“Waiting For Barbarians” by J.M.Coetzee

                                              “Waiting For Barbarians” 

                                                         

               John Maxwell "J. M." Coetzee is a South African novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He relocated to Australia in 2002 and lives in Adelaide. He became an Australian citizen in 2006

              The novel “waiting for barbarians”  written by J.M.Coetzee. the novel depends about the violence and human cruelty. The novel “waiting for barbarians” is about morality and violence and about exploding in several ways. But in Coetzee’s word “waiting for barbarians” is a novel about “the impact of the fortune chamber on the life of a man of conscience”. Also the novel based on the fear and anxiety.

              The title “waiting for barbarians” is taken from a line from the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafa. The  story of an imaginary Empire. But the empire destroyed own image also. Set in an unspecified place and time. The man conscience is the main protagonist, the Magistrate. The Magistrate is the central character in the novel. Magistrate as a man of Authority and Responsibility.

               However, also we can see the creation of barbarian girl as the representation of the other to problematize the attitude which perceives different as having no subjectivity. Also we can say that the barbarian girl sympathy for Magistrate .  the identity of “barbarians” will always to regarded. But as a member of the empire Magistrate feels guilty for the girl. He wanted to know the pain of girl and the tortured on physically or verbally. Exstream level of tortured the barbarian girl. She was a women so she must be protected her identity. According to Coetzee , torture room is a metaphor for relation between authoritarianism and its victims. But victim can’t speaking magistrate is like this he was victim so he can’t speak. Also we can see the whiteness is a black thing in Magistrate.

              Here, Coetzee highlights the true cruelty that humanity can inflict upon other humans in its pursuit of whatever seems to be the right thing as determined by those in power at any particular point in time. It need not make sense, it need not be morally defensible, it only need be possible and performable, and it may be done. In the regime at the time, such was the situation, South Africa, like so many other places has been a war torn place for a very long time.