Existentialism in the novel "Waiting For the Barbarians"

MAHARAJAKRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY,BHAVNAGAR

Smt. S.B.GARDI DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Name: Bhumi Vinodbhai Joshi

Sem - 4

Roll  No : 2

PG Enrollment No  : PG14101020

Email Id: bhumivjoshi108@gmail.com

Paper Name :  14 The African Literature

Assignment Sub :

'Existentialism in the novel - 'Waiting for the Barbarians '

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  v                      Preface:

                   African Literature is  history of Slavery, oppression or suppression, violence  and humiliations of their life. This literature is not for Entertainment, not for Aesthetic delight but such literature  disturb the mind  leads to think about Humanity and so many other things. This literature is not written with  Out  of Compassion but it is written out of Disgustful life  which is experienced by writers themselves. Flood of Colonialism, Capitalism and Industrialism lead them towards salve mentality and they suffer  from agony and pain.

                        We can’t enjoy the narration of any text because writers  have no good memories to write then how can we expect that they write something romantic or anything else when their lives itself in danger or mental states are in trauma. They are suffering from Dominant power and live in fear. They  cannot explore their ‘Feelings and Emotions’ as human beings because they are not treated like as Human Beings.

•  What  is to be South African writer ?

                    A Great commanding subject haunts the South Africans imagination, Yet this subject can also turn into a kind of tyranny, close, oppressive, even destructive. It means an endless clamor or news about racial injustice, the feeling that one's life is mortgaged to a society gone rotten with hatred, an indignation that exhausts itself into depression, the fear of one's anger may overwhelm and destroy one's fiction. And except for silence or emigration , there can be no relief.

• About Writer :

                        John Maxwell Coetzee  South African writer who is a novelist, essayist, translator and recipient of the Nobel prize in Literature 2003. He focuses on power. The novel ‘Waiting for Barbarian'  was published 1980. His philosophical depth and  stylistic brilliance put him as rival of Kafka and Beckett. He was born in Cape Town ,South Africa, in 1940 educated in south Africa and United States.

  v                   About the Novel :

                 The title of the novel is borrowed from C.P. Cavafy’s poem with the same title : 'Waiting for the Barbarians'. This text gives the most prominent voice to The Post colonial literature.  In the novel  we can find out the absurdity without name of narrator and without unnamed empire which  is existed without historical and geographical setting. The novel is the empire that.........

“Must expand, either by transforming the other, wiping it from the face of the earth”.

                  'Waiting For the Barbarians' is all about 'We' and 'Others' or 'We' and 'They'. Means it depends on existential crisis. One's identity and existence depends on Other. Novel raises the question of conflict between civilization and Barbadians. But who decides who is civilised and who are Barbarians? The Barbarians represents a kind of outside threat which seek to trample on the security and safety of the people of the empire. There is also  the reflection of power relation between Civilised and Barbarians means White and Blacks. Anxiety and fear remains from the beginning of the novel until the end of it.

Ø    Power Relation :

                    This novel can be read as power  exist between the  oppressor and the oppressed. Dominant power, sexual authority over women, and political power are there.  Idea of losing such power over other creates the existential crisis. Indirectly suggested that then there is no master slave relationship. How can we define one as 'Master'?  It is only possible when there is the existence of 'Slave'. So , idea of identity is depended on 'Others' rather than 'Us'.

Ø Conflict between 'We' and 'They' :

                   Empire is living under the threat that 'Barbarians' are going to attack on empire. To whom we call Barbarian? people who are not belonging our community or outsider to whom we call Barbarian. Means ....'They' are barbarians. So, when we define 'They' as different from us, we automatically give the identity to ourselves as 'We'.

                        Do Barbarian exist or not? Who knows ? but ....repeatedly  liens come in the novel that............."Because barbarians are coming today."

                        Borders are defended and attacked, questioned and crossed, made   to stand for what is within and what is without. The concept of 'we' and 'They' depends on thinking capacity and ability to define the things. When` people  considered the country is as our or as a part of empire, settlements and have some conscious feeling with the place they define themselves as 'We' putting themselves as in center. And when Native people define outsider as visitors putting them out of center means in margin , they become 'Other' or 'They' for them.

                   We gives binary opposition to identity with anxiety of existence.  If they come what happens with  us ?  I think people of empire don't much  conscious about barbarian identity but they constantly think about their own identity. because they don't know whether they exist or not? 

“Now what’s going to happen to us without Barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution." ( Waiting for the Barbarians)

          Magistrate and Third Bureau are in search of barbarian - the  enemy so that barbarian can't destroy the empire. but, actually they all are in search of themselves or their own identity.  Sometime strangeness creates a fear and then people depict them as 'Barbarians ' or 'Others.'

Ø Civilized Society v/s Barbarian Society:

                    A civilization is any complex society characterized by urban development, symbolic communication forms, and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite. It has own different rules and regulations to follow and also have the power.

                        Barbarians are defined  by civilized with the comparison of  them. So Civilized society  depict them as uncultured, savages and animals kind of things. So, civilized society gives the identity  to Barbarian as "Other" in the society and make themselves as superior.

                        Civilized society do harm the barbarian with softness as Magistrate does in the novel. They uses everything with the name of sympathy , with the name of teaching culture or giving education and etc. Magistrate seduces woman under the power and under the label of  civilization. Does he is civilized ? Borders, torture, sexual power and humiliations and pain of black people become the most important aspect to study the civilized society.


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                                v  Existentialism :

                Existentialism is not gloomy  term. It is philosophical term which is used in literature. Jean Paul Stare, Martin Esslin, and Albert Camus use this term in their work. Existentialism is attitude to see the life with new perspective and it's all about 'Lived experience' and Consciousness of Mind. Existentialists deals with the subject matters like.... Death, Meaninglessness of life, What is importance of God in human life , Interpersonal relationship which is existed and what is the meaning of all those things and so many others things which we all are doing without any purpose in life. That all things are connected with existential crisis.

            It is movement in which three things are more important like.....

1. Freedom

2. Passion

3. Individualism

                        In this we find that existentialists reject the 'divine perspective' because with divinity immortality automatically comes. Existentialism deals with such questions like............... Who we are?  From where we come ? What is the purpose of our existence ? What  we are doing and why ? Such question remain unanswered because it reflects with mystery and lived experience.

            As human being what we are doing? 'Nothing' means we just kill our time  to wait our final destination - death only. Though  death is the ultimate truth of the life people can't accept it very easily because...............

"Our instinct of living life is more powerful than Death"

"We acquired the habit of breathing before acquired thinking."

                    Thus, Existentialism is all about crisis of existence and purposeless of living life without doing significant work in life.   But those who don't understand this they goes on living life happily and have idea of that "They are happy" as the myth of Sisyphus suggest that concept of happiness. Without thinking goes on to do action and make mind that "We are Happy."

"Thinking is not worst........What is terrible is to have thought."

Ø Let's discuss existentialism in the novel 'Waiting For Barbarian'.

          When we  talk about  existentialism  how can we forget Samuel Bucket's great work 'Waiting for Godot'.   The play 'Waiting For Godot' stands for absurdity of life and  meaninglessness of life which we all are doing in our life until the  final destination of life - Death.  Title of the both play 'Waiting for Godot' and  novel 'Waiting For Barbarian' also suggest the "ceaseless waiting ". Waiting is always irritating  for  everybody.

• Existential Crisis in the novel 'Waiting For Barbarians' 

                   Yes, I feel the effect of existential crisis or meaninglessness of human existence in the rational and indifference universe in the novel also- Waiting for Barbarians."  people of empire ,They all are waiting for Barbarians and in between they just killing time doing insignificant actions. They have fear to lose the power over people. They have fear of their own identity what happen with them  if Barbarians will come ? we read this text with  existential  theory as it has the aspect of absurdity of  life or meaninglessness or purposeless life which they are living.

                  They all are in search of Barbarians though they don't know who they are ? Why they are waiting for them? Why they have to come ?  When they come? or the most important question is Do they exist or not ? What makes difference to them if they (barbarians) will come? as Vladimir and Estragon don't know why they are waiting for Godot? Why he has to come? Does he come same pace ? such all questioned remain unanswered throughout the life.  

  v                     'Waiting' is  in center :

 The subject of the novel is not Barbarians but Waiting as the play has concept of waiting not Godot.

"A Waiting that has no solution expect  keeping on waiting"

                        As Waiting is the experience of time and action, it defines many things.  Waiting is essential human condition and it gives some hope, too. Identity  of Godot constantly gives disappointment to Vladimir and Estragon because Godot never comes but hope is alive. The same way Barbarians do not come on the stage as Godot never comes but still they alive in mind of people.  

"Essences never change."

In 'Waiting for Godot'..................

"Nothing happens ,nobody comes, nobody goes ,it's awful!."

                    The same way idea of barbarians remains as idea only. They can't come and people become disappointed though they don't know who they are ? Why they come ? What is the purpose f their coming? They  are not waiting for barbarians with pleasure but hey constantly go on threat what will happen with their identity if they come? This ceaseless waiting stands for Empire's continuous barbarian attack and also refers the individual life.

 They all say that..........."Because Barbarians are coming today."

                        'Waiting' as the existential expression of purposelessness is present through the concept of the Empire and also appears in Magistrate's description of his life.( The existential Crisis of Coetzee's protagonists in Waiting for the  Barbarians and Disgrace p4)  waiting embodies the existential notion of the purposelessness of the existence. The individual is born into the world of limits and suffering, doomed to wait until the death.

                        The  torture, an obvious violation of the humanity of the aboriginals, is a liberty taken by the Empire to impose the theory that its own will and intentions are more crucial than the rights of those that it is conquering over barbarian.

“Shall I tell you what I sometimes wish? I wish that these barbarians would rise up and teach us a lesson, so that we may learn to respect them. We think of the country here as ours, part of our Empire—our outpost, our settlement, our market centre.”

                    It is the clear reflection How far fear and anxiety can go and how far members of society can follow a blind power In the novel , there is no clear identification who is civilized and who is barbarian but when we read above quote  there is some hint that  civilized persons behave like barbarians. They become more brutal, wild among each other. They forget their own civilization.

'Culture we all have but civilization can't have all.'

                        Doing waiting of Barbarian, they all become barbarian with their thoughts , with their own behaviors and in actions. It is truly said that.............

"The more things change , the more they are same. That is the terrible stability of the world."

                        In term of  'Waiting' , Empire has nothing to do without doing waiting. Empire is trying to gain power to rule  or gaining purpose of their existence giving the name of  'Other' to Barbarian. They are uncivilized because Magistrate and governments  are existed within the empire not outside.

                             v  Existence of Empire :

                The empire exist only in relation to Barbarians. If Barbarians exist or 'Other' are there then Empire gain power to rule over them.  Existence of the empire is depended on the existence of  barbarians. If barbarians are not existed then who know that empire is powerful or who say that empire has the whole power control. Means...If barbarians are existed then and then empire will be existed in the world. Many characters are powerless and then there is the idea of powerful characters,   In within the empire oppressed are existed and then there is the oppressor like Magistrate.  

                        Magistrate lose his power and authority after coming of colonel Joll. Losing power and authority within the empire leads to think about his  presence in empire and meaninglessness of his existence. He also  loses power over women.

"The Empire fades; the barbarians remain."

                    Coetzee traces  psychological perspective of these oppressors as they become aware of the existential existence. The magistrate or people  claim on Women's body in order to gain power over the 'Other'. In the text  The existential questioning that all individuals are confronted with does not result in oppression necessarily.  (The existential Crisis of Coetzee's protagonists in Waiting for the  Barbarians and Disgrace p -14,15) Power relation in relationship also  describes the purposelessness of magistrate's existence  with extra relationship with barbarians women.    

                        As we grasp the full force of Mr. Coetzee's title , adapted from some lines by Greek poet Cavafy : What does this sudden uneasiness , mean and the confusion?................Because it is night and the barbarians have not come ,and some men have arrived from the frontiers and they say that there are no barbarians any longer and now, What will become of us  without barbarians? These people  were kind of solution.(A stark political Fable of South Africa)

                        Thus , Writer expresses role of existentialism  in cycle of oppression, in relationship of having existence of barbarians, and also read through political  losing the power and authority to rule over "Other". They don't remain significant as such though significant is only illusion of them. So, existence of something or any one  depends on so many things not only one.

• Epilogue :

                     After discussing the novel with great philosophical concern  with 'Existentialism', Nothing remains as such significant and that's how 'Waiting', Meaninglessness and purposelessness of life reflects in the novel "Waiting For the Barbarians".  Absurdity of life clearly presented through the power politics, and its oppression in empire.


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Works Cited

Article, The New York Times: Book Review search. A STARK POLITICALFBLE OF SOUTH AFRICA. 18 April 1982. 15 March 2016.

Coetzee, J M. Waiting For the Barbarians. London: Random House , 1997.

Joshi, Bhumi V. My review on movie - 'Waiting for Godot'. 5 October 2015. 15 March 2016 <http://bhumijoshi.blogspot.in>.

Rikhye, Sonya. "The Existntial Crisis of Coetzee's Protagonist in Waiting For Barbarians and Disgrace." The University of North Carolina . 2008.