Miscegenation, Desire and Rape: The Shifting Ground of Disgrace

Summary

I discuss three novels that draw on different forms of sexual contact across the colour line, namely Turbott Wolfe by William Plomer ([1926]1976), Alan Paton's (1953) Too Late the Phalarope and Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999). These novels respectively explore miscegenation, interracial sex, and interracial rape. What unites these narratives is their anatomisation of the response in white society to such sexual encounter, crucially indicting sexual contact as a social trope that defines relationships of power. Despite its recurrence, the trope is nonetheless responsive to societal change. An obvious and yet significant difference is that in the postapartheid society represented in Disgrace, interracial sex is not forbidden. I argue that the convention of interracial sexual contact within white South African writing is structured around the signifier “transgression”, and that J.M. Coetzee retains this signifier as a point of reference within the trope, by shifting its overt content from interracial desire to interracial rape. I further consider the formal duplicity of Disgrace, whereby racialised discourse embedded in the realist facet of the narrative is not erased or subsumed by its metafictional properties.

Opsomming

Ek bespreek drie romans wat gegrond is op verskillende vorme van seksuele kontak oor die kleurgrens heen, naamlik Turbott Wolfe deur William Plomer ([1926]1976), Too Late the Phalarope deur Alan Paton (1953) en Disgrace deur J.M. Coetzee (1999). Hierdie romans verken respektiewelik rassevermenging, seks tussen mense uit verskillende rassegroepe en verkragting oor die kleurgrens heen. Die drie verhale se samebindende krag is hul ontleding van die respons uit die wit samelewing op sodanige seksuele kontak en hul aanklag hierteen as 'n maatskaplike wending wat magsverhoudinge definieer. Nieteenstaande die feit dat dit by herhaling voorkom, is hierdie wending tog vatbaar vir maatskaplike verandering. 'n Voor die hand liggende en tog beduidende verskil is dat in die post-apartheid samelewing wat in Disgrace verteenwoordig word, interras-seks nie verbode is nie. Ek betoog dat die konvensie van seksuele kontak tussen rasse binne wit Suid-Afrikaanse literêre werke om die “oortreding”-aanduier gestruktureer is en dat J.M. Coetzee hierdie aanduier as 'n verwysingspunt binne die wending behou deur die klaarblyklike inhoud vanaf wellus tussen rasse na interras-verkragting verskuif. Ek kyk ook vervolgens na die formele duplisiteit van Disgrace waarvolgens rassediskoers wat in die realisfaset van die verhaal veranker is, nie uitgewis of deur sy metafiktiewe eienskappe gesubsumeer word nie.