Waiting for the Barbarians

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980

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Part 1

Part 2

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Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1 Summary

The novel opens with a meeting between a visitor named Colonel Joll and the narrator who remains nameless but is referred to as the settlement’s magistrate. Colonel Joll has shown up to announce his authority under newly declared emergency laws. The two men discuss the purportedly ominous threat posed by so-called barbarians—the Indigenous nomadic peoples—outside the gates of the frontier settlement. The settlement is unnamed, and it is an outpost of a likewise unnamed imperial entity, referred to as the Empire. The two continue their discussion, which generally takes the form of small talk, but the Magistrate is suspicious of the colonel’s presence.

The next day, at the behest of Colonel Joll, his civil guard regiment of the Third Bureau has taken prisoners: an old man and a boy, whom they found outside the gates of the settlement. The magistrate notifies Colonel Joll that there is very little crime in the settlement; therefore, there is no need for a typical prison. Colonel Joll intimates that he will need to interrogate the two suspects under the supposition that they may have information pertaining to the Indigenous nomadic groups. When the Magistrate speaks to the boy, he notices that the boy’s face is bruised, and it appears he has already been beaten. The boy does not reveal what happened to him. The Magistrate appears to plead on behalf of the presumed Indigenous prisoners and makes the case that these two were not part of any raid nor would they be acting as aggressors against the Empire. Joll disputes this and claims that the old man has acted aggressively against the civil guard.

Colonel Joll tells the Magistrate that he doesn’t need to be present for the interrogation, which, as immediately becomes clear, involves torture. The tortured cries of the prisoners are audible throughout the town, and the Magistrate hears it all. After things quiet down, the Magistrate investigates what happened during the questioning. He discovers that the old man is dead. Joll claims that the man had an accident and hit his head, and that was the cause of his death. The boy has visible wounds on his body, which the Magistrate presumes are stab wounds. Colonel Joll claims that the boy confessed to stealing livestock, but the Magistrate doubts the confession and assumes that it was coerced.

The Colonel leads another expedition, rounds up more prisoners from Indigenous communities and brings them all back to the town. The prisoners are almost certainly not engaged in criminal activity, nor do they truly pose a threat against the settlement. Many are women, and all are innocent. This enrages the Magistrate. The civil guards treat the prisoners inhumanely, and when the Magistrate tries to confront Joll about this, Joll brushes aside the accusations and suggests that the prisoners are guilty of resisting arrest or trying to evade it. When Joll finally departs the settlement, the Magistrate orders the prisoners released.

Part 1 Analysis

The novel begins with a sinister opening image, which is of Colonel Joll’s sunglasses. While Joll claims that the shades have practical use as protection against the sun, it is apparent that the shades represent something else. Joll has arrived at the outpost as a representative of the Empire, and he is there under so-called “emergency powers.” His presence at the settlement initiates a change from a rather peaceful, sleepy frontier outpost, to a military station from which acts of brutality are carried out against suspected enemies. The Magistrate says of the sunglasses: “The discs are dark, they look opaque from the outside, but he can see through them” (1). The shades conceal Joll’s eyes, and therefore conceal his true character. The torture Joll and his men conduct follows the same secretive, concealed pattern. It is carried out away from the view of the Magistrate and the residents of the town so that Joll can create his own versions of the truth. For example, when the Magistrate discovers the old man had been killed, Joll just brushes it off as a self-inflicted accident. The concealment of the truth here is similar to the way Joll’s true character is concealed by the shades. The Magistrate points out that Joll is not blind and that he is able to see. Applying that metaphor to torture, Joll understands that torture is brutality; he simply does not care that it is. This introduces the theme of The Fallacy of Torture as a Means of Finding the Truth.

Concealment of truth is an important theme in the novel. The appearance of Joll raises the interest of the residents of the outpost. The walking of the two prisoners through the town escalates the interest. What was once a peaceful town is now filled with anxiety over a previously non-existent threat; they’ve had no reason to suspect an attack from the local Indigenous communities. The capture of prisoners on the outskirts of town is an act of manufacturing consent and of creating antipathy against a theoretical adversary. Whether or not the Indigenous people are indeed planning an attack is never fully verified in this chapter, nor in the rest of the novel. Instead, the residents of the town are manipulated into believing an attack is imminent. Joll’s actions in the opening chapter are a form of propaganda from which truth is concealed by the appearance of practical purpose, in this case defending the town. They also introduce the theme of Imperialism vs. Indigeneity.

For his part, the Magistrate senses what is transpiring, but because he has grown accustomed to a life of comfort, he is powerless to do anything assertive to stop it. The Magistrate says of himself, “I did not mean to get embroiled in this. I am a country magistrate, a responsible official in the service of the Empire, serving out my days on this lazy frontier, waiting to retire” (7). He knows what is transpiring, and he knows that the supposed threat of attack is a pretense, but he does not have the desire to do much about it. He hears the torture taking place and is outraged by it, but instead of acting on his righteous indignation, he simply wishes for it all to go away. He seems to understand that his inaction is almost as inhumane as the brutality of the torture itself. When he finally confronts Joll over the evidence of torture, he accepts that he is crossing a line that will mean the end of his comfortable life as the leader of the town. It is not an act of heroism, nor is it a true sacrifice made by an honorable man for an honorable cause. Instead, it is simply a moral objection to Joll’s brutality. There is not much else someone in his situation, with such limited authority, can do to check nearly unlimited state-sanctioned brutality.