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