Waiting for the Barbarians

How would you explain the Magistrate’s personality as he portrays himself at the beginning of the novel?

How would you evaluate the Magistrate’s reliability as a first-person narrator? Does he present himself as a hero, and if so, is this portrayal accurate?

What is Colonel Joll’s motivation? What does he personally gain from taking control of the settlement, torturing prisoners, and going to war with the Indigenous community?

How are women treated in the novel? Is there any difference between how the Magistrate treats women and how Joll and his men treat women? Explain.

Analyze the Magistrate’s behavior toward the Indigenous girl and his infatuation with her injuries. What do they reveal about the novel’s larger themes?

The Indigenous girl is a mostly silent character in novel. Why, in your opinion, does Coetzee include her? Is she more than an object of pity/abuse? In what ways does she express agency outside of her relationship with the Magistrate?

Is there evidence that the Empire damaged the crops and irrigation systems around the town and sent the dead soldier on horseback? If so, what is the significance of Empire committing acts against its own people? If not, how do you explain these events?

When the Coetzee wrote the novel in 1980, South Africa was still under apartheid rule. How is the novel an allegory for apartheid South Africa?