Theme Of Blindness In J. M. Coetzee's Waiting For The Barbarians

Oblivion within the Empire

In pages 70-72 ( “The barbarians stand outlined against the sky above us...too late now”) of J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians which is the selected passage in which the magistrate’s blindness creates a denial of responsibility. “Blindness” reveals how the magistrate believes he is superior over the barbarians, ironically similar to a trait Joll has. However, he feels an inability to dehumanize and torture the “others”. The passage starts out with the magistrate, his men and what she is referred to in the book, barbarian girl traveling up the slope towards the horsemen. The girl has to make a choice of joining her people or returning back to the settlement. The magistrate wants her to return to the settlement

A theme that interested me came up in class ties in with the metaphorical use of blindness. Ignorance can make one disregard responsibilities. Magistrate mentions, “What else is there to tell?”(71) to the girl when approaching her people. Her smiling indicates how she sees through the magistrates facade of returning her back to her people. Here, the text implies that once again the magistrate is oblivious to the fact the girl could go into depth of how badly the Empire tortured her but does not because she sees the nobility in the magistrate. However, he never looks at the barbarian girl as a human being and he has blinded himself as what the empire is

The use of pain and pressure to announce the truth signifies the ignorance and dehumanization behind the empire. The magistrate is blind to his own self and believes bringing the girl back to civilization is noble and humane when the girl sees the magistrate clearly as the guilty representative of a power driven empire that embodies injustice and dehumanizes all inhabitants. This ties in with the whole “ignorance is bliss” idea. The magistrate is doing exactly what the phrase defines. He is oblivious to what the empire creates and does to manipulate others, therefore he does not worry or care about it. He also defines the girl as a “barbarian” implying how she is not truly human and something the magistrate could make his time worthwhile. The metaphorical use of blindness creates an ironical interpretation to critique the empire and its