Disgrace

After being rejected by Soraya, David feels lost and alone. He chats up one of his attractive students named Melanie Isaacs, and he convinces her to visit his home. Even as he does this, he is unsure if he is ready for a sexual relationship with a student, knowing that he would have to see her in class again in the role of her teacher. His attempts to talk to Melanie are fitful. Though she seems uninterested in his conversation about literature, she accepts his offer to dine with him. Following dinner, David asks her to spend the night with him, saying that she is too beautiful to sleep alone. He says that she has a “duty” to share her beauty with others. Melanie is hesitant, prompting David to recite a Shakespearean sonnet to seduce her. The attempt does not work, and Melanie leaves.

The next Sunday, David calls Melanie at her house, having found her telephone number in her student file. David urges Melanie to have lunch with him. At the restaurant, she is again hesitant about his advances. They return to his house and have sex, with David noting that she is very passive throughout. Afterward, she quickly leaves. The next day, she is not in class, and David sends her flowers. When he sees her in college the following day, he insists that she allow him to drive her home. In the car, he feels very attracted to her but notes that she is “no more than a child” (20). Melanie refuses his invitation to meet again. On Wednesday, she returns to his class. David lectures about The Prelude by William Wordsworth. He compares the poet’s wonder at seeing Mont Blanc to the experience of seeing a beautiful woman. At this point, he catches Melanie’s eye, and he believes that she is communicating her intimate desires to him.

Some days later, David watches some students rehearse a play in which Melanie has a part. He feels embarrassed for “sitting in the dark spying on a girl” (24). Later, he arrives at her apartment unannounced and forces her to have sex with him. Melanie does not physically resist him, though she is clearly unwilling to have sex with him. Afterward, she tells David to leave. Sitting in his car outside, David feels a wave of depression and regret. He is certain that he has made a mistake, though he assures himself that what he did was “not rape” (25), even if it was undesired.

Melanie does not attend class in the following days, though David records her as present and awards her a passing grade in the midterm. After a week, she comes to David’s apartment and asks him if she can spend the night. He makes up a bed for her “in his daughter’s old room” (26). In the morning, he goes to check on her and finds her in tears. She asks if she can stay with him for longer, and David is uncertain. Still, his desire for her compels him to say yes. Later, she slips out just as he returns from teaching. He suspects that she is exploiting him but reminds himself that he, too, is guilty of exploiting her.

David and Melanie have sex in the bed that was once occupied by David’s daughter, Lucy. Melanie quizzes David about whether he regularly has sex with students. In the following days, her boyfriend confronts David in his office. He tells David that Melanie talks about their sexual liaisons, and he pushes David’s papers off his desk before he leaves. That night, someone vandalizes David’s car.

When Melanie next comes to David’s class, she is accompanied by her boyfriend. There is an expectant “hush” among the students. David talks about Lord Byron, detailing the poet’s many scandalizing sexual encounters. Afterward, David invites Melanie to his office, noting that she looks unhappy and tired. She follows him, leaving her boyfriend behind. David criticizes her poor attendance and mentions the missed midterm. Melanie looks surprised but says nothing. David tells her not to make their situation complicated, as he has many “responsibilities.” That night, he sees Melanie on the back of a motorcycle driven by her boyfriend.

David finds a note in his faculty mailbox that informs him that Melanie has dropped his class. Soon after, David receives a telephone call from Melanie’s father, George Isaacs, asking David to speak to Melanie as she wants to drop out of school altogether. George does not know the truth about David’s relationship with Melanie, instead assuming that Melanie is overworked. David eventually calls Melanie, but she will not speak with him. Over the course of the next few days, very few students attend his classes, and David becomes certain that “the story must be out” (37). At the end of the week, George angrily confronts David and accuses him of having sex with Melanie. David walks away from him. The next day, David is called to a meeting with the vice-rector. He discovers that Melanie has filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. David is sure that Melanie would never file such a complaint herself. In his imagination, he assures himself that her father or roommate is responsible.

David meets with Vice-Rector Aram Hakim. Farodia Rassool, chair of the discrimination committee, and Elaine Winter, David’s department chair, are also present. Elaine reveals that Melanie’s complaint is being investigated, as are the discrepancies in Melanie’s school record (which David was responsible for). David says that he has “no defense.” Hakim outlines the disciplinary process, saying that a hearing will be held to determine David’s fate. Leaving the meeting in a fury, David realizes that he is the subject of all the campus’s gossip. He calls his lawyer, who suggests that Melanie may drop the charges if David agrees to attend “sensitivity training. Community service. Counselling” (43). David does not like the suggestion. Coincidentally, the campus happens to be holding a Rape Awareness Week. An organization named Women Against Rape sends a leaflet to David’s office, on which they write that his “DAYS ARE OVER” (43). David meets Rosalind, his second wife, from whom he is divorced. Rosalind has no sympathy for David. She criticizes him for being “too old to be meddling with other people’s children” (45). David tells her about his plans to visit Lucy, his daughter from his first marriage. The next day, Rosalind tells David that there is a story in the newspaper about him. He is described as a “professor on sex charge” (46).

The hearing investigates Melanie’s sexual harassment charge against David and the possible falsification of her record by David. Manas Mathabane, the religious studies professor, chairs the hearing alongside male and female colleagues. David accepts Melanie’s statement without reading it and pleads guilty. When Farodia Rassool suggests that he attend counseling, David rebukes her. He is not “receptive to being counselled” (49), he says, as he is a grown man. She accuses David of mocking the hearing through his insincerity. She says that he should be fired.

The Dean of Engineering, Desmond Swarts, expresses a desire for David to remain in his job. Vice-Rector Aram Hakim agrees. Instead, David confesses that he was overcome with passion during his meeting with Melanie, describing himself as a “servant of Eros” (52). Swarts criticizes him for mixing sex and imbalanced “power relations,” though Rassool notes that David is not specifying exactly what he is confessing to. He does not mention the pain or the exploitation for which he is responsible, she says. David finally admits to taking advantage of his position. He says that he was in the wrong and that he regrets what happened, though Rassool again questions his sincerity. David denounces Rassool’s accusation, saying that it is beyond the scope of the law.

David leaves the hearing. Outside, he is met by a large group of students from Women Against Rape. They ask him to apologize, and he refuses, instead saying that the experience enriched him. Later, Mathabane telephones David. He offers David a final chance to keep his job by issuing a prewritten statement that acknowledges his guilt and his abuse of power. This will be accepted by the rector, Mathabane says, in “a spirit of repentance” (58). However, David refuses to sign this statement because he says he does not feel genuine repentance. Mathabane is confused; he says that David does not even need to be sincere. However, David still refuses.