How Does David Lurie Change

The Change of David Lurie In J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, the main character is David Lurie, a middle aged man who works at a university in South Africa. He has been divorced twice, and has one daughter. He lives his day to day life going to work, then coming home. But he has strong sexual desires that he expresses by going to a brothel once a week, as this quote shows, “For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well. On Thursday afternoons he drives to Green Point. Punctually at two p.m. he presses the buzzer at the entrance to Windsor Mansions, speaks his name, and enters.” He continues to go and meet the same girl for a about a year. After this girl, Soraya, leaves without a reason,
he becomes obsessed and stalks her. She catches him and asks him to stop. He respects her request and goes back to his normal life. Not long after that situation he meets a girl that is in one of his classes, Melanie. He begins to get close to her and eventually invites her over. They end up having sexual relations and it blows up to a huge scandal. He completely takes responsibility for his actions and faces all the repercussions without argument. At this time is when he begins to change. David Lurie is depicted as a typical one track minded man.
He claims he cannot change himself which this quote suggests, “That is his temperament. His temperament is not going to change, he is too old for that. His temperament is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body.” But he shows that he can slightly change his ways by his actions as the book progresses. He begins the book by just being the average man, getting through the work day. His weekly sex encounters is what motivated him throughout the week. He begins to get comfortable with his escort, and gains a halfway stalker mentality. Once she stops working at the brothel, he calls her repeatedly and finds out her real name and where she lives. He continues to follow her until she tells him to
stop. He starts to realize maybe his ways were wrong, but then he meets a girl in his class. He begins to chat with a girl named Melenie. And eventually begins to flirt with her and invites her over to dinner. As the story progresses he begins to get the same obsession with her that he did with Soraya. He eventually leads it to sexual relations with the young girl. It then started to escalate and the entire university knows of his actions with the student. When Melanies father finds out, a lawsuit is formed. David accepts the reprecussions of his actions and takes a leave from the university, because he knows the severity of the situation. “After a certain age, all affairs are serious. Like heart attacks.” He then goes and visits his daughter Lucy out in the country. It is almost a vacation for him, a time for him to recollect on his thoughts and actions. This is when he starts to realize he needs to change his way of life. He sees that his daughter is grown and making a life for herself. He likes the country side and starts to help his daughter on the farm. Everything is going good as he sees how is daughter is living. He likes the simple life outside the city. He respects his daughter but at the same time wonders if she is ever going to branch out and leave the farm.
Then one day as the father and daughter were on the farm, 3 boys show up.
The boys assault the father and daughter. The boys killed many of Lucys dogs and beat up David. David begins to realize what he has in his daughter and reveals it with a thought, “Count yourself lucky to have escaped with your life. Count yourself lucky not to be a prisoner in the car at this moment, speeding away, or at the bottom of a donga with a bullet in your head. Count Lucy lucky too. Above all Lucy.” It shows how he is changing to genially care for the ones close to him. It is later revealed that Lucy was raped by one of the boys. David and Lucys relationship begins to start falling apart as he does not agree with all the choices she has made. David decides to give Lucy some space and begins to start helping a lady named Bev at the local animal clinic. This leads to David and Bev having sexual relations at the clinic. Which suggests that David as regressed to his old ways. Towards the end of the book, David makes things right with Melanie and her family by talking to the father and going to eat dinner. After the dinner, David receives a call from Bev saying he needs to come back Cape Town. He is then informed that Lucy is pregnant. This was a huge blow to David, who eventually sees the boy in public and speaks his mind to him. As the book ends David had become close to a crippled dog. He states that he is “giving him up” and puts the dog
down.
All the actions David did in the book showed his struggle with his ways. He has trouble controlling his sexual behavior. His stalker like relationships with young women and his tough relationship with his daughter. He shows progress of changing his ways once he goes to the farm with Lucy. He looks as if he can live a simple life, until the robbery. And then he seems to fall for his old ways again with Bev in the clinic. The book ends with him saying, “im giving him up”, which to me is him saying I am giving up on myself too. Realizing that he is who he is. The book shows him changing from a typical libido driven man, to a relaxed man in the country side, and then back to his original ways. He realized this and eventually just gave up.