Readers who follow J. M. Coetzee closely will be wary of too easy a linkage between historical events and their fictional reprisal in his novels. In Disgrace, Coetzee involves us in the struggle of a discredited university teacher Lurie to defend his own and his daughter Lucy’s honour in the new circumstances that have arisen in South Africa after the collapse of white supremacy. Here, he has been concerned with important moral issues including post-apartheid and race relations in his native South Africa, human rights, animal rights and social and political injustice. The novel deals with a question that is central to his works: “Is it possible to evade racial history?” In a review of this book for the New York Times (November 11, 1999), Christopher Lehman Hampt noted that the book reflects the uncertainty of post-apartheid South Africa, where, “all values are shifting”. However, in this essay, I would like to analyse that Disgrace is part of a transition in South African writing, from the fictional representation of difference among people based on the biological notions of blood and genes to notions of difference among people based on culture and social origin. I would also discuss the psychological, ethical and political implications of the disgraceful incidents occurred in the lives of Lurie and Lucy with reference to the chronological development of the plot of Disgrace. In order to understand that, we need to have a glimpse of the history of apartheid and post-apartheid in South Africa. From 1948 until the early 1990s, white South Africans ruled the country through a system called, ‘apartheid’, meaning ‘separateness’ in the Afrikaans language. In other words, apartheid is the policy of ‘separate development’ involving racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-white groups that prevailed in South Africa until 1990. It allowed the small, white population of South Africa to control the country’s large, black population. The blacks could not vote or hold certain jobs or live near whites. ‘Segregation’ denied blacks many basic rights and compelled them to live in separate areas and go to different schools. In different ways, the whites exercised their power over the blacks. In brief, apartheid consisted of numerous laws that allowed the ruling white minority in South Africa to segregate, exploit and terrorize the vast majority of blacks. However, though the law of apartheid came to an end in December 22, 1993, post-apartheid South Africa was by no means idyllic and still has many problems. Violence increased significantly in the country. Incidents of car hijacks increased and many commercial farmers either emigrated or gave up farming because of violence committed against them. From 1989 to 1994, the murder rate doubled and a young South African woman could be expected to be raped twice in her lifetime on average; that we will see in Lucy’s life here. Mhlongo says, racism still exists in South Africa, “although now it is no longer institutionalized or overt like before”. In short, violent crimes are rampant; robbery and vandalism frequent the countryside. And position of power is exchanged, as Michel Foucault says. However, Coetzee contemplates South Africa during its emergence from centuries of colonialism and settler racism, and reflects on the notion of being in post-apartheid South Africa. As the outrage from a history of oppression and violence cannot be suppressed, Coetzee brings racial tensions to the forefront of the novel. As the plot unfolds, the title of Disgrace refers to the fall from grace, which the main character David Lurie experiences in his professional life as a university professor, who has been left with nothing, neither romance nor vocational recourse and his subsequent falling from his position and statues in South African society. Likewise, Lurie’s daughter Lucy has, to some extent, accepted her disgrace or marginalized status in a black world. The novel starts with ––– “For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well”. From humanistic point of view, his sensual desire is considerable, at least towards prostitutes like Soraya. But from ethical point of view, his seduction of a student named Melanie is not acceptable; though according to him, she had a silent consent because she did not resist his approach: “She does not resist. All she does is avert herself: avert her lips, avert her eyes” (25). The relationship starts off because of Lurie’s extreme eagerness and devil-may-care attitude. Again, since it takes two to make a quarrel, we cannot spare Melanie either, because she has not lodged any complaint against Lurie after her first seduction. From psychological perspective, as the divorced Lurie cannot establish any emotional relationship with women, he seems to be an outcast. Perhaps because of such outlook, Melanie lets Lurie use her body and conceals her private disgrace from people. But excess of anything is very bad. Lurie makes love with Melanie in some more instances without her willingness. And she cannot bear it any longer because it distracts her attention from her academic performance. Again, suddenly Melanie stops attending classes. But Lurie ticks her off as present. Thus he is blinded by passion and from ethical implication, this illegal act is not justifiable not only in the eyes of the university authority, but also the readers. However, Melanie reveals everything to her boyfriend and father, both of whom rudely challenge Lurie and chastise him. Melanie’s boyfriend visits Lurie unexpectedly in his office one afternoon and threatens him with disclosure of the illegal relationship. Thus starts the disgraceful incidents in Lurie’s life. Subsequently, that night his car is vandalized, tires are deflated, glue is injected into door locks, newspaper is pasted over and windscreen, paintwork is scratched. In fact, politically his personal story is interwoven with the national predicament of post-apartheid South African whites. Now, Lurie’s relationship with Melanie epitomizes his brazen disregard for the law, societal rules, or ethics. In Melanie’s father’s words––– “We put our children in the hands of you people because we think we can trust you. [...]