Quote 21
"No, I have not sought counseling nor do I intend to seek it. I am a grown man. I am not receptive to being counseled. I am beyond the reach of counseling." (6.31)
David doesn't just seem averse to the idea of being counseled; he seems outright insulted by the suggestion. His retort? "I'm a grown man." The thought of being counseled is framed in part as an affront to his masculinity.
Quote 22
Abuse: he was waiting for the word. Spoken in a voice quivering with righteousness. What does she see, when she looks at him, that keeps her at such a pitch of anger? A shark among the helpless little fishies? Or does she have another vision: of a great thick-boned male bearing down on a girl-child, a huge hand stifling her cries? How absurd! Then he remembers: they were gathered here yesterday in this same room, and she was before them, Melanie, who barely comes to his shoulder. Unequal: how can he deny that? (6.70)
OK, so just to get things straight, here we get David thinking about a woman thinking about things from his male perspective. Got it? Good. This moment is revealing of gender-guided biases from both sexes. David thinks that it is ridiculous for a woman to play on any pre-conceived notions of what men do to women in a situation like this – that is, until he realizes that Melanie has spoken to them already. What is interesting about this scene is the way he envisions Farodia picturing him as a "shark" among "fishies" – a ruthless, powerful predator that goes after someone small, helpless, and weak.
Quote 23
"I thought I would indulge myself. But there is more to it than that. One wants to leave something behind. Or at least a man wants to leave something behind. It's easier for a woman."
"Why is it easier for a woman?"
"Easier, I mean, to produce something with a life of its own."
"Doesn't being a father count?"
"Being a father…I can't help feeling that, by comparison with being a mother, being a father is a rather abstract business." (7.37-41)
What David seems to be trying to say is, men pretty much go around spreading their seed, while women carry a child. Being a father, from his point of view, is as simple as having sex; mothers get more credit for producing "something with a life of its own." It seems that David wants to produce his opera as a way of creating and carrying something to term that he can call his own – something that he nurtured every step of the way.
Quote 24
"Can I guess?" he says. "Are you trying to remind me of something?"
"Am I trying to remind you of what?"
"Of what women undergo at the hands of men." (13.53-55)
After Lucy is raped, he wonders if his relationship with Melanie can be considered to be the same kind of violation as Lucy's rape. Here, we get the hint that he's insecure about the way Lucy sees him now that she has been a victim of sexual assault.
Quote 25
You weren't there. You don't know what happened. He is baffled. Where, according to Bev Shaw, according to Lucy, was he not? In the room where the intruders were committing their outrages? Do they think he does not know what rape is? Do they think he has not suffered with his daughter? What more could he have witness than he is capable of imagining? Or do they think that, where rape is concerned, no man can be where the woman is? Whatever the answer, he is outraged, outraged at being treated like an outsider. (16.54)
From David's perspective, it seems like Bev and Lucy are somehow bonded in a girls-only club that he can't join, and it's frustrating. It's tough for him to be an outsider, but then again, do you think it's possible for him to truly commiserate with Lucy without knowing what it is like to be a woman during sex?
Quote 26
He pauses. The pen continues its dance. A sudden little adventure. Men of a certain kind. Does the man behind the desk have adventures? The more he sees of him the more he doubts it. He would not be surprised if Isaacs were something in the church, a deacon or a server, whatever a server is. (19.40)
This part is really interesting because it shows us that there isn't one straightforward masculine "type." David is a different kind of man that Mr. Isaacs is, and so while David might follow certain sexual instincts, it doesn't mean that every man does. It sort of throws any possible arguments about male nature out the window, doesn't it?
Quote 27
Not for the first time, he wonders whether women would not be happier living in communities of women, accepting visits from men only when they choose. Perhaps he is wrong to think of Lucy as homosexual. Perhaps she simply prefers female company. Or perhaps that is all that lesbians are: women who have no need of men. (12.45)
What catches our attention here is the idea that David has already considered whether or not women are better off without men. How does this reflect on his own actions?
Quote 28
"Anyway," he concludes, "having said farewell to the city, what do I find myself doing in the wilderness? Doctoring dogs. Playing right-hand man to a woman who specializes in sterilization and euthanasia."
Lucy laughs. "Bev? You think Bev is part of the repressive apparatus? Bev is in awe of you! You are a professor. She has never met an old-fashioned professor before. She is frightened of making grammar mistakes in front of you." (11.33-34)
Regional differences affect the way people regard one another. Maybe David hasn't thought about it before, but just as he forms opinions and judgments of everyone he meets, so do they examine him. In this case, doesn't it seem like Bev regards David as some kind of mythical creature?
Quote 29
"You will marry Lucy," he says carefully. "Explain to me what you mean. No, wait, rather don't explain. This is not something I want to hear. This is not how we do things."
We: he is on the point of saying, We Westerners. (22.80-81)
This is a classic "Us versus Them" moment, and it plays out through the contrast between city and country ways. The proposition that Petrus will take Lucy on as his third wife seems to be a totally reasonable idea to Petrus, but it is completely absurd to David.
Quote 30
"His pleasure in living has been snuffed out. Like a leaf on a stream, like a puffball on a breeze, he has begun to float toward his end. He sees it quite clearly, and it fills him with (the word will not go away) despair. The blood of life is leaving his body and despair is taking its place, despair that is like a gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat." (13.13)
Suffering doesn't just have to be a product of what you feel, either physically or emotionally. Sometimes not feeling can arouse feelings of suffering. For David, despair is kind of like an invisible, tasteless, undetectable force that takes away the joy of living.
Quote 31
He tells himself that he must be patient, that Lucy is still living in the shadow of the attack, that time needs to pass before she will be herself. But what if he is wrong? What if, after an attack like that, one is never oneself again? What if an attack like that turns one into a different and darker person altogether? (15.17)
This passage shows us that suffering isn't just something experienced inwardly; it is also something that affects one's perception of and interactions in the outside world. Lucy's suffering causes her to become snippy with him, and we can only guess that her opinions of other people have changed forever.
Quote 32
"I am sorry for what I took your daughter through. You have a wonderful family. I apologize for the grief I have caused you and Mrs. Isaacs. I ask for your pardon." (19.102)
When David apologizes to Mr. Isaacs, he acknowledges the suffering that he put Melanie and her whole family through. Do you think it eases their pain or Melanie's pain to know that he is now sorry for what he did?
Quote 33
"In my own terms, I am being punished for what happened between myself and your daughter. I am sunk into a state of disgrace from which it will not be easy to lift myself. It is not a punishment I have refused. I do not murmur against it. On the contrary, I am living it out from day to day, trying to accept disgrace as my state of being. Is it enough for God, do you think, that I live in disgrace without term?" (19.106)
Here we see a connection between suffering and disgrace that is highly personal for David. When he says that he is living out a punishment for what happened between him and Melanie, what do you think he means? Do you think he's started to see his own actions toward Melanie in Lucy's sexual assault?
Quote 34
"It's always complicated, this harassment business, David, complicated as well as unfortunate, but we believe our procedures are good and fair, so we'll just take it step by step, play it by the book. My one suggestion is, acquaint yourself with the procedures and perhaps get legal advice." (5.50)
Hakim paints a pretty fair picture of the University's system of judging harassment cases. Do you think it turns out that way?
Quote 35
"It reminds me too much of Mao's China. Recantation, self-criticism, public apology. I'm old-fashioned, I would prefer simply to be put against a wall and shot. Have done with it."
"Shot? For having an affair with a student? A bit extreme, don't you think, David? It must go on all the time. It certainly went on when I was a student. If they prosecuted every case the profession would be decimated."
He shrugs. "These are puritanical times. Private life is public business. Prurience is respectable, prurience and sentiment. They wanted a spectacle: breast-beating, remorse, tears if possible. A TV show, in fact. I wouldn't oblige." (7.85-87)
In this instance, David seems to feel like he was judged without justice. He sees his punishment as being part of a public relations circus that had nothing to do with what was right and what was wrong.
Quote 36
As gently as he can, he offers his question again. "Lucy, my dearest, why don't you want to tell? It was a crime. There is no shame in being the object of a crime. You did not choose to be the object. You are an innocent party." (13.51)
From David's point of view, the disgrace that Lucy feels is getting in the way of her right to seek justice. This is an interesting moment for David, who was once on the receiving end of such a search for justice.
Quote 37
"It was not simply theft, Petrus," he persists. "They did not come just to steal. They did not come just to do this to me." He touches the bandages, touches the eye-shield. "They came to do something else as well. You know what I mean, or if you don't know you can surely guess. After they did what they did, you cannot expect Lucy calmly to go on with her life as before. I am Lucy's father. I want those men to be caught and brought before the law and punished. Am I wrong? Am I wrong to want justice?"
He does not care how he gets the words out of Petrus now, he just wants to hear them. (14.42-43)
When David says he wants justice, he means he wants Petrus to admit that Lucy was raped and to help move the case forward by giving David and the police any information he might have on the intruders. Sorry, David, you're not getting it.
Quote 38
"I have no intention of involving you in the case, Petrus. Tell me the boy's name and whereabouts and I will pass on the information to the police. Then we can leave it to the police to investigate and bring him and his friends to justice. You will not be involved, I will not be involved, it will be a matter for the law." (16.10)
David paints a rather sterilized, emotionless vision of the law here. Nevertheless, as we learned from his experience being tried before the committee, it's never this black and white. Petrus must know this too, because he refuses to cooperate.
Quote 39
A flurry of anger runs through him, strong enough to take him by surprise. He picks up his spade and strikes whole strips of mud and weed from the dam-bottom, flinging them over his shoulder, over the wall. You are whipping yourself into a rage, he admonishes himself: Stop it! Yet at this moment he would like to take Petrus by the throat. (14.45)
David knows he shouldn't hate Petrus, but he just can't help it. Wouldn't you want to throttle someone who doesn't seem to care that your daughter was viciously assaulted?
Quote 40
I have met him, he might respond. A right little prick, he might add. But he too is well brought up. (20.40)
David returns to Cape Town only to encounter a smug, successful young professor, Dr. Otto, who has taken over David's office. Here we find David longing to verbally slam this guy, but here in the city politeness keeps people from speaking badly about the people they hate.