid regime has been abrogated. The South Africa in thetransitional period has not fully broken away from the shadow of apartheid regime,and the vice that European colonists have done to South Africa is a long-termtransgression. Therefore, the black treat the offense that the white have committedwith retaliatory attitude. Transgression leads to the alienation of the interpersonalrelationships, and production of alienation has its basic reason which is closely relatedto transgression. Thus we have to reflect the colonist itself and the colonized theotherness in order to eliminate the effects of transgression, therefore the order of lifecould return to normal in this reflection.