Waiting for the Barbarians

Though Colonel Joll has a limited actual appearance in the novel, his presence looms large throughout as a symbol of a campaign of terror and fear. The sunglasses donned by Joll are the novel's opening image, and they suggest a sinister presence from the outset. Of Joll’s use of the sunglasses, the Magistrate says, “I could understand it if he wanted to hide blind eyes. But he is not blind” (1). Joll claims that the shades help protect his eyes against the sun, which is likely true, but they also conceal his eyes, the windows into his soul. When Joll reappears toward the end of the novel, he does not wear his sunglasses, suggesting that his true self has been exposed for all to see. The secretive and brutal policing tactics he employed are no longer hidden. Of Joll’s appearance in the carriage, the Magistrate says, “His face is naked, washed clean, perhaps by the blue moonlight, perhaps by physical exhaustion” (146). The disaster that has befallen his regiment has revealed Joll, and he is no longer the threat he once was.

Torture as a means of extracting the truth is what defines Joll in the novel. The method is of course problematic not just for the cruelty that it wreaks on the victim. It also calls into question the effectiveness of this means of getting at the truth. To Joll, truth is arrived at through the infliction of pain. He says, “First I get lies, you see—this is what happens—first lies, then pressure, then more lies, then more pressure, then the break, then more pressure, then the truth. That is how you get the truth” (5). His formula is very straightforward. He does not see nuance, nor does he allow for the possibility that a victim of his torture will eventually just tell Joll whatever it is that Joll wants to hear so that an end comes to the pain that is inflicted. Joll is the antithesis to the Western concept of innocent until proven guilty. He is the opposing force to the Enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th centuries. In Joll’s eyes, everyone is presumed guilty, and their coerced testimony proves it. The emergency powers declaration under which Joll operates gives him leeway to enact his brutality. He symbolizes a darker aspect of humanity that will inflict pain on others sadistically because he can, and because there is no counterforce to prevent it from happening. The kind of unlimited power represented by Joll is a slippery slope which can lead civilization backward.