Reader's Guide for J.M. Coetzee’s

Waiting for the Barbarians

Warning: second and third segments contain plot spoilers

Chapters I-II

Why does the novel keep returning to how different characters see or don’t see?

Why do you think the novel uses titles like “Magistrate” and “Empire” in the place of full names and specific locations?

Does the Magistrate’s offering of “reparation” to take the barbarian girl back to her people make him a heroic figure? In what way, if any?

What do you think the Magistrate is hoping to find when he excavates the ruins in the dunes?

What is the significance of the foot washing scene? What, if anything, is the Magistrate trying to wash away?

Chapters III-IV

Could a decrease in the Magistrate’s sexual desire be connected to a lack of desire to colonize and control land? Has he lost any other powers?

What is the significance of the snow becoming worse as the Magistrate’s dreams progress?

Considering the emphasis this novel places on an individual being “clean,” what does it mean that Colonel Joll writes “ENEMY” in dirt on the backs of prisoners and has soldiers beat them until they are “clean”?

Do you think the Magistrate’s insistence on returning the girl to her people is more about securing her peace of mind or his own?

Why do you think it matters that the Magistrate is imprisoned in the same barracks that were used to interrogate the barbarians?

Chapters V- VI

In Chapter V, the Magistrate says, “all creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice. But we live in a world of laws, a world of the second-best.” What distinction does the novel make between “justice” and “law,” and what role does each of these serve in the novel?

The novel opens with a description of Joll’s sunglasses, which he never seems to take off. What does it mean, then, that the last time the Magistrate sees Jolly he is missing his dark glasses?

Who are “the barbarians” in this novel? Are they more than one group of people? Is there anyone who is not “a barbarian in his heart”?

The Magistrate claims “there has been something staring [him] him the face, and [he] still [does] not see it.” What is “it” that the Magistrate cannot see?

Does the snowman at the end of the novel remind you of any character in Waiting for the Barbarians? Who and why?
 

--Ashley Young