Coetzee uses animals in his novel Disgrace to become metaphorical images of the characters and in some way the characters become animal-like characters. It also reflects the struggles that they go through in the post-colonial era.
Animals are significant in the novel Disgrace become metaphorical to the people in the novel and how their situations that they find themselves in change them to become the animals. A certain situation can make them result into a certain animal, but they also change from one animal to another animal, depending on what curve ball life troughs at them.
According to Patton (2009) it is clear that from the beginning of the novel David Lurie has a strong distinction between humans and animals. He believes that “We are from different order of creation from the animals.” (Coetzee: 1999, 74). Humans are not equal to animals in any way, humans have a soul that is not bound to them, before we are born we were already a soul, and when a person dies his soul leaves his body, where as an animal’s “souls are tied to their bodies and die with them.” (Coetzee, 1999, 78).David believes that animals do not have a proper soul, but his seeing changes and by the end of the novel, he finds that humans are equal to animals. He is in the room, the room where he and Bev organize the death of the animals, and David comes to a realisation and he thinks to himself “here the soul is yanked out of the body…” (Coetzee: 1999, 219).
According to Meier (2006): David Lurie explains in the beginning of the novel that his sexual intercourse with Soraya is like snakes, which can be seen as a negative image, that partake in intercourse. He describes his symbol to sex as “lengthy, absorbed, but rather abstract, rather dry, even at its hottest.” (Coetzee: 1999, 3). Later again David when he has intercourse with Melanie he describes her as a rabbit and himself as a fox, “like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck.” (Coetzee: 1999, 25). These images he uses is negative towards himself and it is seen clearly that he does not really care for Melanie or Soraya, but when his trail at the university is over and the students question him he becomes the defenceless animal, “They circle around him like hunters who have cornered a strange beast and do not know how to finish it off.”(Coetzee:1999, 56).
Even though he dislikes animals in the beginning, it is clear that David Lurie takes on metaphorical roles of different animals in the novel. Some of the animals he portrays is negative at first, but it progresses to a stage where he is not the hunting animal, but the hunted animal. The two sheep Petrus buys in order to slaughter for his party becomes a metaphorical image of David Lurie and Lucy Lurie (Wright; 2008). David Lurie also becomes a “dog” in the sense that he becomes the lowest denominator, since dogs are seen as “ground-level” animals, animals that are in the position of complete humiliation (Coleman: 2010). He has so much disgrace in his life, because of all the wrong he has done, therefore he can be seen as a dog.
Lucy has a great love of animals, she has a kennel on the farm and has a friend, Bev Shaw, who works at the animal clinic and there are geese and ducks that visit her on the farm (Goossen: 2007). Lucy becomes a metaphor of animals as well, a metaphor of a sheep: “Sheep do not own themselves, do not own their lives. They exist to be used, every last ounce of them, their flesh to be eaten, their bones to be crushed and fed to poultry. Nothing escapes, exept perhaps the gall bladder, which no one will eat. Descartes should have thought of that. The soul, suspended in the dark, bitter gall, hiding.” (Coetzee: 1999,123). So Lucy is also a sheep, she took her slaughter, rape, her abuse and now she is still living in the “shadow of the attack,…” (Coetzee: 1999, 124). She took it without any rebellious behaviour, accepting her fate just as sheep accepts their fate. This can also be seen as Lucy accepting the changes in South-Africa, she is willing to take part in the transformation, by not telling the police of the rape (Patton; 2009). Lucy becoming a dog: When David shows Lucy his disapproval of Bev and Bill Shaw, Lucy responds that she wouldn’t "want to come back in another existence as a dog or a pig and have to live as dogs or pigs live under us"(Coetzee: 1999, 74). This can be seen as foreshadowing, because after her attack later in the novel, she tells David that she will marry Petrus and she will accept that she will have nothing, “No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity.”(Coetzee: 1999, 205), she will live life “like a dog” ( Pölling-Vocke: 2004).

Animals also become metaphors to minor characters in the novel. According to Herron (2005), Soraya is a protective mother, when David Lurie goes to visit Soraya at her house he awakens animal instincts in her, "what should a predator expect when he intrudes into the vixen's nest, into the home of her cubs?" (Coetzee: 1999, 10).According to Coleman (2010), Pollux, a young man that is seen as a child, but he is not a child, is described, by David Lurie, as a jackal, “He is like a jackal sniffing around, looking for mischief.” (Coetzee: 2000, 208). According Meier (2006), Melanie is a hunted rabbit, she can’t escape the constant chase that David does to catch her and when he catches her she breaks in his jaws, he makes her feel lifeless when she is with him. According Wright (2008), Petrus introduces himself as the “dog-man”, he looks after the dogs and because of the segregation era he is still treated as a dog by others.

The metaphorical images that are given to the characters can be seen as what they become, because of what they are going through in their lives in the post-colonial era. They allow themselves to surrender to the animals in them, by becoming like animals.
Resources:

Coetzee, J.M. (1999). “Disgrace”. London: Vintage.

Coleman, D. (2010). “The “Dog-Man”: Race, Sex, Species, and Lineage in Coetzee’s Disgrace”. www.jstor.org/stable/25733433

Goossen, F.N. (2007). “The Importance of Animals in Coetzee's Age of Iron, Disgrace and The Lives of Animals”. http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2007-1128-201145/UUindex.html

Herron, T. (2005). “The Dog Man: Becoming Animal in Coetzee’s Disgrace.” http://research.uvu.edu/albrecht-crane/3090/herron.pdf

Meier, K. (2006). “Animals in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace”. http://www.greta-olson.com/docs/term-paper-final-corrected.pdf

Patton, P. (2009). “Becoming-Animal and Pure Life in Coetzee’s Disgrace” http://www.ariel.ucalgary.ca/ariel/index.php/ariel/article/download/3891/3828.
Pölling-Vocke, B. (2004). “The stylistic purpose of animals and the disgrace of a nation in J.M. Coetzee’s “Disgrace“. http://www.hockeyarenas.com/disgrace.htm
Wright, L. (2008). “Disgrace as J.M. Coetzee‟s Tempest”. http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1040/1/Disgrace.pdf