The barbarians are going to come, causing chaos and destroying the land, but aren’t the civilized people doing just that to the barbarians when they torture them? The barbarians in J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians are portrayed and treated as if they are below the status or level of animals. When the Magistrate finally realizes this, after listening to stories and witnessing the scars on the barbarian girl’s body, he stands up for them and the people in the town think he is crazy. Is the protagonist truly crazy for defying the laws and rules in his town or is he crazy for thinking the barbarians are “men?” Here is the problem the protagonist faces: is defending your morality the right thing to do or is the right thing to live life by the law?
According to the Empire, the protagonist is a barbarian. Readers can see that the Magistrate views the barbarians not as the enemy, but as human beings. On the other hand, the Magistrate sees the Empire as barbarians when he says, “if there is ever anyone in some remote future interested to know the way we lived, that in this farthest outpost of the Empire of light there existed one man who in his heart was not a barbarian” (120). This back and forth commotion on who the real barbarians are can act as a metaphor for problems not only in apartheid South Africa, but also in our society. The barbarians can stand for what is wrong in our society and the civilized can stand for what is right. This can also be vice versa, where the barbarians portray what is right and the civilized, what is wrong. It all depends on how a person is treated and how a person treats others.
Mallory, I like your attention to Coetzee's exploration of who the real barbarians are. I agree that, through the character of the Magistrate, we can explore in greater depth who is the true barbarian. And I think your question at the end of the first paragraph is spot on: "Is defending your morality the right thing to do or is the right thing to live life by the law?"
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, I think Coetzee is also exploring what it means to be barbarian. Is it the uncivilized who live in an archaic, antiquated culture? Or is it the advanced, refined society who comes in to try and convert or overrun those of the "savage" people. You definitely hit upon the fact that Coetzee reveals all of this through the Magistrate and his struggle to come to terms with who is the true barbarian. Thank you for your post; I found a lot of these same elements in my reading of the novel and thought Coetzee was quite provoking in his presentation of the barbarian question.
Mallory -
ReplyDeleteI truly agree with you in that these ideas of seeking out what is right comes through hardship. Can we ever see the true value of what the protagonist is doing? Perhaps it is he who can only place value and judgement on his actions. I would like to think that the morality of our actions is placed on a higher scale than law, however it is a provocative notion. We deal with this (at times) devisive reality of law and moral justice. When does one draw the line... and when it is drawn, what do we do as individuals and as a society to correct it? This is what I found so vexing about Coetzee's work, especially within this text. Waiting for the Barbarians shows us a side of a man (Magistrate) who struggles with what is right. His struggle takes a toll on him in the novel and there really is no true reconciliation. It makes me sad to think this is a reflection of our own society. But, what else can we do? If we place higher value on moral justice, how do we answer to the law? And as you mentioned, vice versa, what is to be done when we solely rely on law as our moral compass? Who decides? I believe we must decide on an inidividual level, because ultimately that is all that really matters. Thank you for your post!
-Christine van Eyck
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ReplyDeleteHi Mallory, I wanted to say that I agree with your reading of Waiting for the Barbarians and I also agree with the comments posted above mine. However, I think that the question of who is barbarian and who is civilized also has a lot to do with honor. The Magistrates states in the novel: "What, after all, do I stand for besides an archaic code of gentlemanly behavior towards captured foes, and what do I stand against except the new science of degradation that kills people on their knees..." (Waiting for the Barbarians, pg. 124) In this quote we see the way in which Colonel Joll and the Magistrate represent two different periods of time, not just war time versus peace time, but a more Romantic period where foes are treated with respect rather than with violence. Also in this quote what I think is interesting is the choice of words, like the use of "gentlemanly" and "new science." It sets up a contrast between an old way of being, which the Magistrate embodies not just by his actions, but simply because of his age, he is old and outdated and clashes with Colonel Joll's modernity. It is by way of this contrast that Coetzee can make a comment on the fact that the more a civilization strays from its history to place more importance on modernity the more detached it becomes from its humanity. Thus the Empire can be seen as losing a vital connection with its fellow man and the ability to feel sympathy, in other words the Empire loses that sense of honor that the Magistrate so yearns for. Therefore, the Magistrate does not only have to suffer between having to choose between right and wrong like you mentioned but is being pushed away and pressured to leave behind the “archaic code” so that he can step into a new age of “science” where humanity is discarded without a second thought.
ReplyDelete(Also sorry I deleted my initial message it was the only way I knew how to edited it)