IRES Conference Proceedings: 113th International Conferences on Economics and Social Sciences (ICESS), 28‐29.12.2016 Florence, Italy 1 VICTIMS OF THE EMPIRE: AN ANALYSIS ON COETZEE'S WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS PELİN AYTEMİZ Başkent University, Communication Faculty Email: pelinaytemiz@gmail.com, paytemiz@baskent.edu.tr Abstract: The aim of this article is to unravel further what the book Waiting for the Barbarians written by J. M. Coetzee (1982) is saying about the human psyche and how the novel criticizes imperialism. By locating its concern on the issues of morality and violence and exploring the limits of human cruelty this paper argues that Waiting for the Barbarians challenges humanity and imperialism in several ways. Presenting a psychoanalytic discussion of Waiting for the Barbarians this study focuses on the impact of fear on the human psyche and imperialism's self-destructive power. How far fear and anxiety can go? How far members of society can follow a blind power? These are the main concerns of this essay that tries to interpret the allegories created in relation to the tensions raised by Coetzee. Keywords: Coetzee, Imperialism, Other, Torture 1. INTRODUCTION J.M. Coetzee is a South African novelist born in Cape Town in 1940 and his novel can be read as his protest against imperialism. Coetzee criticizes the imaginary unnamed Empire of his Novel and by doing so actually, critics imperialist system as a whole. Although he never mentions imperialism directly, it can be regarded as a critique of it while "several of Coetzee's novels are noted for their eloquent protest against political and social conditions in South Africa, particularly the suffering caused by imperialism, apartheid, and post-apartheid violence, as well as for their technical virtuosity" (Columbia Encyclopedia, 2001). In Coetzee's words, Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel about "the impact of the torture chamber on the life of a man of conscience" (Coetzee, 1992: 363). The man of conscience is the main protagonist of the novel who is an aging Magistrate living in a border town which is isolated from other words, of an unspecified Empire. He has responsibility and authority for maintaining the outpost for the service of the Empire but he looses his power when the Empire sent an army to protect the town from the barbarians. The protagonist protests the unjust treatment of the so-called "barbarians" although the Empire perceives them as a dangerous tribe preparing to attack the outpost and battle against the Empire. When he returns a captured barbarian woman he sympathizes and cares for her people, he is accused of treason and imprisoned like the barbarians. He becomes the subject of cruelty, humiliation, and torture. The examination of the critiques raised in the book will be discussed through interpreting the characters as victims of the Empire. The first victim is the barbarian girl in which will be examined in relation to her “otherness” as an outsider and as an enemy of the Empire. The Magistrate as the second victim and his self-journey will be examined in relation to his evaluation to become the other. Woman as the third victim of the Empire is the part, which discuss women’s silenced, and powerless positioning in the society. Then in the following section, Empire as the victim of itself and its self- destructive power will be pointed. 2. DISCUSSION 2.1. Victim 1: The Barbarian Girl Coetzee seems to create the barbarian girl as the representation of the “other” to problematize the attitude, which perceives difference as having no subjectivity. The existence of the barbarian girl criticizes the perspective, which pushes minorities to the margins and never allows any chance to the "other" to survive in itself. Because of his barbarian identity, the barbarian girl will always be regarded as the other by the imperialist system. Coetzee, to challenge this, carries her otherness also to her body. Her identity as other, is represented also visually through her semi-blind eyes and deformed body. Such an otherness is marked as a result of the torture, which displays clearly who is the reason of her awkwardness. Such an exaggerated representation expressed through the deformed tortured body might be read as the visualization of the deformed ideology of imperialism that perceives her as the other because of her "barbarian" identity.