Content Warning: The novel and this guide discuss sexism, sexual assault, stalking, sexual grooming, violence, and racism.

Disgrace begins with David Lurie soliciting a sex worker named Soraya. This transactional, detached human interaction sets the tone for his relationships throughout the novel. Importantly, David is an arrogant narcissist who cannot empathize with anyone else. Each relationship he has with a woman is, in some way, a version of his initial interaction with Soraya. While he may not be paying these women for sex, he is always focused on enacting a transaction that satisfies his own desires. For instance, he forces himself on Melanie, disrupting her youth, ambition, and joy, while choosing to ignore how he hurts her.

David is aging and struggles with it. He has been divorced twice and he lives alone in a rapidly changing South Africa. The speed of changes in the world around him is a constant source of discomforting bafflement, but he largely refuses to engage with it. David is a specialist in Romantic poetry, but due to the demands of his changing world, he is forced to primarily teach communications courses. He is disgruntled by this and resents his students’ lack of interest in poetry, but he doesn’t attempt to understand why this might be.