Dismantling of Binary Oppositions of Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in J.M Coetzee’sDisgrace

Abstract

The present study is a deconsturctive reading of John Maxwell Coetzee's novel Disgrace. This research exhibits how J.M. Coetzee'sDisgracedismantles the binaries of race, class, gender and sexuality and puts the privileged ones under erasure. In the novel, focalizer cum narrator, David--white, male, ex-colonizer and professor of the so-called higher class is unable to represent marginalized characters. David, a fixed internal focalizer cum protagonist is presented ironically without any authorial remarks by the author. The narrative on the surface level turns opposite when we go to the deeper level because of the focalizer's ignorance about race, class, gender and sexuality though he pretends to have knowledge about these issues. So, the proper understanding of this novel demands skeptical deconstructive study. Until and unless deconstructionist approach is deployed, there is the possibility of misinterpretation of marginalized.