Mimicry―A Postcolonial Reading of Disgrace.docVIP

Mimicry―A Postcolonial Reading of Disgrace 　　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-old’s” Faced with the scandal, Lurie is forced to resign and leaves Cape Town for his daughter Lucy’s 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