This document provides an overview and analysis of J.M. Coetzee's novel Waiting for the Barbarians. It discusses the theme of imperialism in the novel. The story is set in an unnamed empire and focuses on the magistrate, who questions the empire's treatment of nomadic tribes they call "barbarians." It describes how the empire tortures barbarian prisoners, seeing them as threats. The document analyzes how the novel criticizes imperialism and the harm caused by an empire defining others as inferior.

1. THE THEME OF IMPERIALISM IN
WAITING FOR BARBARIANS
Presented by Nupur Vyas
Email id – nupurvyas1995@gmail.com
Semester- 4
Roll No – 34
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU (India-
Gujarat[Bhavnagar].

2. INTRODUCTION ABOUT THE WRITER- J.M COETZEE
• J. M." Coetzee ( born 9 February 1940) is a South African novelist, essayist, linguist,
translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature.

3. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF WAITING FOR
BARBARIANS
• The title “Waiting for the Barbarians” is taken from a
line from the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy.
• Story of an imaginary Empire.
• Set in an unspecified place and time.
• Barbarian tribes lives at the edge of the Empire.
• They visit the town for some purpose, only, Ex. Trade
or medicine.
• The magistrate is the central character in the novel. He
is the observer and the speaker.

4. CONTINUE….
• Colonel Joll is a heartless administrator sent by the
Empire's secret service, ''the Third Bureau.'‘
• The Third Bureau claims that the Barbarians are preparing
to revolt.
• The Colonel leads an expedition in search of rebels and
returns with a group of nomads in chains, terrified and mute.
• Although the Magistrate argues that the barbarians are
harmless, the prisoners are tortured by the third bureau.

5. CONTINUE..
• The Barbarian captives are broken by torture and then
released.
• A tribal girl, Magistrate wants to shield and nurse her, but also
perhaps to dominate her.
• The Magistrate decides to take her back to her tribe.
• The Magistrate is charged by the Third Bureau with treason,
''consorting with the enemy.'' He is imprisoned in the same
barracks room where the barbarians were interrogated.

6. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY IMPERIALISM ?
• Concept of ‘We’ and ‘Other’
• Imperialism—the extension of the authority of an Empire over
foreign parts, often enforced by military action and economic
coercion.
• Empire closely resembles European colonial powers of the 19th
and 20th centuries.
• Barbarian—a savage, primitive person living outside the formal
laws and customs of civilization. Originally referred to peoples living
outside the Roman Empire, the word was literally meant to simulate
the non-Greek language of the outsider, which sounded like gabble
to the Greek ear. In the novel, they are called nomadic and live in
nearby mountains and desert.

7. CONTINUE…
• Imperialism is a self destructive power.
• Objectification of ‘’Other’’
• Identity of barbarian will always be
regarded as ‘‘Other’’ by imperialistic
system.

8. IMPERIALISM IN WAITING FOR BARBARIANS
• It is the difference between Barbarism and
Civilization.
• The novel is an allegorical representations of
imperialism.
• The focus is on the distinction between those
who claim to be ‘civilized’ and those who are held
to be ‘Barbarians’.
• The Empire, an unnamed kingdom, is highly
influential and authoritative government.
• Political power – European power
• According to Coetzee torture room is a metaphor
for relation between authortarism and victims.

9. CONTINUE..
• In Coetzee’s words ‘’Waiting for the Barbarians’’ is a novel about
“the impact of the torture chamber on the life of a man of conscience”
• How far fear and anxiety can go and how far members of society can
follow a blind power is the main concern of the novel.
• He has responsibility and authority of maintaining the outpost for the
service of the Empire but he loses his power when the Empire sent an
army to protect the town from the Barbarians.
• The protagonist protests the unjust treatment of the so called
“Barbarians” although the Empire perceives them as a dangerous tribe
preparing to attack the outpost and battle against the Empire.

10. CONTINUE..
• Empire represents any and all empires and the Barbarians are all
cultures oppressed by colonization.
• Imperialistic civilization at odds with the native.
• Colonel Joll and his followers in the Empire torture the natives. This
torture, an obvious violation of the humanity of the aboriginals, is a
liberty taken by the Empire to impose the theory that its own will and
intentions are more crucial than the rights of those that it is conquering.
• The novel is a kind of debate that the natives are human or animal
being.
• The natives are labeled by most as "animals". And "human" qualities
are the qualities possessed solely by Europeans.

11. IMPERIALISM IN WAITING FOR BARBARIANS
• Waiting for barbarians shows violence and cruelty
on Barbarians through imperialistic exercise.
• When the novel starts Magistrate is having power
to administrate in the town. At the end he lost
power, he himself became victim of imperialism.
 There are four victims of imperialism in the
novel:
1 Magistrate
2 Barbarians
3 A Tribal girl
4 Old man and the boy

12. CONTINUE
• Old man—a barbarian man captured with his
grandson following a raid on the fort, is tortured
and eventually murdered by the Third Bureau.
• Boy—the grandson of the barbarian man,
traveling with him to see the doctor. Gravely ill
and wounded by Colonel Joll and his men, he
confesses under torture that his tribe is rallying for
war and is brought on an expedition to rout out
the barbarians.
• Barbarian girl—blinded and crippled by the Third
Bureau.

13. A TRIBAL GIRL- EFFECTS OF IMPERIALISM
• Creation of the barbarian girl as the representation of the ‘’Other’’ to
problematize the attitude which perceives difference as having
no subjectivity.
• The existence of the barbarian girl criticizes the perspective which pushes
minorities to the margins and never allows any chance to the “Other” to
survive in itself.
• Her deformed tortured body actually visualizes the deformed ideology of
imperialism which perceives her other because of her “Barbarian”
identity.

14. QUOTES FROM THE TEXT WHICH SHOWS
IMPERIALISM
• “I cast my mind back, trying to recover an image of her as she was
before. I must believe that I saw her on the day she was brought in by
soldiers roped neck to neck with the other barbarian prisoners. I know
that my gaze has passed over her when together with others (…). My eye
passed over her; but I have no memory of that passage. On that day she
was still unmarked; but I must believe she was unmarked as I must
believe she was once a child (…). Strain as I will, my first image remains
of the kneeling beggar-girl.”

15. CONTINUE..
• How Magistrate is silenced by Colonel Joll who
represents the empire, the authority and the realm of
man, is narrated in the following way in the novel;
• “I try to call out something, a word of blind fear,
a shriek, but the rope is now so tight that I am
strangled, speechless.(…)
• I am swinging loose. The breeze lifts my smock
and plays with my naked body.
• I am relaxed, floating. In a woman’s clothes. “

16. REFERENCES
• https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LnIOPNnTU2A-8jFhf4q1NJWLYxwhu_u-
GScrEs96NHU/edit#slide=id.p34 – Heenaba mam’s presentation on Waiting for
Barbarians as Allegorical novel in google slides.
• Google images.

17. THANK YOU