In Disgrace, how does David Lurie exemplify change?

Once a womanizer, now fifty-two, David Lurie's character epitomizes the change of a person from one seemingly mutually exclusive identity to another. There is an insistent emphasis on his unyielding character:

That is his temperament. His temperament is not going to change, he is too old for that. His temperament is fixed, set.

... he could always count on a degree of magnetism. If he looked at a woman in a certain way, with a certain intent, she would return his look, he could rely on that. That was how he lived; for years, for decades, that was the backbone of his life.

In Disgrace, David Lurie, a middle-aged white male professor, is socially positioned as a superior individual in the white-supremacist–dominated society of South Africa. As the fight against the apartheid government leads to the breakdown of this social position, Lurie must learn to accept that he no longer holds a superior position in society to which he believes he has an inherent right. Lurie holds white supremacist and patriarchal beliefs that are beginning to not be tolerated as the white male government loses institutional power.

Lurie continues to be more at odds with his own character as the novel progresses and more events require his own self-reflection. After Lurie has an affair with ones of his students, Melanie, in which one of their encounters could be considered rape, the university files a sexual harassment complaint against him. Lurie, however, refuses to admit guilt or change his mindset and instead resigns from the university and moves away.

When his daughter, Lucy, becomes a victim of rape, and he is unable to stop the attack or materially aid his daughter afterward, he begins to realize that he is not the all-powerful figure that he believed himself to be. This causes him to reflect on his own behavior toward women. After years of stubbornness, he finally apologies to Melanie's father (which still exemplifies his patriarchal tendencies, as he apologies to the father and not directly to the woman he assaulted). By the end of the novel, Lurie begins to perhaps develop a sense of empathy and compassion toward people who experience the world in ways that he cannot fully understand as a white male living in a racist, patriarchal world.

In the initial chapters of the book, David Lurie is portrayed as an arrogant individual who believes in white supremacy as well as male dominance. His character is demonstrated through his devotion to Western literature, divorces, and sexual encounters. He views women as objects of beauty to be enjoyed by all. It is no wonder that after his escapade with the prostitute Soraya, he selfishly lures his student, Melanie, into an illicit sexual affair. He does not mind that she is half his age nor that his actions contravene his professional code of conduct. He shows no remorse for his actions and instead justifies them using religious overtones and quoted Western literature. He finally resigns in disgrace.

His turnaround comes after the attack by three men who rape his daughter. He felt helpless that he could not protect her and further frustrated because Lucy refused to report the matter to the police. The experience reminds him of his actions with Melanie and his lack of remorse for what he did. He feels guilty and regrets his actions. Lurie eventually goes back to Cape Town and apologizes to Melanie’s father.

Lurie also becomes compassionate and believes that all creatures should be treated with dignity, even after death. His belief is demonstrated by his keen interest in the manner in which the dogs’ bodies are handled during cremation.

I think that David Lurie is the embodiment of change, as he is forced to accept the fact that the South African dynamic is one that no longer favors someone like himself. The established white male had dominated South African social and political spheres for so long that he had understood his own position as one that almost existed beyond change. In David Lurie's case, his means of communication included patterns of recognition where change was not needed. From being a professor of communication, David is forced to become a student of it, seeking new and effective ways to communicate the new realities that besiege him. Over the course of the novel, he is forced to accept that there is change both outside of him and inside his own sense of self. He is forced to accept his own "disgrace" in that he is not the embodiment of Byronic womanizing that might have viewed himself as. Additionally, he is compelled to understand that his own position in the white male reservoir of power is something that has undergone change as the fabric and landscape of South Africa changes. David is forced to accept the change that happens when one becomes victimized and is unable to fully grasp or understand the extent of the victimization. When Lucy contends that he will never understand what happened, it is a signal to change that reflects how much the dynamic within which he lives has changed and how he must adapt to that. In that, David Lurie exemplifies change on multiple levels.

Does David Lurie change in Disgrace, or remain the same from start to end?

Despite the humiliating and traumatic events he goes through, David Lurie does not undergo any essential development. His mistreatment of women at the beginning of the novel includes the incident which causes him to lose his job, the assault, perhaps even the rape, of a student, Melanie Isaacs.

Even after his own daughter, Lucy, has been raped in an attack on her farm where David is staying, his attempts to make amends for his treatment of Melanie are limited to an apology to her father. He seems to regard his conduct as an offense against a man's daughter rather than against a woman who is a person in her own right. Moreover, his lust for Melanie immediately resurfaces when he meets her sister.

Perhaps the best one can say of David is that he finds new mistakes to make in his relationships with women. His reaction to the men who abuse, prey, and spy on his daughter seems to stem more from personal pride as a father than from affection for her. His affair with Bev Shaw is no more functional than his relationship with Soraya at the beginning of the book, perhaps less so as it has not even the impetus of attraction. He is surrounded by women but still does not treat them as equals or even as human beings, just as he always failed to do before his disgrace.

Does David Lurie change in 'Disgrace', and why?

In the book Disgrace, David Lurie eventually changes. In the beginning chapters Lurie is arrogant and believes in not only white supremacy but also male dominance. His belief is demonstrated by his reverence for Western literature that he often refers to while teaching at the university. He belittles women as mere objects of beauty for pleasure fulfillment, as witnessed by his numerous affairs for the better part of his life. Even after he engages in an illicit relationship with his student Melanie, Lurie feels no remorse for his actions and opts to resign from his profession due to disgrace.

However, all this changes during his stay at the farm with his daughter Lucy, who is raped by three men, literally in his presence. The aftermath sparks feelings of guilt and shame for what he did to Melanie, and he heads back to Cape Town to apologize to Melanie’s father. He also seeks to work at the shelter and cremate dogs in order to ensure that their bodies are treated with dignity. He realizes that all creatures are equal and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect both when alive and dead.