When David goes from Cape Town to the Eastern Cape, he's not just leaving the city and entering the country (though the contrast between these regions, just in terms of lifestyle and setting, are also very important in the book) he's also traveling from a place that is secure for him, with fewer racial tensions, to a place where for decades systematized segregation has oppressed its inhabitants and informed their political views, their lifestyles, and perhaps most importantly, their opinions of others. When David leaves to go to live with Lucy in Salem, he's headed to a completely different part of the country: the Eastern Cape, which was long considered to be part of 'black' South Africa and where the Bantustans were established. In Disgrace, we see it as being more developed and cosmopolitan. Cape Town was generally considered to be part of 'white' South Africa during Apartheid. The novel begins in the far Western reaches of South Africa in Cape Town, where David is a professor at the University.

Disgrace takes place only several years after the end of Apartheid, and as a result, knowing a little bit about the geography and systems of Apartheid are really helpful in understanding the undertones of this book.

When blacks were deprived of their citizenship, they were divided into self-governing tribes called Bantustans. Under Apartheid, blacks were not even considered to be legal citizens of South Africa, and they were forced to attend separate schools, go to separate hospitals, and receive separate public services. It was official policy under which the rights of blacks were severely limited and under which whites, though the minority in terms of numbers, were in charge. Apartheid, which in Afrikaans means 'separateness,' was a system held in place from 1948 until 1994. Coetzee's novels, Disgrace takes place in his native South Africa, a country that for many years was ruled under a system of racial segregation called Apartheid.

Disgrace de coetzee