Analysis of Themes, Symbols and Motifs in
Waiting for the Barbarian:
- Paper No: 14 African Literature
- Topic: Analysis Of Themes Symbols and Motifs in Waiting for the Barbarian.
Analysis
of themes symbols and Motifs in Waiting For The Barbarian
Preface
Waiting
for the Barbarians
is
a novel by South African writer
J.M.
Coetzee.
Story of the book is narrated in the First person by unnamed
magistrate of small colonial town that exist as the territorial
frontier of the empire. The Magistrate’s rather peaceful existence
comes to an end with the Empire’s declaration of a State of
emergency and with the Deployment of the 3rdBureau
Special force of the empire due to rumours that the area’s
residential people who called according to them ‘’
barbarians’’ by the colonists might be preparing to attack the
town so Sinister Colonel Joll
who
was like leader and so Third Bureau captures some Barbarians, then
they brings them back to town and they torture them, kills some of
them and then leaves for the capital in order to prepare a large
campaign.
Themes:
The
theme of a story is what the author is trying to convey, in other
words, the central idea of the story. Short stories often have just
one theme, whereas novels usually have multiple themes.
- Themes in waiting for the Barbarians.
Dream:
‘ From
horizon to horizon the earth is white with snow. It falls from sky in
which the source of light is diffuse and everywhere present, as
though the sun has dissolved into mist become an aura. In the dream I
pass the barracks gate, pass the bare flagpole. The square extends
before me. Blending at its edges into the luminous sky. Walls trees,
houses have dwindled lost their solidity, retired over the rim of the
world.’’ -The Magistrate’s dream
An exploration of an idea of barbarism:
When
we see or read poem by Cavafy we come to know about the poem that the
poem is explores the necessity of the “other”
to the function and exercise of imperial power. In it a town awaits
the arrival of the barbarians, and in its final lines the people are
not unsettled by the barbarians’ arrival, but another menace:
Because
night is here but the barbarians have not come.
And
some people arrived from the borders,
and
said that there are no longer any barbarians.
And
now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those
people were some kind of solution.
Coetzee
uses his great skill to underline the irony in these final lines. The
barbarians those menaces the towns are never seen, the “absurd
prisoners” brought back by the Third Bureau are abject and
ridiculous. We are never brought face to face with the enemy, who is
able to evade the Empire’s reach. The people’s need for the
barbarian is palpable. It culminates in the frenzied scene in which
the people step forward from the crowd to partake in the punishment
and humiliation of the barbarian men. The actual prisoners never do
correspond to the imagined menace, though this menace is real enough
by the novel’s end. Together the Empire and the people have created
a barbarian that is a real enough threat to the town’s survival,
but this enemy evades even Coetzee’s reach and can never be pinned
down.
Theme
of Colonialism: we can see theme of colonialism in this novel that
how the people of empire torture to the people who were the actually
owner of the land who were barbarians according to the Third bureau.
And so it becomes most important theme in this novel.
- Power:
We
can see the themes like Power in this novel because when we read the
novel we get sympathy with the people who were barbarians according
to other people who ruled over them the people were tortured and
killed by the empire’s people the third bureau were wants to ruled
over the people and they wants to control
The
Magistrate has power over the soldiers and civilians, and the Colonel
has power over the Magistrate, as with any hierarchy. In this story,
power is authority, maybe granted by a higher authority figure, but
also a subconscious power, like the girl has over the Magistrate.
- Torture
torture
was used on the “barbarians and also on the Magistrate. But
the Empire did not even know who was who where the frontier was
concerned. Colonel Joll interrogated the old man and his grandson in
the beginning of the book using torture. Then he captured barbarians
who were really just fishermen and nomads. He claims to have gained
useful information on the dangerous barbarians using these
techniques, and that the people he captured admitted to being
barbarians and gave up info on their people. The last group of
prisoners in the book, it was not even clear if these people were
barbarian. Or not?
Motifs
in the Novel:
What
is Motifs ?
The
literary device ‘motif’ is any element, subject, idea or concept
that is constantly present through the entire body of literature.
Using a motif refers to the repetition of a specific theme dominating
the literary work. Motifs are very noticeable and play a significant
role in defining the nature of the story, the course of events and
the very fabric of the literary piece.
This
novel is rich in symbol and meaning. Among them the movement of the
seasons, the time of nature, set in pointed opposition to the time of
human history. The novel begins in late summer, at a time of harvest
and bounty and ends at the verge of winter, and the end of
civilization as known by the town’s inhabitants. Even in the very
beginning the oblivion that threatens is introduced in a dream motif,
which anticipates the novels final pages as well as the barbarian
girl. in striking contrast to the Magistrates unsparing and wry
narrative, the dreams are the novel’s most stunning prose,
recreating with authenticity the language and sublime images of a
sleeping but lucid mind, and evoking both primal terror and pleasure
We
can see that in a recurring dream the Magistrate enters the town
square in winter, where a kneeling girl, her face obscured, is
working on a snow castle. Sitting with other children, they melt away
upon the Magistrates approach. Unable to see her or even imagine her
face, she is a living contrast to the stark white austerity of the
empty square.
It
is also in an empty square that the Magistrate first encounters the
kneeling barbarian girl, the north wind bringing with it the first
hint of winter. The dream motif weaves its way through the
Magistrates narrative. In it the snow blankets the familiar world
like a shroud, containing just the smallest hint of a latent
fertility. Struggling to glimpse the face beneath the hood he
encounters instead the face of an embryo or tiny whale, as white as
the snow itself.
We
can see when we read the novels that As the dream progresses he is
disturbed to find the fort or square the girl is building is empty of
life, only the girl, who he glimpses in a moment of clarity, relieves
the dream of its desolation. In his brief glimpse of her face her
eyes shine and she smiles. The dream sharpens in the next sequence
and he sees her clearly, a gold thread woven through her hair,
wearing a blue robe, the snow castle transformed into a clay oven.
The girl is baking live-giving bread, but the dream ends before the
Magistrate can accept or taste it, and his is never able to renter
the dream at this point. Instead, the final winter dream is a mere
collision with the girl, which echoes his collision with a woman in
the night; his clarity has already begun to fade. In the novel’s
final paragraph the dream and its insights have been wholly effaced
by the reality of winter, it is not a dream but real children,
building a snowman as they await their destiny, who have replaced the
girl and the enigma she represents.
- Symbols
Symbol
is an object that represents, stands for or suggests an idea, visual
image, belief or material entity. Symbols take the form of words,
sounds, gesture or visual images and are used to convey idea and
beliefs.
The
empire:
The
empires represent power that doesn't require that
Those
who serve it love others but merely perform duties.
Barbarians
Tribes:
According
to rumours barbarian tribes have been arming and the empire would have
to employ measures to prevent war.
Square:
the
square can be seen from the Magistrate’s window. And he can see
prisoners arriving from there
Third
Bureau:
The
third Bureau is described as an unsleeping guardian of the Empire
being an investigative agency.
So
there are many things by which we can say that this novel
is full of themes, and symbols.
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