English

Evan Tsevdos

Prof. Von Uhl

English

April 26, 2009

Final Exam

The word “barbarian” originally stems from the Greek word “” which actually means “foreign”. Therefore, the word “barbarian” is simply anyone who is out of our social and cultural atmosphere; consequently, the features attributed to being “barbarian” are held in the eye of the beholder. Although the literal meaning of the word “barbarian” means “foreign”, like many other words, it’s meaning has changed due to time and perspective as language does not always mean what it says it does. Therefore, the connotations of the word “barbarian” usually now carry a negative quality of being deconstructive towards civilization, its antonym. In Coetzee’s text, Waiting for the Barbarians the novelist has not enforced a false definition of the word because the word “barbarian” correctly alters in the eye of the beholder: the word is originally attributed to the nomads who travel on the outskirts of the colony; however, by novels end, the word is further attributed to the actual citizens of the Empire themselves. Therefore, Coetzee accurately defines and uses the word “barbarian” throughout the novel through his careful usage of diction and shifting perspective about who is “barbarian” and who is civilized.

Coetzee correctly labels the term “barbarian” through the Magistrate as he believes that the concept of barbaric is “contempt that is found on nothing more substantial than differences in table manners, [and] variations in the structure of the eyelid?” (Coetzee 50). Further, when there is a crime in the colony, the perpetrator is recognized as a “barbarian” based on his “ugliness”(Coetzee 121). Accordingly, the Magistrate correctly defines the word “barbarian” as someone who is simply hated because they are outside of the colonist’s social and cultural sphere. Therefore, throughout the novel readers see many instances where rather than calling the nomads of the land as “barbarian”, as...