Reflective blog : Expert Lecture on " Waiting for the Barbarians" by R B Zala

Hello Readers,

This blog is a part of my thinking activity in which we have to write about "Waiting for the barbarians" by J. M. Coetzee. We had Guest lecture on "Waiting for the barbarians" by Dr.R.B.Zala sir on 8th and 9th January. This was good session with sir.

● About author:-

John Maxwell Coetzee is a South African–born novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and he won nobel prize in literature in 2003. He has also won the Booker Prize twice. Coetzee's first novel was Dusklands which was published in 1974. He has continued to produce novels at the rate of about one every three years. He has also written autobiographical novels, such as Boyhood, Youth and Summertime, short fiction, translations from Dutch and Afrikaans, and numerous essays and works of criticism.

" Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt."

- J M Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians.

"Once in every generation, without fail, 

There is an episode of hysteria about the Barbarians.

- The Magistrate,  Waiting for the Barbarians.

Waiting for Barbarians is not that much fantastic novel which deals with magical realism and so on but it can be considered as fable of post-colonial literature as well as it can also be viewed as within the context of the development of literary allegory. It is the story of people who are considered as 'Other' by civilized people.

◆ Characters :-

The Magistrate
Colonel Joll
Warrant Officer Mandel
Barbarian Girl or The noamad girl
Mai

◆ Summary:-

J.M.Coetzee’s “Waiting for the barbarians” centres around power struggles in a fictional colonial village.

“I have seen anything like it: two little discs of glass suspends in front of his eyes in loops of wire. Is he blind?”

The story began very symbolically  with the arrival of Colonel joll wearing a black glasses; representing his and the Empire’s hidden identity and evil intentions as well. He was travelling from town to town searching for the news for barbarians who lived outside the Empire’s boarder. Unnamed magistrate was living quite peaceful life in a remote outpost of the Empire until being visited by Colonel Joll. The entire plot moves with the spreading rumour that barbarians were planning to attack against Empire. Colonel Joll had been investigating whether the military action was needed or not. While he was searching for this, he found two native people near the granary, where some grain has gone missing. Colonel Joll suspected on them and questioned, old man died and however under the duress torture the young man falsely admitted to knowing of an impending barbarian uprising. After that Colonel Joll got confirmation that there was a need to launch a full-scale attack against barbarians. Because of all these doubt grew in the magistrate’s mind.

“What if your prisoner is telling the truth,” he asks, “yet finds he is not believed?” But Colonel Joll couldn’t believe anything a prisoner said unless it was extracted through pain. J.M.Coetzee wrote

“Pain is truth, all else is subjected to doubt”

In between during the time of temporary peace, the Magistrate pondered upon the legitimacy of imperialism and his role in this sinister institution. He happened to nurse a native wounded girl, in taking care of her to get back to the health however this process created a intimate bond between them. Finally the magistrate decided to take the girl back to her family. While returning back from there The Magistrate met with third Bureau, he was imprisoned and he was tortured a lot.  The time of the winter came and John with his army left the empire with giving promise to come back after winter and magistrate stepped back as leader of town.

With the discourse of the novel, we can say that Barbarians were never a real threat to the authority of the Empire. By terrorizing the population, or by forcing a so-called raid against barbarians, colonizer only wanted to control them, indeed what  third Bureau was purported to do.  As the Magistrate noted in the final passage of the novel, there were no barbarians to be seen after the lapse of the winter. From this it can be said that there were never any Barbarians attempted to overthrow the Empire before.

In this way the play deals with several themes such as fear of the Others, Imperialism, Interrogation,  Dominance and Masculinity and Savagery and Barbarism.

In this way Coetzee presented the institution of imperialism, that was also culturally prejudiced with being economical exploitative. In this way the story can be read as an allegory for most acts of conquest and subjugation with propagandistic declarations of protecting ‘civilization’ from ‘barbarians’.

Thus, it is a basic storyline of the novel, it also reminds us about Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal colony” , particularly about explore and officer’s role playing within unidentified colonial regime.