The Sins of David: Forgiveness and Surrender in J. M. Coetzee‘s Disgrace and the Story of King David and Bathsheba

Abstract

In “The Sins of David,” Brittany Kraus wrestles with the problem of forgiveness in South African writer J. M. Coetzee‘s most controversial and closely studied novel, Disgrace. Many scholars have written about this book, but none have carefully examined the relationship between its title character, David Lurie, and King David of the Old Testament, who both commit sexual transgressions and must then find a way to atone for them. As Kraus argues with great inventiveness and subtlety, the resources of a sacred framework of forgiveness are continually evoked but also denied in Coetzee‘s novel, which tries to imagine what secular grace might look like in post-apartheid South Africa, and does not reach any comforting conclusions.

Dr. Alice Brittan