The Magistrate's Mixed Emotions

Due to the fact that he is the narrator of J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, it is easy enough for the magistrate to quickly become the center of attention of the story. Throughout the first three sections of the novel, I was especially intrigued by the actions that he takes when dealing with the Barbarians. It is clear from said actions that the magistrate is deeply conflicted on how he should regard the Barbarians. From cursing Colonel Joll for bringing the fishing people to telling the new officer that he hopes the Barbarians one day rise against the Empire to even taking one of the Barbarians into his bed, it seems as if he has decided that the Barbarians are in every way the equals of those people who live within the walls of the Empire. However, the vast amount of internal conflict present in the magistrate’s thought allows readers to see that there is more to his seemingly pro-Barbarian attitude than meets the eye. The way in which Coetzee depicts some of his interior dialogue allows us to see how even the magistrate himself realizes how radical it is for a high-ranking official located on the frontier to view the Barbarians as anything more than their name implies.
Through both the magistrate’s thoughts and actions, it becomes clear that the tension between the citizens of the Empire and the Barbarians is rapidly coming to a head. In the opening parts of the book, it is apparent that the gap between the inhabitants of the magistrate’s city and the Barbarians living just outside the border is larger than he initially cares to admit. Through his dealing with the prisoners and later the woman he takes a fancy to, we see that despite his desire to remain unprejudiced in his dealings with the Barbarians, he best sums up his current views on relations with them in the quote, “I [caught] myself in a moment of astonishment that I could have loved someone from so remote a kingdom. All I wanted now is to live out my life in ease in a familiar world, to die in my own bed and be followed to the grave by old friends.” (74), a saying which shows that though his ideals might be in the right place, reality dictates that he lives in a far different way than the utopian equality with the Barbarians that he desires suggests that he would. 409