LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:7 July 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Waiting for the Barbarians: A Mysterious White-Black Attachment

Mai Malkawi


Full Time Lecturer
The Hashemite University, Jordan

Waiting for Barbarians cover

Abstract

This paper examines Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians from a post-colonial perspective. "The post-colonial theory is an area of literary criticism and cultural studies that has come into being in response to the post-war upsurge in literary creativity in countries formerly under colonial rule and the persistence of colonial, neo- colonial or imperialist influence in the modern world. By analogy, the use of terms such as "post-structuralist" and "post-modern" seem to generate a challenge to universalists’ claims." (Simon Eliot and W.R Owens).

In this paper, post colonial aspects will be examined and analyzed in light of a chosen literary work. This paper aims at displaying and analyzing the strange relationship between the white man and the black barbarian girl in J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarian. Moreover, the relationship will be analyzed in reference to two chapters of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. These chapters are entitled as “The Women of Color And The White Man”, “The Man of Color and The White Women”.

Key words: post-colonial, white man, black woman, skin, mysterious relationship, colonized, colonizer, race, culture, magistrate.

The Study

Clearly speaking, one of the most questionable issues in Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, is the white magistrate’s relationship with the black barbarian girl. Throughout the novel, there is always one question nagging the reader, as to what attracts a powerful white man to a weak, helpless black woman. In fact, the same question can be applied to the girl, as to why was she willing to stay with the white man although he made her unhappy. As observed, both the white magistrate and the black girl are unnamed, as if to represent two different races (the whites and the blacks), and two identities (the colonizers and the colonized). The relationship between the white male and the black female in Waiting for the Barbarians will be discussed through an exploration of the incentives that drive the magistrate and the barbarian girl into establishing and maintaining such a relationship.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Mai Malkawi
The English Language and Literature Department
Language Center Building
The Hashemite University
Zarqa
Jordan
malkawi.mai@gmail.com
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