Name :- Jankiba k. rana
Class :- M.A. SEM 04
Topic :- Character sketch The Barbarian Girl
Paper NO :- 14
Paper :- The African Literature
ROLL NO :- 09
Year :- 2015 - 2016
Submitted :- Smt S.B.Gardy Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar
To Evaluate My Assignment Please
Waiting for the Barbarians
:- By Coetzee
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”
In this novel language is seems to be in sense of fear ,torture ,silence of a barbarian girl and power of Empire.
There are three main characters:
Colonel Joll
The Magistrate
Unnamed Girl (Barbarian girl)
Lets, evaluate the character of :- The Barbarian Girl
In the novel :
Waiting for the Barbarians the Barbarian Girl have
“black hair cut in a fringe across the forehead, a broad mouth, [and] black eyes and”
She also has “straight black eyebrows, the glossy black of the barbarians.”
Barbarian girl is a prisoner of Colonel Joll but after their release she is left behind by her folk in the outpost then The Magistrate felt guily and wants to cure her, cure from what?
When she was imprisoned she was tortured not only physical torture but psychological to by Colonel Joll who is a heartless bureaucrat sent by the Empire's secret service, ''the Third Bureau.'‘
Barbarian girl’s 1st appearance through Magistrate’s eyes:
“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. (Coetzee, 1982: 33).”
Magistrate was recalling his memories when he saw a barbarian girl for the first time and she was so innocent and pure.
But now she was changed she was carring a tag of the ‘other ‘and other means she was not one of them and now she was carring a scars of the Empire . Her otherness is carried to her body by the novelist.
How she was torched by Empire?
she was semi-blinded and disfigured from the torture. Her otherness is carried to her body by the novelist. broke both of her ankles and they were never fixed properly.
the ‘Caterpillarish’ scar near the Barbarian girl ‘s eye reflect the ways of their investigation.
The relationship between the Magistrate and the Barbarian girl:
They begin their relationship in a completely physical way. He felt guilty and he brought her at his home tried to help her to cure her wants to know what happed to her but apart from this there is complicity in this relation that we find. We never no what exactly the relation was.
“…I behave in some ways like a lover—I undress her, I bathe her, I stroke her, I sleep beside her—but I might equally well tie her to a chair and beat her, it would be no less intimate”
He massages her, bathes her, and sleeps next to her. He is completely satisfied with this seemingly normal relationship.
“So I lie beside this healthy young body while it knits itself in sleep into ever sturdier health, working in silence even at the points of irrediable damage, the eyes, the feet, to be whole again.
The difference:
The magistrate never falls in love with Barbarian girl. They stayed together but they never love each other.
Both have different cultural identities:
For Magistrate she was not the same like other women and she was tagged with “other” the concept of “we” and other was a big difference or we can say a line between them.
We: whites, civilized, educated ,superior
Other :Black ,Barbarians ,uncivilized ,uneducated ,inferior
As two people from radically different cultures can never be one here in Waiting for Barbarians.
Used as a Tool:
"All this erotic behavior of mine is indirect: I prowl about her, touching her face, caressing her body, without entering her or finding the urge to do so. ... But with this woman it is as if there is no interior, only a surface across which I hunt back and forth seeking entry. Is this how her torturers felt hunting their secret, whatever they thought it was?" - pg.43.
He questions her about her torture, he attempts to understand her through her physical surface, and tries to use her as the key to unlocking his own meaning. Ultimately, the Magistrate's treatment of the barbarian girl mirrors her treatment by Colonel Joll; they both use her as a tool in their respective searches for knowledge.
Barbarian girl as the mysterious puzzle and subject:
For magistrate she was a mysterious puzzle stays with the narrator and works for him in his house. She sleeps in his bed but the narrator does not get to know her.
The barbarian girl’s lack of communication is more significant than her dialogue throughout the novel. . She is quiet throughout most of the book, but when she does speak it is to state the obvious or to try to understand the situation.
He says,
“She has a fondness for facts, I note, for pragmatic dicta, she dislikes fancy questions, speculations, we are an ill matched couple.”
The girl also never speaks about her injuries and the narrator knows he can never let her go without understanding what happened to her.
He views her more as a mysterious puzzle to solve rather than a lover.
Her silence:
The girls’silence shows her strength and is her one form of resistance. If she decided to talk with him and explain her torture she would be opening up to him and would give him another power over her. Her silence is the one freedom neither the narrator nor her tortures can take from her and she is not willing to give it up easily.
At the End:
“No. I do not want to go back to that place.”(Barbarian girl)
At the end The Magistrate took her to barbarian people and asked her to return at that time she replied with above quote and she denies to go back with him and that time he though that he was one of those torturer for her and the have never accepted him.
But now the question is:
How her own people will treat her?
What do they call her?
Do they understand her condition and her state of mind?
Is she will be able to marry with anyone of them?
Are they are ready to accept her?
If not then what will she do?
There are so many question to be asked but answers can be assumed only.
Feminist reading of the Barbarian girl:
Her body is objectified and her body and scars became language to study this novel
Her body was read as a nation and change of the nation OLD body scar less was as old nation and the NEW body with so many scars on it considered as new nation
Her suppression was clearly visible in the novel:
Even one can find the term Scopophilic desire which means to look at something and get pleasure.
In this process one suffers and others enjoy it .
Portrayal of The Barbarian girl and Barbarians who is presented as victim here and below the Empire was not only enjoying her body but they enjoyed distroing the identities of natives whom they tagged as The Barbarians.
She was suppressed by :
Her own people: Refer to above questions we I have motioned
By the Empire : She was innocent then even she was torched by them and treated as a tool .
By the Magistrate :He never asked for her permission whether she needs his help or not he was trying to help her which is good but it is also one kind of torture that he was doing he never thought that she was comfortable to share her problem with him or not.
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