Post colonialism in Coetzee’s

Waiting for the Barbarians

Prepared by
Rohit Vyas

M.A. Sem 4, Batch 2019-21

Enrolment Number: 2069108420200041
Paper 14 – African Literature
Email: rohitvyas277@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English MK
Bhavnagar University
Objectives
• Bring out the key points of post-coloniality from the text

• Compare the contemporary national interest with the text

• Barbarian Girl as nation

Once Colonized Always Colonized

• South African author J. M. Coetzee

• Published in 1980.
• The novel highlights the coloniality and its
effects on any given nation.
• The plot-less storyline enables readers to
interpret the novel in their own way.
• Nameless characters, applicable in many
contexts
What is postcolonialism ?
• The term ‘postcolonial’ was originally used by the historians to
describe the period after colonization. In literary criticism it has
been used since the late 1970s to discuss the various cultural,
political, and linguistic effects of colonialism. As a term,
postcolonialism “has subsequently been widely used to signify
the political, linguistic, and cultural experience of societies that
were former European colonies” (Ashcroft et al., 186).
Barbarians are within the country
• Who are the barbarians?
• Second Wave of COVID19 and the shocking aftermaths
• Lack of medical and healthcare services
• “His government is facing mounting criticism for its handling of
the crisis as oxygen, drugs, tests and hospital beds remain in
critically short supply in the worst-hit areas.” (Beaumont, The
Guardian)
Barbarian Girl and Nation
• The character of Barbarian Girl is disfigured and has many scars
on her body

• “While I have not ceased to see her as a body maimed, scarred,

harmed, she has perhaps by now grown into and become that new
deficient body, feeling no more deformed than a cat feels
deformed for having claws instead of fingers.” (Coetzee, 35)

• Blindness as metaphor for the awareness of people. As power

roles are on the peak, brainwashed mass still thinks rationally.
Magistrate thinks
• “I wanted to live outside history. I wanted to live outside the
history that Empire imposes on its subjects, even its lost
subjects. I never wished it for the barbarians that they should
have the history of Empire laid upon them.” (Coetzee, 92)
Works Cited
• Ashcroft, Bill. Griffiths, Gareth. Tiffin, Helen. Post-Colonial Studies:
Key Concepts. London, Routledge, 2000.

• Beaumont, Peter. "Narendra Modi: Covid Resurgence in India Like

Being ‘hit by a Storm’." The Guardian, 21 Apr. 2021,
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/20/narendra-modi-covid-
resurgence-in-india-like-being-hit-by-a-storm. Accessed 20 Apr. 2021.

• Coetzee, J. M. Waiting for the Barbarians. PDF, Text Publishing, 2019.