Waiting for the Barbarians: A Setting for the Discussion of Concepts, Issues, and Morals

In the opening pages of J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians we gather that this novel will be hypothetical, that it will be more concerned with the concepts and morals of the events-to-occur than with the actual events themselves or the people who make them happen. In these opening pages we are first introduced to two of the novel’s main characters. The narrator we learn to be a thinking and somewhat moral, yet still somewhat corrupted magistrate of his village. Sharply contrasting him is Colonel Joll, the torturing and brainless representative of the Empire in the narrator’s village. In the novel’s opening we also gain a sense of Coetzee’s style of writing. We become familiar to his simple wording and use of subsections within each section of the novel, through which he tells little parts of the story. Finally, we learn that the novel will discuss many concepts and issues: moral issues, political issues, concepts of authority and hierarchy, etc. But there is one issue that, at least in my mind, stands out from the rest.

This issue is that of torture. When I say it stands out from the rest, I do not mean that it is more important or deserves more attention, I just mean that it catches my eye much quicker than the other issues and concepts of Coetzee’s novel. I believe that the issue of torture grabs my attention so quickly because it is such a shocking and controversial issue. It is next to impossible to ignore imagery such as, “The grey beard is caked with blood. The lips are crushed and drawn back, the teeth are broken. One eye is rolled back, the other eye-socket is a bloody hole,” or, “There is a certain tone… A certain tone enters the voice of a man who is telling the truth. Training and experience teach us to recognize that tone.” With such imagery it is obvious that the morals of torture will be questioned in the novel. When I came across this first torture scene in my reading I remembered a radio talk show I had heard a while back in which I learned that the United States defined torture as “pain equivalent to death or organ failure,” so that certain agencies could justify their means of obtaining information “without torture.” Therefore, the morals of torture have two levels. Is torture moral? And if not, what is and what is not considered torture? (421)