“Sexy Sexism”: Tricia Rose’s Article

Tricia Rose’ argument in her article “There Are Bitches and Hoes” is that rap culture is promoting a view of African American women as prostitutes to the point which women are now adopting this portrayal of themselves to fit in with the culture and become desirable. (p. 322, pp. 2).

I think Tricia is drawing very interesting parallels between an individual’s expression of their sexuality and the culture’s representation of a group’s sexuality. Where some women are choosing to adopt this portrayal of themselves as essentially sexual servants to men out of their own free will, Rose seems to be indicating these ideas create problems for a group as a whole. In other words, when men are making “sexism sexy” (p.325, pp. 1) and women are living up to this idea of what is sexy, it’s not just those women who are being affected, it’s a whole group of women who are being affected.

In light of our discussion on porn, I’m not sure many would agree with Rose that the medium/manner in which a person expresses sexuality can affect other people outside themselves negatively. If a woman wishes to portray herself as sexually subordinate to men, should we stop them for the “greater good”? Not to say that the woman is culpable for the womanizing climate. Rose’s resolution is for us to “…demand that empowered women be in charge of their own sexual imagery and give them the freedom to express themselves as they see fit” (p. 325, pp.2). My question is, how do we balance representations of women’s sexuality as seen in rap with not cutting over a person’s freedom to express themselves? 

Who are the victims in The Dew Breaker? (Presentation)

In The Book of Miracles chapter we get Anne’s point of view and through that we learn a bit more about her view of Ka’s father and her feelings about being married to him. One major theme that I feel like came up in the first chapter was her father shifting from being a victim to becoming a victimizer. He’s introduced as a man who was in prison in Haiti and was treated harshly and thus gained his scare but we learn that he was actually one of the people who inflicted scars similar to that and death on many people. Continuing on with that theme, The Book of Miracles, gives the reader Anne’s point of view on this whole situation and how we personally deals with her husband having been a “dew breaker” and likens her guilt and shame to that of Emanuel Constant (who is a real person) and how he must have felt after doing what he did. Anne says “A long time ago, more than thirty years ago, in Haiti, your father worked in a prison, where he hurt many people. Now look at him. Look how calm he is. Look how patient he is.” The way in which we learn about the reality of Ka’s father is presented in such a way that he begs our compassion and even sympathy. The whole idea of who is the victim and who is the victimizer blurs just a bit. It’s typical to have sympathy for people who have been through traumatic events but to have a similar sympathy to someone who caused that traumatic event,  doesn’t allow the reader to so easily take sides.

 

We get a similar picture in the chapter Night Talkers. In this chapter the reader is taken into Dany’s perspective as he goes home to Haiti to inquire from his aunt if Ka’s father is really the man who killed his family and caused her (his aunt) to go blind. Dany tells us about his going back and forth over whether or not he is going to kill Ka’s father, but it’s fact that he could have the wrong man that stops him because he doesn’t want his wife to be widowed and the child an orphan. Dany doesn’t know what the reader knows, but ultimately it’s this personification of Ka’s father that stops him. Which makes the reader wonder, even if he found out if he found out that Ka’s father killed his family, would he enact revenge?  And this whole idea of the victim and victimizer is also illustrated very clearly through his relationship with Claude. Claude, who is a murder, is put on the same level with Dany, who is a victim, when Dany says that they are both “night talkers.” Although there situations are different (and Claude may serve as some kind of foil to Dany) both teeter the line of one on hand being a victim and on the other be (or with Dany desiring to be) a victimizer.

 

Q: What does Danticat want message is Danticat trying to get across by smearing this line?

The Dew Breaker

Told from the perspective of Alice, mother of Ka and wife of the eponymous dew breaker, “The Book of Miracles” concerns a Christmas Eve Mass during which Ka catches sight of someone who bears a striking resemblance to the former head of a Haitian death squad. I was particularly struck by the parallel structure of the titles “The Book of Miracles” and “The Book of the Dead,” a formal link that emphasizes the unique and seemingly contradictory role of spirituality within the stories. Alice, a devout Catholic, certainly seems to find herself spiritually isolated from the rest of her family: “Between her daughter, who chose not to believe in God, and her husband, who went to the Brooklyn Museum every week…to worship…at the foot of Ancient Egyptian statues, she felt outnumbered by pagans” (70). Indeed, this so-called “pagan” presence permeates the stories, from the ancient Egyptian traditions invoked by Ka’s own name to the “shrine to unborn children in Japan” (57) that Nadine recreates in remembrance of her unborn child. If one accepts Alice’s statement that “Americans don’t have much faith” (73), Alice, as a pious immigrant, is certainly outnumbered by the faithless masses.   

I am especially intrigued by the fact that Alice’s relationship with her husband seems to be predicated on this opposition between death and miracles. He, dew breaker and self-confirmed killer, obsesses himself with the preparation of bodies and the weighing of hearts while she concerns herself with “a…Filipino man who’d seen an image of the Madonna in a white rose petal” (73); he has enacted death; she has seemingly enacted “the miracle of her husband’s transformation” (70-1). It is interesting that he seems to look to the next world for salvation–to the afterlife, and also to a vicarious existence through his daughter, or “ka,”–while Alice looks to the miracles of this world for that same absolution. Though the Christian faith, as illustrated by the resurrection of Jesus, puts forward the notion that miracles supersede death, what are we to make of the fact that “The Book of Miracles” precedes “The Book of the Dead” in chronological order? Can the miracle of Alice’s husband’s “transformation” effectively erase the stain of death from his hands, or will his sins as dew breaker ultimately render that so-called miracle impotent?   

Questions of death and spirituality arise once again in “Night Talkers,” the story of Dany, who returns to Haiti to share his discovery of the man who killed his parents, only to witness the death of his aunt. Christian mythos echoes deeply here, particularly in the first scene, which finds Dany wandering beneath “the scorching midday sun…deep in the Haitian countryside, where the closest village seemed like a grain of sand in the valley below” (87). His observation that the lushness of his aunt’s garden was “a miracle, given the barren mountain range he’d just traveled through” (93) hints at the title of previous story. In addition, the notion of the “return of the prodigal son” seems to manifest itself in the form of Dany and Claude, both of whom have returned to Haiti but under starkly different circumstances. Dany, a seemingly temporary visitor, arrives to a warm welcome, hoping to somehow vindicate his slain parents with the knowledge of their killer. Claude, on the other hand, arrives in the village from prison as a convicted murderer. How does Claude serve as a foil to Dany and to what purpose? How do their different circumstances affect their integration back into Haitian society? And how does Claude’s thoughtless murder of his father play into other representations of fathers present in The Dew Breaker?   

 

The Dew Breaker Stories 4-6

The fourth story begins with a Mother, Anne, discussing miracles with her daughter and husband while on their way from picking the daughter up from college to attend Christmas Eve Mass. The story is titles “The Book of Miracles” which came as no surprise once Anne reveals herself to be the mother Ka spoke of in the first reading when she references the artistic tendencies of her daughter and the obsession her husband has with the Ancient Egyptian statues at the Brooklyn Museum. This title immediately draws comparisons to the first story, titled “The Book of the Dead”, and, I believe, draws its meaning from the point of view Anne has, noticed by her daughter on page 73 when she says :“So if I see a woman’s face in a rose, I’d think somebody drew it there, but if you see it, Manman, you think it’s a miracle”. This quote indicates the differing opinions Anne and her daughter have regarding faith and, in some ways, could be the daughter challenging her mother’s practicality, as if to say “you see what you want to see”. As the family makes their way towards mass they pass a Cemetery and Anne holds her breath, going on a brief digression about the loss of her younger brother when they were each quite young and how the thought of his soul wandering the Earth, lost, torments her still, especially when by a Cemetery.  The family is then seated at Mass where Anne regrets not making any close acquaintances, making it known they she and her husband were fearful that he may be recognized before also concluding that because of age and the fact that he had never been a famous “Dew Breaker” or torturer that perhaps it were safe enough to venture out amongst their community without fear of him being recognized. Part of the way through mass Anne’s daughter begins to make a commotion with her father, signaling at one person in particular, and we learn that the daughter and husband both believe the person in question to be Emmaneul Constant, a man that Anne recognizes from signs outside her and her husband’s respective businesses that claim he is wanted for crimes committed against the Haitian people while living in Haiti. She then talks about how much alike this man’s story and her husbands, how they both fled their countries because of ambiguous offenses against their own people, and how she has always feared that one day she would arrive at work to find her husband’s face on a wanted sign like Emmanuels. Sitting in mass she realizes that there could be another family behind them, discussing whether or not they had recognized her husband just as her husband and daughter are discussing whether or not they had discovered Emmanuel, and decides that the risk of bringing her family to a mass like this, given the possibility they’re recognized, is too great. Her husband’s past actions are compared to Constants in this scene but his reformation is acknowledged earlier on in the story, on pg 72, when Anne states it is a miracle that he has become so calm, patient and family oriented. This leads me to the conclusion of the first story and , thus, my first question. After mass is over and Anne is being escorted by her daughter to go meet her husband she asks her daughter “Wasn’t it a lovely mass?” to which her daughter replies “..It was only a mass. Nothing more. It’s never as fabulous as one of your miracles.”.

Given our discussion about point of view last class and the knowledge we already have about the true nature of Anne’s husband, what can be said about this last quote and how it relates to the internal conflict Anne is experiencing regarding her husbands past?

The fifth story begins with man stranded in the mountains on the way to visit his Aunt who moved out there following his departure for New York City.  He had not seen his aunt, who had been his only family since his parents died twenty-five  years ago, in over 10 years and sets out alone to surprise her, ignoring much of the advice he knew she would give along the way. He finally stumbles upon a group of children who bring him water and an older man, referred to as Old Z, who guides him to the place where his aunt lives. It is revealed through his inner dialogue and his interactions with other characters that the narrator is Dany, one of the three tenants who live underneath Ka’s parents. He has returned to the mountain community where his aunt raised him to inform her that he has found the man who killed his mother and father and caused her to have such terrible burns, but as soon as he mention of his discovery the members of the village come in and present them with gifts of food that he and his aunt share with their neighbors before going to bed, where it is discovered that Dany and his aunt both talk in their sleep. The next day Dany is introduced to Claude, another from New York, by his Aunt. Dany and Claude have a brief conversation in English together in which Claude gives Dany a background of his troubled past before expressing some appreciation for the life he has now and how its changed him. After he leaves it is revealed that he may have killed his father. Later that night Dany dreams of finishing the story he had tried to begin earlier with his aunt, and doing provides more context as to exactly how his parents died as well as revealing that Ka’s father, the Barber that he is renting the room from, is the man that killed his family and set his house a flame. Next, in his dream, he tells his aunt of the night he was going to kill the Barber in his sleep and how he couldn’t do it at the risk of being wrong.

-Why is it that the author structured the revelation of the past of Ka’s father in this way, where the reader is not made fully aware of his offenses until after we have experienced his remorse?

He wakes mid-dream and realizes that he is talking in his sleep once again and that his aunt can hear him. He tries to interrogate her about his parents and she reluctantly indulges him before going back to sleep; in the morning she is dead. After the villagers discover his dead aunt and come to pay their respects, all the while speaking about Dany in Creole as if he isn’t there; this makes Dany feel left out and out of place as he takes in the Beau Jour’s ceremony for the deceased almost as an outsider, neglecting to share his personal experiences with his aunt while all the other villagers speak of the great influences shes had in their lives.  Dany struggles to find a word to describe what he’s feeling following his Aunt’s death and has a moment of clarity while talking to Claude where finds out that Claude did indeed kill his father and it wasn’t an accident but an act of violence because Claude was on drugs. Claude chooses to see this situation optimistically, however, declaring himself lucky because he has experienced the worst that he is capable of and now get to live his life pursuing the best. The story ends with Dany reflecting on this, stating that Claude is like him, a night talker who has the ability to speak about his nightmares not only during sleep but during the day.

What is it that enables Claude to “speak his nightmares to himself as well as to others”?

The sixth reading begins with a woman named Beatrice Saint Fort readying herself for a nap when she is interrupted by the arrival of a reporter, which seems to catch her by surprise, suggesting she has forgotten that she made the appointment. She welcomes the reporter in and takes 30 minutes readying herself and then another 20 preparing coffee before even sitting down with the reporter. The reporter notes that it seems Beatrice has placed spirits in her coffee without her knowing which seems to relax her a bit and Beatrice confesses her secret is time; with everything she does she takes her time. They begin the interview and Beatrice reveals that she addresses each of her clients as her “girls” and has them address her as “Mother”, which we find out is because she never wishes to be asked whether or not shes ever been married, a question that she believes a woman of her age should never be asked. They then go on a walk and see several members of Beatrice’s neighborhood, many of which she identifies by their occupation or their nationality. When they return to Beatrice the find their way to the topic of what Beatrice will do after she retires. She says she will move to escape a man that arrested her some years ago after she refused an advance from him; she says that he tortured her and still continues to do so, following wherever she goes. This brings Beatrice’s sanity into question for the first time, which continues throughout the remainder of the story as the reporter searches for evidence of Beatrice’s tormented past.

What is the significance of this man in Beatrice’s life and, again, how does the Character of Beatrice challenge our notions of how truth and point of view are presented in the novel?

The Dew Breaker Ch. 1-3

Chapter one starts off at a hotel, where a woman named Ka is staying with her father, although her father has disappeared. The reason they are staying at the hotel is because Ka made a wooden sculpture of her father, which she intends to sell to someone in Tampa. Another problem with her father missing, is that he took the sculpture with him as well. When her father returned, the sculpture was not with him. He took her to a lake, where the sculpture lied at the very bottom. This angered Ka, while her father felt that the sculpture was almost disturbing and that he was not deserving of it at all. That is when he reveals a secret to his daughter about the scar on his face.””Ka, I was never in prison,” he says. “Okay,” I say, sounding like I am fourteen again, chanting from what my mother used to call the meaningless adolescent chorus, just to sound like everyone else my age. “I was working in the prison,” my father says. And I decide not to interrupt him again until he’s done. Stranded in the middle of his speech now, he has to go on. “It was one of the prisoners inside the prison who cut my face in this way,” he says. My father now points to the long, pitted scar on his right cheek. I am so used to his hands covering it up that this new purposeful motion toward it seems dramatic and extreme, almost like raising a veil. “This man who cut my face,” he continued, “I shot and killed him, like I killed many people” (Danticat 21-22). This was all major news to Ka. She was almost speechless and kept asking herself questions about her family in her mind. She looked at her father a whole new way after that.

Question 1: Why did it take her father so long to tell her the truth? Was he planning on keeping it a secret forever, or did the sculpture open his eyes to do the right thing and tell his daughter the truth?

In chapter two we are introduced to a man who lives in a basement, works two jobs and is going to see his wife for the first time in seven years. The number seven plays a significant role to open this chapter. “Next month would make it seven years since he’d last seen his wife. Seven–a number he despised but had discovered was a useful marker. There were seven days between paychecks, seven hours, not including lunch, spent each day at his day job, seven at his night job. Seven was the last number in his age–thirty-seven. And now there were seven hours left before his wife was due to arrive” (Danticat 35). Once she arrives, it takes her a while to get use to living in a new country, as well as being back with her husband after being apart for so long.

In chapter three, we are introduced to a woman named Nadine, who is a nurse at a hospital. We learn that she has family in Hati. Her parents sold almost everything they owned, to send her to nursing school. Her father was very sick and she sends them money every month. Her mother writes to her, but she barely ever calls them. She just reads over the letters, as if there are any signs of sympathy or condolences. We also learn that she has a former lover named Eric, who also tries to contact her as well. Eric was the near father of her nearly born child, which seems to be a major reason as to why she is so insecure and keeps to herself.

Question 2: Why do you think Nadine avoids keeping in contact with her parents? They gave up almost everything for her to become a nurse.

Question 3: After reading these three chapters, what can relate and tie together from what we have read so far?

 

The Dew Breaker 11/14/2012

During my reading of the first half of The Dew Breaker, I saw two main ideas that stood out: The ideas of association and the eventual fading into memory that occurs with all people, actions, and abstract objects. These would be things to think about in regard to the novel and during my presentation.

In the first half of The Dew Breaker, we briefly meet many characters who are only the focal point of one chapter. Each character is associated with another in some way, and these connections are very easy to miss, as they are only mentioned in a sentence or two. The connections also do not seem particularly meaningful either – I had a difficult time finding meaningful reason behind the fact that Anne is the unnamed man’s landlord or that Nadine used to be his girlfriend. The fact that characters do not repeat leaves their personas, in my opinion, a bit underdeveloped. The reader might like to know more about Nadine, Ka, or the unnamed husband and wife from Chapter 2. The reader also begins to forget about past characters, as they are only reminded of them through a vague sentence here and there. However, I think that this perpetuates the idea that these people are slowly fading away from others’ memories. It is possible that they are only given a sentence or two in another’s story because that is the degree to which they matter to that character. The characters have not left a lasting impression on each other. Because of this, the associations are not fully developed and neither are the characters.

The idea of memory is also quite literal in several places in the novel. For example, on page 66, Nadine is thinking about Ms. Hinds’ future. “[Ms. Hinds] would realize that she herself was slowly forgetting, without the help of old audio or videocassettes or answering machine greetings, what her own voice used to sound like.” Secondly on page 79, the reader is given a description of the Emmanuel Constant sign. “After a while, the letters and numbers started disappearing so that the word rape became ape and the 5 vanished from the 5,000, leaving a trio of zeros as the number of Constant’s casualties. The demonic-looking horns that passersby had added to Constant’s head and the Creole curses they’d scribbled on the flyer were nearly gone too, turning it into a fragmented collage with as many additions as erasures.” I found the description of the flyer to be particularly striking. Its fading suggests the disheartening fact that, with the passage of time, crimes are forgotten, the victims/dead lose meaning, and the hatred for the criminal eventually fades.

There were also two lines from the first half of this novel that stood out to me, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. The first is on page 27 when Ka and her father go to visit the Fonteneaus’ house. It reads, “The Fonteneaus’ house is made of bricks and white coral on a cul-de-sac with a row of banyans separating the two sides of the street.” To me, this seemed to encompass the ideal, white picket fence home, but I wasn’t sure how it fit into the development of these characters or the novel as a whole. The second is on page 40 when the unnamed woman is talking about the trimmed chicken feathers. It says, “in the early days, soon after he’d left, she had spun the tips of the feathers inside her ears too and discovered that from them she could get jwisans, pleasure, an orgasm. She’d thought hen that maybe the foreign television programs were right: sex was mostly between the ears.”

So my first question would be: What do you make of these quotations and how do you see them fitting into the novel’s characterization or overall development?

Secondly, how do you feel about the character development in this novel? Would you have liked to see more of certain characters or do you find Danticat’s approach effective? Do you think we will see the return of any characters?

“Disgrace” 11/9

First off, I just want to apologize for the late post. If any of you were wondering, never let your roommate try to improve your computer in any way. It won’t work out very well and you’ll end up posting your discussion questions late. Nonetheless, let’s talk about Disgrace. I’m probably going to talk a lot about how sexuality is portrayed, and I’ll do my best to keep it coherent.

After the attacks on Lucy and David, we learn Lucy doesn’t want any law enforcement involved more than what is necessary for insurance. She believes her father to be an egocentric, antiquated man who needs to get with the times and leave her to her own decisions. It is during the three months after the attacks that David’s sexual identity is shaken. He likens his actions with Melanie to the rapists, but quickly sleeps with Bev Shaw. It’s a pretty severe flip-flop in a surprisingly short amount of time. However, his sexual interaction with Bev is void of the passion he prides himself on early on in the book. On page 149, we’re told, “Never did he dream he would sleep with a Bev.” When he first describes Bev he basically just says she’s dirty and unattractive in general. Personally, I find this novel’s portrayal of sexuality unreasonably simple. It really boils down to two main ideas:

• Male sexuality=Dominance
• Female sexuality=Submissive procreation

 If this is true, then sex is about something more than attraction and passion for him. On pages 158-159, Lucy asserts that men look for dominance in sex, and that since he is a man, David must feel a similar lust for this dominance as her rapists. He exerted his dominance over Melanie, so it would make sense that he does get a similar rush. However, we must understand that since David says many times that he wasn’t looking for dominance and was just acting out physical desire, that Lucy’s idea does lose some weight. He was attracted to Melanie physically. He wasn’t looking to sleep with her just because she was one of his students. Also, David’s time with Bev doesn’t seem to be about power. As for female sexuality, Lucy and Melanie are really our only examples of sexuality. Melanie submits to her professor, and then later (at least seemingly so) submits to external pressures to report David.

Additionally, while Lucy’s potential homosexuality is talked about before the attack, it is almost completely brushed aside and forgotten about afterwards. After the rape, most of David’s comments shift from her potentially being a lesbian to the disgrace that has been placed on her. Her sexual identity is completely overshadowed by this act of dominance. It is assumed that she submit to being “married” to Petrus and raise her child. David even wonders if she was raped because she is gay. Essentially, heterosexual relations seem to be the only “legitimate” sexual relations, although none of the ones described seem to be what we consider “appropriate.”

There’s a lot more to flesh out here, so please contribute anything you think of. Here are some questions:

1. When David moves back to Cape Town he starts to write his piece about Byron and Teresa. It would seem that we are supposed to compare him to someone in his opera, but it is not really that plain to me. Who is he being compared to? Why? If he is supposed to be Byron, is it supposed to symbolic of his sexual life? If he is to be compared to Teresa, is it because he can finally see a woman’s point of view when it comes to his own sexual practices, particularly that of Melanie?
2. What impact does race have on a reading of sexuality in this book? Are there clear differences between races in how their sexual acts are portrayed? Are these differences meant to be taken as legitimate differences, or just the lens of David? If these relations were described by Lucy, how would they be different?

I’m sure I’ll think of more, but I’ll bring those up during class.

“Disgrace” Presentation for Friday 11/9

Hey everyone, I am not going to post my presentation on the blog. Instead I am going to print a hand out for everyone and pass them out on Friday. That way, no one will be straining their eyes, turning in weird ways to see the screen, and no one will have to stand at the computer and scroll. I’ve done it in other classes and everyone seems to like it. I can always put it up later. Plus, I don’t think many people look at the blog before class anyways, so it won’t matter either way.

My presentation will largely be over the role of religion in the novel; I have a theory about the book I want to explore that relies heavily on the religious aspects of the novel which are plentiful and almost obnoxious. I will also further explore the idea of disgrace and how it relates to David’s sexual disorder (presumed) and gender, and the weird allusions to German throughout the novel (I’m also a German major, so I had to jump on that as well.)

I have to say, out of all the books thus far, I think this has been the most loaded with language and challenging and I couldn’t put it down.

“Disgrace” in Disgrace.

As the word “Disgrace” is used heavily in Disgrace and Coetzee has chosen “Disgrace” as the sole inhabitant of his book’s title, it may be important to pay special attention to the connotations “Disgrace” carries with it. Indeed, Coetzee and his Lurie are both students of English, and Lurie is a student of English poetry. Lurie himself asks his class, “‘Did anyone look [‘usurp upon’] up in a dictionary?'” (page 21 of Penguin ed). What I am getting at is that the prominent position of the single word “Disgrace” and the relative importance given to words in the text both demand the reader to “‘look it up'”. I think the use that the class settled on in discussion was the primary English definition that one would look up, “the loss of respect, honor, or esteem; ignominy; shame” (Dictionary.com). While this definition is the obvious choice to use in every day life, it is incomplete. After all, Coetzee could have as well used the word “Shame” to title his novel. So we must look to secondary definitions if we are comply to the author’s demands. The common secondary definition one will find is “the state of being out of favor; exclusion from favor,confidence, or trust” (Dictionary.com). Now we must try and incorporate “being out of favor” with our reading of the novel. Literally, Lurie is out of favor, but there is something figurative going on as well. Yet we still have not captured the essence of “Disgrace” because we have not considered its etymology. Indeed, Lurie himself will digress into the origin of words (for instance “friend” on p. 102 in the Peguin ed). “Disgrace” is from French, and in French it originally meant “the opposite of grace” (Dictionary.com). Now what is the origin of “Grace”? It was from the Latin “gratia” for “favor”, traditionally “God’s favor” (Dictionary.com). This association to the loss of God’s grace strengthens the ties between Lurie and Byron’s Lucifer (and possibly Faust). And “Grace” was introduced into English by Edmund Spenser (Dictionary.com). This tie to Spenser may have been unintentional, but if it were intentional, it would beg comparisons to Spenser’s epic The Faerie Queene, a work that centers around English imperialism in Ireland. I hope we might keep these connections in mind while we finish the novel.

Disgrace chapters 5-16

Chapter 5 opens with Melanie withdrawing from David’s class.  Which is immediately followed by her father, Mr. Isaacs, calling David to question him as to if he knew of any reasoning behind why his daughter would drop.  He says to David (on page 36) “Professor, I wonder if you could help us”.  He asks him to talk to her and David’s response is asking Mr. Isaacs if he has questioned his own daughter.  Mr. Isaacs describes how he and his wife tried questioning their daughter and then asks if he could try to persuade her because “She has such respect for you” (on page 37).  The reader sees what David is thinking to himself: that he is well aware that Melanie lost respect for him weeks ago.

At his hearing, David pleads guilty immediately without hesitation.  He is told he should “reflect on” and think about the “gravity of the situation”(page 51).  One of the people at the hearing says that David says he is guilty, however he says he is not confessing to abuse of a young woman, rather an impulse he could not resist (page 53).

• Does David truly think he did something wrong?

Throughout this section “counselling” is brought up as something that David should try.  He is very defensive every time it is suggested to him, as if he is taking offense to the idea of it.  He responds to the idea “To fix me? To cure me? To cure me of inappropriate desires?”(page 43).  It comes up again when Lucy asks about the compromise the university asked him to make which was “Re-education, Reformation of the character.  The code word was councelling” (page 66).  She further questions why it would be a bad thing and he tells her he is too old-fashioned and would prefer to be shot.

• What do you think of the significance behind this?
•  David jumping to conclusions suggested (at least to myself) that he deep down sub-            consciously thinks there may be something ‘wrong’ with him – what are your                                    thoughts?

Upon hearing of David’s situation, Rosalind (his ex-wife and father of Lucy) expresses her disproval

• She questions if it is his way of having a sexual life to which he does not respond. She later tells him “You are too old to be meddling with other people’s children”(page 45).
• In chapter 8 Lucy asks David if he plans on remarrying and he brings up his age and asks if she means to someone his own age she responds yes and he asks “But it is unseemly to go on preying on children” (page 69)

David notices appearance before other things

• Chapter 7 is the first time we are introduced to Lucy.  When David sees her he notices her weight gain and then proceeds to comment on her hips and breasts –strange thing for a father to comment on about his daughter, clearly he has a constant thought of appearance as well as sexual desire.
• on page 72 he says “He does not like women who make no effort to be attractive”. He describes Melanie as having her mother’s beauty at one point.  He also hints to the reader in this section that he believes Lucy is homosexual.  He wonders about the details of her life, in particular her relationship with her former roommate Helen (page 86)

Lucy attacked

• He doesn’t know exactly what happened to her, he can only make assumptions.  He believes she was raped.  He thinks that she was a target because of her homosexuality – neither of which Lucy admits to.  He refers to her homosexuality as her secret, and his experience with Melanie as his disgrace.  On page 115 David believes Lucy does not want to leave because of the disgrace and shame – I took this as him believing she feels ashamed as to what happened to her and that her homosexuality is what he sees her disgrace as.
• What are your thoughts? Does Lucy have a “disgrace”?
• David is very upset with the attack.  He is nervous and scared for his daughter during and after it.  He asks on page 119 “Am I wrong to want justice?”.  This is interesting as Mr. Isaacs at the beginning of this section wanted justice for what David did to Melanie and now David wants justice for what was done to his own daughter.

At the party Petrus throws we are told “They are the only whites” (page 128).

•  What is the significance behind this? Issue of racism in South Africa?

David’s job in Chapter 16: disposing of animal remains

• The dogs are brought there “because they are unwanted” (page 146)
• He thinks he is getting stupid for doing this as a job
• What do you think of this? Is there some significance behind David disposing of dead                        animals and people in his life disposing (on some level) him?

Disgrace

• Mentioned on page 85 “Not just in trouble.  In what I supposed I would call disgrace”