Mimicry—A Postcolonial Reading of Disgrace

刘翠萍

Abstract: Postcolonial literature is a result of the interaction between the imperial culture and the indigenous cultural practices. It is a hot commodity these days. This paper sets out to analyze the work Disgrace in a postcolonial theory—mimicry. Instead of only talking about mimicry, the author introduces the postcolonial studies in western academy.

Key words:Disgrace；postcolonial reading；mimicry；revenge

【中图分类号】G640

I. Introduction

The novel Disgrace was published in 1999 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. The novel focuses on the disgrace of the white in the new South Africa when they lose power. The novel portrays a struggle and guilt of a once dominant group struggling to cope with a changing world in an apartheid-free South Africa. Actually it replays the white crime in the past through the black violence at present. As is pointed out by Charles Sarvan, Disgrace “can be read as a political text, a post-apartheid work that deals with the difficulties confronting the white community in South Africa and with some of the choices available to them”.

Set in post-apartheid South Africa, the novel tells the story of David Lurie, a twice divorced, 52-year-old professor at Cape Technical University. As a professor, Lurie takes no interest in his job but feels great interest in looking for the unusual way, sex, to prove his energy and privilege. His obsession with the prostitute ends up when he finds that she has a family and she does not belong to him. Lurie gratifies his eroticism in the young Melanie—whom he describes as having hips “as slim as a twelve-year-olds” Faced with the scandal, Lurie is forced to resign and leaves Cape Town for his daughter Lucys smallholding in the country. There he struggles to restart their father-daughter relationship and comes to understand the changing relations of blacks and whites in the new South Africa. But one day three black strangers appear at their house and rape Lucy and hurt Lurie. Both of them are badly shaken and thus are further alienated from each other. Lucy is found to be pregnant with the child of one of her black rapists. Later, they find out that one of the rapists is a relative of Petrus, who is “co-proprietor” of Lucy. Now thoroughly humiliated, Lurie devotes himself to volunteering at the animal clinic, where he helps put down diseased and unwanted dogs. It is here, the author seems to suggest, that Lurie gains a redeeming sense of compassion which has been absent from his life up to this point.

II. Theoretical Framework

There are various debates about the issues put forward by postcolonial studies and hot disputes exist outside and even inside the field. It should be noticed that the development and maturity of postcolonial studies have experienced a rather long period of time. In a literal sense, “postcolonial” is that which has been preceded by colonization.

Mimicry reveals something in so far as it is distinct from what might be called an itself that is behind. The effect of mimicry is camouflage. It is not a question of harmonizing with the background, but against a mottled background, of becoming mottled—exactly like the technique of camouflage practiced in human warfare.Mimicry is an increasingly important term in postcolonial theory, because it has come to describe the relationship between colonizers and the colonized. When colonial discourse encourages the colonized subject to ‘mimic the colonizer, by adopting the colonizers cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values, the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits. Rather, the result is a ‘blurred copy of the colonizer that can be quite threatening. This is because mimicry is never very far from mockery, since it can appear to parody whatever it mimics