Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coetzee

1281 Words3 Pages

Waiting for the Barbarians can be read as an allegorical attack to Apartheid South Africa. But it can also be read generally as an allegory of oppressor and oppressed. This is made possible by the writer not using specific temporal, geographical or historical context. He also uses an unnamed character, the Magistrate, as one of his main characters and hero. This essay centres at this particular character and the role he assumes. To achieve this end, first I will give a short plot of the novel putting the magistrate at the centre. Second, I will trace some of the echoes of the Life and Passion of Christ in the Magistrate’s experiences. Third, I will discuss whether he is a type of redeemer in a secular world. Then I will conclude.

At the start of the novel the narrator is a Magistrate in an unnamed town on the frontier of an Empire. On its edge live the ‘Barbarians’. The Magistrate encounters a head of a secret service, Colonel Joll, who has been sent by the empire to wage war against the ‘Barbarians’. Colonel Joll captures some of them and tortures them in the name of finding out the ‘truth’ (5) about the rumoured ‘Barbarian’ uprising. In the meantime, the Magistrate takes in a barbarian girl, who takes to begging in the town, after being left behind by her people on their return to the desert (28). After a while, taking pity on the girl, he takes her back to her people (79) then real trouble starts. A new officer named Mandel comes to the town and takes charge of his office (84). The Magistrate is arrested and tortured before being left free.

Later, the settlers tremble at the news of the looming barbarian uprising and leave the town for the capital. Mandel is killed when he tries to leave the place with his family (143). T...

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...ind echoes of the Life and Passion of Christ. There are a number of examples for instance; The Magistrate’s concern with the oppressed and this leads him into an enemy of the empire. He is then imprisoned tortured. He is also publicly humiliated like Jesus with public torture and a mock execution where he is hanged on a tree. While hanging, he also cries out loudly and he is mocked just as Jesus was before his death on the cross. Secondly, with the example of the Magistrate in mind, the essay has showed that he is a type of redeemer that the secular world needs since he advocates for justice. By he is also not the real kind of redeemer since his past moral life is flawed thus he lucks a moral credibility. Nonetheless to a greater extent, the example of the Magistrate is a type of redeemer in a secular world.

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waiting for the barbarians by J. M. Coetzee

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