He is on a mission to “understand” the girl’s suffering, as though this can be done by studying her scars closely enough. I find myself wondering too whether he has a private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men.”, “The space about us here is merely space, no meaner or grander than the space above the shacks and tenements and temples and offices of the capital. How fortunate that no one sees me!”, “Schmerz ist Wahrheit; alles andere wird angezweifelt.”, “But with this woman it is as if there is no interior, only a surface across which I hunt back and forth seeking entry. Coetzee. I am not unaware of what such daydreams signify, dreams of becoming an unthinking savage, of taking the cold road back to the capital, of groping my way out to the ruins in the desert, of returning to the confinement of my cell, of seeking out the barbarians and offering myself to them to use as they wish. Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of a dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization; and upon this resolution I based the conduct of my administration. 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.”, “With the buck before me suspended in immobility, there seems to be time for all things, time even to turn my gaze inward and see what it is that has robbed the hunt of its savour: the sense that this has become no longer a morning's hunting but an occasion on which either the proud ram bleeds to death on the ice or the old hunter misses his aim; that for the duration of this frozen moment the stars are locked in a configuration in which events are not themselves but stand for other things.”, “...from the oppression of such freedom who would not welcome the liberation of confinement?”, “Also the air: the air is full of sighs and cries. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. The magistrate lives close to the people in his outpost. The simple, important quote at the opening of the novel shows that at his outpost, the magistrate has been out of touch—cut off from the evolution of colonial government, in particular the development of the Third Bureau. character, The strange nature of the magistrate’s obsession with the nomad girl is expressed in this quote. Eventually though, this will wear off and he will come to torture her in a different way, through his disgust for her maimed body. Quotes from J.M. But as we see here, an important part of what disgusts him is his own previous fascination and motive. Read the Study Guide for Waiting for the Barbarians…, Plot Structure Comparison: A Pale View of Hills and Waiting for the Barbarians, The Possibility of Decolonization in J. M. Coetzee’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, Empire, Definition, and Identity: Concepts in Waiting for the Barbarians and "Stranger in the Village", Will the Barbarians Ever Arrive? He intends to know an intimate experience of trauma by exterior, objective observation. )”, “Is this how her torturers felt hunting their secret, whatever they thought it was? Need analysis for a quote we don't cover? (including. 1247 matching entries found. But what a dangerous joy! Waiting for the Barbarians study guide contains a biography of J.M. As the magistrate notices though, she herself does not want to be pitied. In all of us, deep down, there seems to be something granite and unteachable. But as for me, sustained by the toil of others, lacking civilized vices with which to fill my leisure, I pamper my melancholy and try to find in the vacuousness of the desert a special historical poignancy. GradeSaver, 29 March 2017 Web. One of the central themes in Waiting for the Barbarians is male sexuality. He will partake in a new stage of the torture when he refuses her any affection, while she weeps in his bed and feels herself hideous and he does nothing to ease her pain. Struggling with distance learning? By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.”, “To the last we have learned nothing. The girl lies in my bed, but there is no good reason why it should be a bed. The quote reflects the broader appeal of those preferring to be removed from, and ignorant of, the violence that may facilitate their life. 46 quotes from Waiting for the Barbarians: ‘Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.’ None of this has do with feelings of the woman herself, how she experienced the trauma of violation, and how she may hope to recover. As the magistrate surmises, the tone that Joll speaks of is the tone of someone in pain. All of it is projection of those who are socialized to consider her violation a defilement. On the other hand, there was no way, once I had picked up the lantern, for me to put it down again. . Lynch, Molly. There is nothing we can do about that. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. “It’s been growing more and more clear to me that until the marks on this girl’s body are understood, I cannot let go of her…” (31). What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in the water, like birds in air, like children? They exposed her father to her naked and made him quiver with pain; they hurt her and he could not stop them (on a day I spent occupied with the ledgers in my office). Empire has created the time of history. I'm sorry, this is a short-answer "literature" forum. I must assert my distance from Colonel Joll! The simple, important quote at the opening of the novel shows that at his outpost, the magistrate has been out of touch—cut off from the evolution of colonial … The magistrate is the first-person narrator and flawed protagonist of the novel. Vain, idle, misguided! Joll has just tortured the first two prisoners at the outpost. There is nothing to link me with torturers, people who sit waiting like beetles in dark cellars. ), and, leaving them buried there forever and forever, to come back to the walled town full of new intentions, new resolutions.”, “But that will not be my way. “I never wished to be drawn into this…I did not mean to get embroiled in this. Waiting for the Barbarians essays are academic essays for citation. We are fallen creatures. it has not escaped me that in bed in the dark the marks her torturers have left upon her, the twisted feet, the half-blind eyes, are easily forgotten. Have I truly enjoyed the unbounded freedom of this past year in which more than ever before my life has been mine to make up as I go along?”, “I stare all day at the empty walls, unable to believe that the imprint of all the pain and degradation they have enclosed will not materialize under an intent enough gaze; or shut my eyes, trying to attune my hearing to that infinitely faint level at which the cries of all who suffered here must still beat from wall to wall. The magistrate’s first view of how the nomad girl perceives him is in association with Joll. I behave in some ways like a lover—but I might equally well tie her to a chair and beat her, it would be no less intimate.”, “It is I who am seducing myself, out of vanity, into these meanings and correspondences. Our, LitCharts makes it easy to find quotes by Space is space, life is life, everywhere the same. I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering. "But we live in a world of laws," I said to my poor prisoner, "a world of the second best.

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