J.M. Coetzee
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B.1940 South Africa
Won Nobel Prize in
Literature, 2003
Waiting for the
Barbarians (1980) is
the 3rd of 12 novels
Opponent of animal
cruelty, has worked
that into fiction
From the book
The Body in Pain
Three Simultaneous Phenomena in the
Structure of Torture
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A theory about the social and political
function of torture.
Part of a longer book that considers pain in
various realms of society at different points
in history. Moves discussion of pain outside
of a medical realm and into social
considerations, including its role in war.
Book inspired by so few descriptions of
pain in literature.
3 parts
1) Experience of pain is subjective –
“more emphatically real than any other
human experience” – but cannot be
sensed by other people.
 2) Torture makes the subjectivity of pain
objective (visible) through its operations
(e.g. drowning torture).
 3) The objectified pain is translated into
“the insignia of power” (118)
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Elements of pain in torture
Aversive, a negation of the body
 Conflates private and public
 Obliterates consciousness - annihilation
of thought and emotion
 Ability to destroy language: “The
tendency of pain not simply to resist
expression but to destroy the capacity
for speech is in torture reenacted in
overt, exaggerated form.”
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Objectification
Power
of
torture (pain and
 Surveillance
power)
 Shift outside of
 Telephone, chair
the body
and walls
 Relatives of the
tortured
 Questions
 Visibility
 Instruments
The translation to power
A. “Weapon is an object that goes into the
body and produces pain.”
B. As something perceived in a torture
scenario the weapon “lifts the pain out
of the body and makes it visible”
C. The torture weapon allows “pain’s
attributes” to be “broken off from the
body and attached instead to the
regime.” (118)
Scarry includes “sexuality”
among the insignia of power
Photo from
Abu Ghraib
The Depositions
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“They stripped me
of all my clothes,
even my
underwear.” (168)
Kasim Mehaddi
Hilas
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“And after that they
order me to sleep on
my stomach and
they ordered the
other guy to sleep
on top of me in the
same position and
the same way to all
of us.” Hiadar Sabar
Abed Miktub AlAboodi(171)
Sexuality as an instrument of
abuse
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Allows for a disclaiming of the pain.
(Photos show people divorced from the
pain experienced by the prisoners.)
The torturer:
 “He first inflicts pain, then objectifies
pain, then denies the pain.” (119)
Blindness as Power
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“It is not merely that his power makes
him blind, nor that his power is
accompanied by blindness, nor even
that his power requires blindness; it is,
instead, quite simply that his blindness,
his willed amorality, is his power, or a
large part of it.” (119)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Qi8srR7co
Waiting for the Barbarians
Opening paragraph:
“I have never seen anything like it: two
little discs of glass suspended in front of
his eyes in loops of wire. Is he blind?...”
How does the tension of seeing/not seeing
and the inability to see emerge at
various points in the novel?
How does that relate to the Magistrate’s
attempt to comprehend events and his
own life?
Magistrate
Narrator
 Functionary of the Empire
 Aging man
Questions:
 What is the effect of not giving us his
name?
 How does he describe himself at various
points in the book?
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Service of the Empire
PAGE 8
PAGE 12
“I did not mean to
get embroiled in
this. I am a
country
magistrate.”
“Looking at him I
wonder how he
felt the very first
time…”
A quiet life in quiet
times.
Pass without
disquiet
Roman Magistrate
Officials of Rome
 Elected or appointed depending on point
in history
 Functioned during different periods of
Roman power (including the Republic
and the Empire)
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What is the point of this classical term?
An outpost of empire
Is there a name for the place?
How would you describe it?
What is the magistrate’s relationship to
the outpost?
The post is in relation to…
P. 12
“…f you get lost it
becomes our
task here to find
you and bring
you back to
civilization.”
PAGE 8
“In the capital the
concern was
that the
barbarian tribes
of the north…”
Is it South Africa?
Coetzee lived there until he moved to
Australia in 2002.
When the novel was published, South
Africa still under apartheid rule.
Apartheid (“the state of being apart”)
was enforced (legal) racial
segregation.
Coetzee concerned about authoritarian
rule and mistreatment of blacks.
Novel as allegory?
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Characters and settings signify a
correlated order of agents, events,
concepts
 Historical and political – identification of
actors and events
 Ideas/concepts – personification of abstract
entities (virtue, vice)
Or is it an unnamed place?
Could be
anywhere
anytime
Could be
nowhere
no time
For all time?
Points to the
difficulty of
situating the
narrative
From horizon to horizon
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Dream sequence:
Page 9
“From horizon to horizon the earth is
white with snow. It falls from a sky in
which the source of light is diffuse and
everywhere present, as though the sun
had dissolved into mist, become an
aura…”
Knowledge of the
“barbarians”
PAGE 15
PAGE 37
“The barbarians,
who are
pastoralists,
nomads..”
“There have been
no barbarian
visitors this
year…”