In trying to find just one thing to discuss in Waiting For the Barbarians I found it quite difficult. Coetzee once again offers a world full of imagery, language and description; a world where the concept of ‘civilized’ and uncivilized seem to be often interchangeable. Though the text itself is, without a doubt, full of rich quotes that illustrate the Magistrate’s fall from grace, what I’d like to do is offer one passage that I feel elucidates the theme of the text. Through the use of imagery and language, I feel that the following passage provides an illustration of the general context of Coetzee’s Waiting For the Barbarians. I will provide the passage and then address why I feel it addresses the themes of the text:
“At night when everything is still the cockroaches come out to explore. I hear, or perhaps imagine, the horny clicking of their wings, the scurry of their feet across the paved floor. They are lured by the smell of the bucket in the corner, the morsels of food on the floor; no doubt too by this mountain of flesh giving off its mulifarious odours of life and decay. … Thereafter I often jerk awake during the night, twitching, brushing myself off, feeling the phantom probings of their antennae at my lips, my eyes. From such beginnings grow obsessions. I am warned” (Coetzee 79).
I picked this passage for a reason, the language itself provides insight to the novel as a whole. Though Coetzee is quite literally discussing a cockroach and it’s journey across the floor where he is held, the undertones of the passage provide much more. It seems that he discusses the cockroach as the people of authority in the Empire judge the barbarians; they too appear as pesky, bugs that come out in darkness. To me at least it seems that there is little of the concept of light in the novel. Everything appears dark, dreary, perhaps even a bit apocalyptic with little if any hints that the “Empire” is doing anything correctly; rather it seems that they are all following BLIND orders from a higher authority or Colonel Joll.
Next the undertones in the language of the text seem to suggest that he himself is analogous to what the cockroach represents. He describes the cockroach and the “horny clicking of their wings”. I find the word choice to be interesting; and feel that this reflects his own sexual relationships throughout the book (horny reflecting his own drive and wings reflecting his own parts and need to be fulfilled).
Further, the cockroaches, like himself, are drawn to the flesh, gluttony, food and decay (though their standards are different than his own the principle is the same). At the start of the novel he seems to bask in all that the role of Magistrate has given him: women, sex, a home, food; all of it seem to feed his own purposes; just as he now, in his fallen state, seem to feed the purposes of his cockroaches.
Lastly, the final sentences, at least on the level of language, seems to me to contrast his readiness to anticipate the cockroaches with his inabilities to anticipate the realities of his life under the Empire. It also seems to rival his inabilities to accept realities; he likes that he can function in a position of power until he makes the decision to free the barbarian girl, his mistress. It seems that he fails to see the consequences of his actions.
Lastly in, “From such beginnings grow obsessions. I am warned”, it seems he is only warned in reference to how he should anticipate the cockroaches. It seems as if in any other regard he is obsessed, whether with punishing barbarians or his sexual satisfaction, and yet he continues (in contrast to his interaction with the cockroaches) to be unwarned. Thus, we find him at the start of the book following orders under the Empire, in the middle of the book imprisoned because he let his mistress be free, and at the end of the book still unable to see the road in front of him “I think: I see something in front of my face and I still don’t see it” (155). It seems, he is the cockroach, like the bug shooting across the floor he wants to be something else, something running away and “outside history” (154). Yet in his world he does not know how to be. In his world it is impossible. Perhaps this is life under the “Empire” whatever world that is that the Empire represent. Unfortunate as it is our Magistrate, fallen and over sexualized protagonist of the novel, is not allowed to be anything other than a cockroach.
(L)Imitations of Freedom 
I do agree with you that Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians offers a rich array of imagery, language, and descriptions. One can extrapolate a great amount of comment from just one sentence or paragraph. I also agree with you in that the Magistrate is a less than savory character throughout a large part of the book. He seems to live by his “animal” instincts for food, sex, and power. However, I do not see him as completely blind or hopeless. By Coetzee making him the narrator and telling his story in such an intricate and personal approach, we are able to view the magistrate as a man who is not blind to recognizing the shortcomings of the Empire as well as his own. I see the cockroach as a representation of the human condition as a universal concept. We are all starting from the same basic desires of the need for food, sex, and an amount of control over our lives (power). The problem is when these natural instincts are not balanced with sensitivity to humanity and they, instead, become uncontrollable obsessions. Every human being is capable of this perversion; it is our awareness that helps to control it. The Empire is acting on basic desires for power which becomes overindulgent and perverted and can only end in destruction. Human beings start out like cockroaches that are just scurrying to survive. But humanity has the ability to surpass this basic state and gain the knowledge that can situate them above ignorance. The magistrate does gain some amount of recognition of his limitations and seeks to rise above that.
The above reply to Jessica’s blog post was by Joanne Martin
Kristina Yegoryan says:
Jessica,
I liked your analysis and especially your analogues of darkness, blindness, and cockroaches. I agree that the novel revolves around the concepts and differences between the ‘civilized’ and “uncivilized” but most importantly aims to depict the relationship in between these two classes. I also like your idea that “everything appears dark, dreary, perhaps even a bit apocalyptic with little if any hints that the “Empire” is doing anything correctly; rather it seems that they are all following BLIND orders from a higher authority or Colonel Joll.” It indeed denotes the ignorance that the empire, the “civilized,” created or better say intended to create to subsume the “uncivilized.” Hence, the darkness, the blindness, and the ignorance can refer to Freud’s concept of “unconsciousness” which conveys hidden forces, fears of social reality, and desires that exert influence beyond knowledge. Moreover, the empire/ higher authority uses barbarians as “fetishism”, and the expectations for the barbarians becomes fetishistic fantasy for the inhabitants , and thus, as Slovoj Zizek claims “’they do not know,’ what they misrecognize, it is the fact in their social reality itself, in their social activity-in the act of commodity-exchange they are guided by the fetishistic illusion” (720). Thus, the fetishistic illusion of the coming barbarians creates the fear which allows the “civilized’ or the “empire” establish its authority and power upon the “uncivilized” and since there is no clear perception of reality nor is anything quite clear about of the empire and barbarians, thus everything indeed appears “dark and dreary.”
By: Kristina Yegoryan
Zizek, Slovoj. “The Sublime Object of Ideology.” Literary Theory: An Anthology.
Ed. Jullie Rivkin, Michael Ryan 2nd ed. Massachussetts: Blackwell Publishing,
2004. 712-724.
Hi Jessica,
You point out really interesting concepts and ideas from the novel. In reading your blog post and re-reading the quote you used to explicate your central claim, I can see how you have made the correlation between the cockroaches mentioned and the people, in this case the barbarians. Several of the soldiers have an opportunity to speak of the barbarians, and from this, we can see the hierarchy ladder in full construction. The magistrate, for example, defined them as, “the people we call barbarians are nomads, they migrate between the lowlands and the uplands every year, that this is their way of life (56). Like the cockroaches that only show themselves at night to avoid getting swatted, the barbarians, from what we are told, only come out when they are not being seen and when the soldiers are asleep or away from the premises. We see this form of categorization of “the other” all the time. We must identify the “other” in order to identify ourselves−we are ourselves because we are not “the other.” To maybe expand on this, it might also be interesting to look at these aspects as a criticism on society as a whole and as a focus on identity in reflection to other cultures, ethnicities and ideals. The barbarians were assumed an identity, since they really had no voice in the novel. This is the case to how we sometimes identify and assert characteristics on individuals. Throughout the novel, we get the sense that the magistrate is aware of this and has accepted this though he himself is part of the system. For example, later in the novel he states, “All creatures come into this world bringing with them the memory of justice…we live in a world of laws…a world of the second best…We are fallen creatures” (160). When we are put to the task of classifying the structure of a society, we sometimes also bestow categories and characteristics on people. Thus, we in that sense we may all be part of that system. I think this is partly why I liked the magistrate’s character. I did not completely liked his vision on women as mere objects of his desire (this then opens up a wider range of arguments), but I did like the fact that he was realistic and that he accepted his part in the system.
Norma Perez
I enjoyed reading all your comments, thanks! —Jessica
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