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Debangshu Dey

Mr. Bird

ENG4U1-02

18th January 2011

Social Order: The Way to Behave

A Brief Study of Social order in King Lear and Disgrace

An anarchist condemns social order if it denies the exhibition of liberty in the simplest of

terms. Social order at the expense of liberty is a bargain. Every great civilization is ruled by its

own customs and conventions. Every civilization has had its style. The style is easily visible in

architecture, paintings, poetry and in their social order. Disintegration of social order can be

attributed to one of the factors of the decline of any great empire, whether it be the massive

Roman Empire or the violent Mongolian Empire. In the absence of equality, institutions crumble

at the mere sight of the vindictive liberators who oppose the oppression. The institution need not

be a rightful one. The fall of authority is evident in King Lear written by William Shakespeare

and in Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee. In the process of decline of supremacy, certain human

emotions prevail. They tend to come out of the ordinary. They would have been suppressed if the

jurisdiction of authority had been sustained. The fall of the reign creates a void which the

subordinates fill. They tend to rise against oppression resulting in the disruption of the chain of

being. The hidden emotions and the rise of subordinates are primary themes in King
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Lear and in Disgrace. In the absence of social order, the animal instincts prevail and the

subordinates become superior.

The triumph of animal instincts over normality is visible in King Lear. The animal

instincts in King Lear are of subhuman nature. They tend to constitute more of Visigothan

attitudes than Athenian ones. The excess of Visigothan attitudes of immorality and ingratitude

result in social disintegration. Social order establishes a moral code. When Lear gives up his

authority, it creates a hole in the fabric through which diabolic attitudes slip into the lives of

characters. These inhumane emotions are personified by the characters of Goneril and Regan.

Goodness and evil are present in specific proportions in an individual. The excess of one over the

other determines the character of a person. If the analogy holds true, then the daughters are

overridden by vicious and barbarian attributes. This is easily visible in the animal imagery used

throughout the play. Animals such as kites, sea monsters and serpents are compared to the

ungrateful daughters. Lear recognizes the venomous trait of Goneril as he ponders “how sharper

than a serpent’s tooth it is/ to have a thankless child!” (Shakespeare, I, iv, 288-9). The animal

emotion of being flattered by the masters is also portrayed. King Lear is “flattered like a dog”

(Shakespeare, IV, iv, 98). He dons the convincing flattery of his daughters. Like a dog, his ego is

massaged and caressed. Later, he is dumped into the forest because of his senility. King Lear

indicates there is only a subtle difference between animals and humans when he says, “Allow not

nature more than nature needs,\ Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s” (Shakespeare, II,iv,88-9). In a

way, humans fall to an animal like state if they are rid of their heavenly virtues.
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The animal instincts in Disgrace are of a different kind than in King Lear. They are

constituted of more of a sexual nature rather than evil characteristics. David Lurie, the

protagonist quits his job at the university because he gets involved in an impulsive affair with

one of his females students. He believes “a woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is

the part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it” (Coetzee, 16). His

affair with her is publicized in Cape Town. He is called in front of the university inquiry panel.

He denies his guilt and instead called himself “the Servant of Eros” (Coetzee, 51). Thus he falls

prey to his unhindered inclination toward the opposite sex. David retreats to the countryside and

his daughter. Lucy lives all by herself in post-apartheid South Africa. She is surrounded by

blacks who were treated like animals earlier. David justifies the sexual instincts of the men

illustrating the ‘Kenilworth spectacle’. The ‘Kenilworth spectacle’ is an incident where a dog

was punished for following its instinct whenever a bitch walked by. David says “desire is another

story. No animal will accept justice of being punished for following its instinct” (Coetzee, 90).

Lucy wonders whether males should be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked. She

questions their morality. Her inquisition of lustful characteristics is important as she falls prey to

the plundering of sexual ecstasy by three native African men. She lives five hours out of Cape

Town in Salem. She lives in a farmland with not much of David’s impression of ‘civilized

people’ around. They live “two hours from the nearest police station” (Coetzee 156). One can

certainly draw up a picture of an ambience absent of any sort of jurisdiction. The inability of the

police to apprehend the three violators instigates resentment in the mind of David. The police’s

inability eliminates the fear of punishment from the minds of the assaulters. This opens a

prospect for the men to follow their instincts unchecked. The absence of social order in the
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vicinity is the prime reason for her rape. Anyone familiar with the post-apartheid era in South

Africa knows that incidents like these were published in papers in the late 1990s. One can

certainly come to the conclusion that the African men were arbitrarily granted the free will to

practice their inborn instincts, without falling prey to onslaughts of the whites in South Africa

anymore.

In King Lear, the absence of a dictating authority results in the rise of subordinates. King

Lear gives up his kingdom to his daughters. In a way he disassociates himself from the chain of

being. He surrenders his authority granted by God. He compromises his filial relationship when

he asks to be taken into his daughters’ castles. The oncoming disorder becomes more apparent

with the onset of the storm. The vacancy created by Lear leads to the disruption of Lear’s

relationship with his subordinates. Kent advises Lear to not to banish Cordelia. The Fool tries to

push Lear towards sanity. These subordinates of the king go against the great chain of being.

They inflict their opinions on someone who is superior to them. These instances reveal that the

chain of being is disrupted as the subjects prevail over the masters. They were not granted a

higher position in authority, but they patronize the king. The simultaneous disorder in family

relationships and in the state is reflected in the disorder of nature, as in the raging storm. Lear

equates his loss of reason to "a tempest in [his] mind" (Shakespeare, III, iv, 13). The chain of

being is also disrupted when the superiors stoop down to the level of insignificant subjects. King

Lear meets Poor Tom in the forest. In this case, the real identity of Poor Tom is irrelevant as

Lear is acquainted with a poverty-stricken destitute who occupies the lowest rank in the chain.

Royalty comes in level with poverty. The juxtaposition of the extreme hierarchal levels

illustrates the vulnerability of humans to switch their positions. The transitions are indeed
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accidental as none of the characters desire to leave their inherited positions, but they fail to cling

to them.

For David and other whites in Disgrace, the end of the apartheid is the end of their social

order. David raises a concern to Lucy asking “how can one bring up a child when there is

anarchy all around” (Coetzee, 9). Anarchy represents the absence of social order. There is a

conflict between appearance and reality in South Africa. The international community believes

the end of the apartheid resulted in absolute peace, but the previous suppressors believe they live

amongst misery. It is a recurring motif throughout the novel, evident in the speeches of Bill

Shaw and Ettinger who condemn the end of apartheid. David uses The Prelude by William

Wordsworth to explain whether imagination can be saved from the onslaughts of reality, a reality

that he lives among dogs. Coetzee shows that the connections between dogs and humans are

intricately bound. It is similar to the relations between the blacks and the whites, where the

whites cling to their political place of privilege and oppression. Lucy’s dogs exist to provide

security. It may also be interpreted that the dogs provided security for the white population of

Africa. From the perspective of the native African, the dogs are lethal. These dogs exist to

brutalize and dehumanize the African. The dogs reminded him of his earlier status in the South

African community. This explains the motive behind the brutal murder of her dogs by the native

African men. After the native Africans are granted civil liberties, they lived among the whites

who can no longer enjoy being the privileged race. Another instance where we see the earlier

subordinates higher than the rulers is in the situation where David Lurie is tried by a

commission. It is not comprised of even a single white. David is tried by people who were

neglected in the past. More importantly, they were considered subordinate to the white race. On
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the other hand, Lucy wants “to share some of our human privilege with the beasts. [She] [does

not] want to come back in another existence as a dog or a pig and have to live as dogs or pigs

under us” (Coetzee, 74). She is aware of the social stratum but she blatantly disregards it.

Through the characters, Coetzee reminds us of the inhumane ways we treat the ones we consider

the inferior race.

The prime reason for the fall of social order in King Lear and in Disgrace is due to the

fact that equality is not preached prior to the disintegration in both the works. Shakespeare and

Coetzee place their protagonists in the extremes: Lear, an irresponsible king and David, an

intellectual snob who is contemptuous of others and also a person who commits outrageous

mistakes. They put their characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it

means to be human. One part of which is to preach the divine characteristics of equality. Lear

and David come to terms with reality. They realize that everyone around them has a rightful

place in the social stratum, a position to stand shoulder to shoulder with others. There has always

been a conflict between Natural law and Positive law. The former preaches society should be run

on divine principles whereas the latter, paradoxically, illustrates equality should be granted to the

ones worthy of it. Apparently, both may settle on one fact, the fact that the universe is founded

upon the cosmic law of equality. Any discrepancy results in a disgrace.

Works Cited

Coetzee, J. M. Disgrace. London: Random House, 1999.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. New York: Washington Square Press, 1993.