Colonization in Coetzee

Its there but it’s hazy.

We have a white man in South Africa working for a university wherein her meets and begins an affair with his (presumably Asian looking) young female student. All of theses things have been used to classically represent either side of the power structure in a Colonialist state. And power is the most important thing about colonization and sex, the thing which this section was most concerned with.

Lurie’s dealings with Soraya are possibly the best stand in for the relationship between a colonizer and its conquest. Soraya is a black prostitite sells her body to white men with money and being in that station means that Lurie and her other clients don't have to actually think of her as a human being of any sort. No matter how much he may convince himself that there is something other than a business arrangement between that will never be the case. Soraya isn't even her real name and that doesn't matter to him either, just the experience does.

Her removal from the life can be seen as the act of rebellion and her commanding tone when Lurie attempts to contact her is a post-colonialist assertion of identity against her former imperial master. But Lurie is still in that haze of conquest and still feels he has a right to dominate women.

This is why he seems to be caught in a tailspin when the Isaacs scandal erupts. He failed to recognize that the world had changed and those who were oppressed have gained the power to combat their abusers.