Disgrace, by JM Coetzee, is a deceptively short book. On the surface, this seems like a simple personal story, but it is much more complex than that. The novel not only deals with the sensitive issue of rape, it also examines the complex racial complexities of a new post-apartheid South Africa. Beyond all these themes, another question arises: what is the nature of human-animal relations? The novel's three levels—personal, racial, and biological—each offer a different perspective on the story's dominant motif: the issue of redistribution, whether of power or wealth. Although redistribution occurs at all three levels, the redistribution of power in human-animal relationships is unique in that, unlike others, the benefit is not unidirectional, but bidirectional. Humans and animals benefit from this exchange. To better understand this redistribution process, we examine it from three different angles: personal, racial and biological. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay First, we look at the redistribution that is taking place on a personal level, particularly towards David Lurie. At the start of the novel, David is a professor of communications at the Technical University of Cape Town. As a professor, he is assured of the economic power and social status that comes from a position like his. In fact, he takes full advantage of it and uses his money to pay prostitutes to sleep with him, as in Soroya's case. David also uses his social status and power as a teacher to cajole one of his students, Mélanie, into bed, even when she tried to resist. Even he acknowledges that although it was “not rape, not quite that… [it was] nevertheless undesirable, fundamentally undesirable” (25). Coetzee uses words such as "intruder", "heavy as clubs", "crunches like a puppet" (24) to describe the sexual act, words which all have connotations of violence, while describing David as a person with power. However, this power is quickly redistributed when David is accused of harassment and misconduct and loses his job. Without his job as a professor, David loses both his source of income and his social status. He becomes dependent on his daughter and admits: “Who would have thought, when her child was born, that over time he would come crawling to her to ask for shelter? (179). Not only does he lose his economic and social status, but he also loses his sexual power throughout the novel. Whereas before “with his height, his beautiful bones, his olive skin, his flowing hair, he could always count on a certain magnetism”, now we look at him without noticing it. “Overnight he became a ghost” and had to learn “how to buy [women]” (7). His affair with Bev Shaw perhaps best demonstrates this loss of sexual power. David reminds himself to “not forget this day… After the sweet, young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is [Bev] what I came to.” That's what I'm going to have to get used to, and even less than that. (150). He stops “calling her poor Bev Shaw [because] if she’s poor, he’s bankrupt” (150). It is evident that on a personal level, David Lurie's wealth, status, and sexual power have changed by the end of the novel. But where was it redistributed? This question leads to a more complex analysis of this redistribution as a power struggle and places it in a historical context. In analyzing this novel, we must keep in mind that it takes place in post-apartheid South Africa, a country with a history of racial andcomplex politics. It is in this context that our story takes place. When David's daughter, Lucy, is raped by three black men, he describes it as "a story that speaks through them...A story of wrong" (156). Lucy recognizes rape as “the price of staying [on the farm]…[The rapists] see me as owing something. They see themselves as debt collectors, tax collectors” (158). When David's house is broken into, he describes it as "not an ordinary burglary." An assault team sets up, cleans the site, moves back loaded with bags, boxes, suitcases. Booty; war reparations; another incident in the great redistribution campaign” (176). This redistribution of wealth and power from the white colonialists to the indigenous group is perhaps best represented by Lucy's soon-to-be-born baby. In a way, this can be seen as a form of genetic redistribution – a mixing of genes from two different races. However, the way in which the child was conceived best illustrates the nature of these redistributions – often violent and forced. They only benefit one group at the expense of another. In each of the above cases, there is a strong sense of winners and losers. There is a unidirectional flow of money and power. This is clear in the case of David Lurie, who loses and never regains his wealth and social status. This is also evident in the struggle between the two different racial and social classes: power inexorably leaves the hands of the white colonialists and into the hands of people like Petrus. A striking similarity between the two cases of redistribution – personal and racial – is the use of economic language. Rape is presented as a form of tax collection. David's sexual impotence is described as a "bankruptcy." Even marriage is represented as a business transaction. Petrus proposes marriage to Lucy because he wants her “to be part of his establishment” (203). Lucy recognizes that “Petrus is not proposing a church marriage…He is proposing an alliance, an agreement. I bring the land, in exchange for which I am allowed to slip under its wing” (203). This element of economic utility in the depiction of marriage, sex and rape is disturbing and dehumanizing. This observation leads us to another form of redistribution in the novel, a little more subtle. Throughout the novel, Coetzee removes humanity from his human subjects and gives it instead to the animals. It does this by giving individualized attention to animals. An obvious example is the rape scene. One might expect him to describe the violence done to Lucy; instead, Coetzee never describes the rape. Instead, he describes, in great detail, the violence inflicted on Lucy's dogs. By shifting the narrative focus from Lucy to the dogs, Coetzee transfers humanity to the animals. This undeniable parallel drawn between animals and humans is also evident in many of the images used by Coetzee. For example, when David forces himself on Mélanie, she is described as “a mole rummaging around, [turning] her back to him” (25). She “relaxes, dies within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the fox’s jaws close on her neck” (25). When David sends the animal corpses to the incinerator, he wants to give them a proper burial, which is a human ritual. Throughout the novel he speaks of a dignified death, but honor and dignity are both human attributes. In his attempt to give animals these human rituals and attributes, David also transfers humanity to these animals. However, unlike other forms of redistribution, this shift in narrative orientation from humans to..