The document summarizes the plot of the novel "Waiting for the Barbarians" in several paragraphs. It describes how the Magistrate faces Colonel Joll and his secret police force who believe the barbarians are planning an attack. Joll tortures prisoners he captures but the Magistrate disagrees with his methods. The Magistrate helps a blinded girl but is troubled by his feelings for her. He is later imprisoned and tortured himself, as the barbarians retaliate against the Empire's oppressive actions.
3. Summary
O In the opening of Waiting for the Barbarians
the novel protagonist the Magistrate faces
Colonel Joll (sinister official and
member of the Empire’s new secret
police the Third Bureau)
O Joll and his Third Bureau believe that
the barbarians are planning a
coordinated attack on the frontier
regions.
4. O Magistrate has been living in peace in
his outpost for most of life, trading with
the nomads who Joll sees as the enemy.
OJoll sets out on an expedition in search of
barbarians. He comes back with a group
of fisher people and nomads.
O Joll’s prisoners are tortured in the
barracks.
5. OThe magistrate argues a little with Joll about his
interrogation methods and the idea that you can
get truth out of people you torture.
OJoll ambiguously suggests that he’s after a
different kind of truth than what the magistrate
considers truth. It seems as though he takes
pleasure in inflicting suffering.
OThe magistrate is unsettled by Joll’s presence. He
wants to continue his peaceful life as it was
before,
6. OThe prisoners are released. When the magistrate
sees them he imagines finishing them off and
putting them in a mass grave.
OSlowly, one by one, they leave. All but one a
blinded girl whose legs were broken at the
ankles, who begs for food in the streets.
O He takes her in to his room. He’s stricken by an
urge to help her, to soothe her. He starts by
washing her feet and her broken ankles. Soon
he washes her entire body, stripping her.
7. OHe tries to see her for what she was before
O Night after night she stays in his room. He
begs her to tell him what happened to her.
OShe doesn’t want to talk about it.
OShe finally tells him how the torturers burned
out her eyes and use a two pronged fork on her
body and killed her father in front of her.
OHe goes back to the inn instead, to the small,
“birdlike” girl who’s easy to be with.
8. O The nomad girl asks him why he rejects her
but he has no answer. She gestures that she
wants to be with him.
O After this, filled with confused feelings about
the girl, the magistrate decides to take her back
to her people.
O He and the girl go with two soldiers and a
guide on horses on a treacherous journey into
the desert regions toward the mountains. They
encounter difficulties. They lose horses. They
run out of water for a time
O They make love. His feelings trouble him
more.
9. O When they reach them he proposes to the
girl to come back with him to the outpost. He
wants her to return of her own choice.
OThey say goodbye and she rides off with the
nomads to her people.
OWhen she gets back to the outpost a man
from the Third Bureau is there, and he
informs the magistrate that he is being
charged with treason. He is imprisoned in the
same barracks room where the barbarians
were interrogated.
10. O Magistrate naked in front of townspeople.
One day he puts the magistrate in a
woman’s dress, ties his hands behind his
back and hangs him from a tree by the
wrists. The magistrate’s shoulders splinter.
He’s left to hang.
O Women feed him. He learns that the
barbarians have flooded all the fields.
11. OThe magistrate returns to his old room.
Winter is on its way. He takes charge,
encouraging people to grow root
vegetables within the city walls. It
seems as though the barbarians are
watching the town. Everyone is waiting
for them. They dig up crustaceans from
around the lake and gather as much
food as they can for the winter.
12. Postcolonial
O Domination
O Domination by cohesive Forces
O Hegemony
O Literature------Language------means of
representation which creaets the image of
dominant and dominated
O Maintaing domination
O Set Standards
O We + other
13. Identity
O Identity of ‘Barbarian’ will always be regarded
as ‘other’.
O The word WE used by power full for his own
representation while the word Others is also
used by power full for presentation of
powerless.
O We refers to power, intelligence, Modern
O Others refers to weak, ignorant, barbaric
14.
15. Imperialism
OImperialism is a policy, practice, or
advocacy of extending power and
dominion, especially by direct territorial
acquisition or by gaining political and
economic control of other areas.
16.
17. Fear of the other
OThe novel is a close examination of the
fear of the other, the foreigner, the
outsider. More specifically it is a
parable about the creation of an enemy
that comes from that fear. The barbarian
is a derogatory term that identifies a
group as outsiders and vilifies them.
18.
19. Irony
O The engine of the narrative is built on the
ironic projection that the nomads are the
“barbarians,” while in fact the Empire shows
itself to be brutally violent, indeed barbaric—
precisely in its treatment of its enemy, "the
barbarians." The idea of an imminent attack by
the barbarians is put forth by the Empire to
justify its own attacks,
