The Reality of Dreams In the novel, Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M Coetzee, the magistrate’s progressive, non-linear dreams are a parallel to his growing involvement with the barbarians and his growing distaste for the empire. The great psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud said, “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious.” In every dream there is a hidden meaning and when the reader starts analyzing the magistrate’s dreams he reveals that he is oddly attracted to the barbarians and knows he should not get involved and it will be a trial to get close to them. At the beginning to the book the magistrate is just an innocent bystander. He works for the Empire and does as he is told with a blind unquestioning eye. The reader sees him start to sympathize with the barbarians when he helps a little boy enduring inhumane torture. From then on the magistrate wants less and less to do with the Empire. As he helps the boy he says, “I feel my heart grow heavy. I never wished to be drawn into this.” (Coetzee 8) He also helps a barbarian girl by taking her in when he sees her on the street begging for money. He is very fond of her. She has been beaten harshly by the Empire and the magistrate says, “the distance between myself and her torturers, I realize, is negligible; I shudder.” He grows to hate the Empire and their unjust actions. In one of the magistrate’s dreams, he dreams of a hooded girl. This girl automatically reminds the readers of the barbarian girl. He always struggles to reach her, see her or even talk to her. As he tries to reach her he says, “My feet sink so deep that I can barely lift them. Each step takes an age”. (Coetzee 59) In reality, the magistrate is also having a hard time gettin... ... middle of paper ... ... used to associate himself with and he starts empathizing with the barbarians. First his dreams reveal his true feelings of the Empire’s wrongs then his actions in reality start to reciprocate these desires. Through the symbols in his dreams to his helping the barbarians in reality, the magistrate divulges his odd attraction to the barbarians. Resources Coetzee, J.M. “Waiting for the Barbarians”. Penguin Books, 1980. Print. Dominic , H. (2009). The Cambridge Introduction to J. M. Coetzee. (1 ed., p. 49). Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic, 2010. Print. Works Cited Coetzee, J.M. “Waiting for the Barbarians”. Penguin Books, 1980. Print. Dominic , H. (2009). The Cambridge Introduction to J. M. Coetzee. (1 ed., p. 49). Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic, 2010. Print.
Lady Bertilak’s deceptive seduction of Gawain demonstrates this truth and illuminates her motive in seducing Gawain as her flirtatious behavior that “urged him so near the limit” (1771) is clearly an attempt to reacquaint Gawain with his natural feelings. In Camelot, men and women are so civilized that their emotions appear false and manufactured. By seducing Gawain with spontaneity and passion, Lady Bertilak strips Gawain of this control over primal urges. While Gawain attempts to resist these urges that contradict his courtly ways, his submission to kiss lady Bertilak and eventually accept her chastity belt reveals that he has submitted to his natural feelings. With such an orderly and distinguished knight proving vulnerable to his emotion and temptation the author imposes the idea that perfection in terms of morality and way of life is unattainable as feelings cannot be controlled. Lady Bertilak further clarifies the intent of her relationship with Gawain by shaming him for “refusing to love a lady”(1779-1780). This shame is clearly unwarranted as Lady Bertilak is breaching moral statues herself by being unfaithful to her husband; however, the claim does succeed in connecting her seduction of Gawain to the ideas of empathy and genuine affection, revealing the statement as selfish manipulation motivated by the lady’s desire to expose Gawain’s most natural emotions. By
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Johannes portrays to Arthur that he should be in fear of him, offering the idea that he believed he held power over this individual, in this case, to take the innocent man’s life. The judge involved in the case d...
In this it is seen that the primary utility of the novel lies in its ability to explore an array of possible existences. For these possible existences to tell us something of our actual existence, they need to be populated by living beings that are both as whole, and as flawed, as those in the real world. To achieve this the author must become the object he writes of. J.M. Coetzee states, “there is no limit to the extent to which we can think ourselves into the being of another. There are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination” (35).
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...o look at the clerk’s submission and read it as a technique to gain power. If the clerk is not praising Petrarch, he is critiquing him and his interpretation of the tale. Petrarch believed the tale to represent submission to God, through the clerk’s false submission he twists the tale, making it about the way submission can be used by some authorities to control and abuse. The masochistic acceptance of punishment on the part of Griselda correlates the internal corruption that flourishes in those who hold power and strive to maintain that hold.