After having completed Coetzee's Disgrace, a more direct connection to post-colonialism is apparent. Rather than setting up a context in which racism in post-colonial South Africa can be discussed, Coetzee creates an environment that actually harbors it. The way in which Coetzee presents South Africa as a land of cruelty and violence, both in the attack on the narrator's daughter and the slaughter of unwanted dogs, brings to mind Achebe's critism of Conrad. Achebe says, "Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as "the other world," the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality." In many ways, this is what Coetzee has done.

The narrator's daughter, Lucy, says, "It was done with such personal hatred. That was what stunned me more than anything. The rest was...expected. But why did they hate me so? I had never set eyes on them." It's as if Lucy is saying she expected to be attacked because the blacks in South Africa resent her for encroaching upon what is now rightfully theirs. And the question of why they hated her can only produce the answer that she represents the white establishment they have come to resent. The men go unpunished, and Lucy's neighbor even harbors one of them because they are of the same people. Lucy learns she is pregnant from the attack and will marry her neighbor for protection, which she agrees is, "humiliating." This certainly presents Africa as "the other world" in which "refinement" is mocked by "triumphant beastiliaty." When Lucy says, "Perhaps that is what I muyst learn to accept. To start again at ground level. With nohing..." her statement is reminiscent of what the South Africans probably thought when the whites moved in and took over. Lucy echoes reverse racism and in not prosectuing the attackers attempts in her own way not to be perceived as racist.

Lurie himself is often racist in his thinking, although he would probably disagree and argeu that racism is against his refined sensibilities. He says, "Not Mncedisi? Not Nqabayakhe? Nothing unpronounceanle, just Pollux?" about his daughter's attacker's name. He even notes details such as the fact that Lucy's market potatoes are washed clean but the natives' still has earth on them.

Coetzee truly presents Africa as "the other world" in the subplot of the animal hospital. Never mind the fact that millions of unwanted animals are put to death in the Western world. By including the clinic in the story of South Africa and adding some goats, Coetzee risks setting up Africa as an "antithesis" for Europe and civilization, according to Achebe's line of thinking.

However, there is an argument against Coetzee himself being racist, or even his novel. By setting up the racial complexities, Coetzee may simply be telling it as it is. Some whites feel shame, as Lucy and arguably the narrator do, for what their people have done to the blacks. The blacks are rightfully resentful for having been oppressed. Lurie may not be a racist so much as a product of this sytem and his own awkward inability to connect with humanity. The animal clinic subplot may be there to show that Lurie cannot connect with humanity, but since he can connect with animals show that he indeed does have heart.