Waiting for the Barbarians

2469 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Self reflection as a trait

It is a common thing: an innocent, kind, humane person joins the military, goes to war, and comes back as a psychological disaster. They either become paranoid, depressed, anything to this nature. However, there are also individuals who go to war with prior psychological conditions. In J.M. Coetzee’s novel “Waiting for the Barbarians”, is reflective of these two situations. In the novel, war breaks out between an Empire and a group of nomads, the barbarians. In between all of this, is the protagonist, the magistrate, a man with a position of power in the military, who opposes the war. Much like actual war, there is an array of different psychological disorders portrayed through the characters, with some characters having disorders before that influence their performance in battle, or those who get them after, as a result of the horrific acts of torture and violence they either see or experience. While characters like Colonel Joll and Mandel have psychological conditions that make them ideal torturers, their victims display their own psychological disorders that result from the torture inflicted upon them. And though the citizens are not directly fighting in this war, they fall victim to the pressures of war and Colonel Joll and compromise their personal beliefs and morals in favor of the majority rule.

Colonel Joll’s disregard for the well-being of his prisoners during interrogation displays traits of antisocial personality disorder that relates him to many other individuals with high rank in the military known for being ruthless torturers. It is seen right from the start of the novel that Colonel Joll takes his position of power very seriously, imprisoning anyone who could be a potential threat. As soon as these people become pr...

... middle of paper ...

...ames M. Hudson and Amy S. Bruckman study a specific component of the bystander effect: social cues. This component states that, “Individuals actively look to one another for cues about how to behave in the situation. The inaction of others will likely cause the inaction of the individual” (Hudson and Bruckman 170). Humans are always worrying about what others think of them. Therefore, if there is a situation which requires help, but the majority is simply watching, an individual who may be willing to assist will quickly change their mind. This is the case with the magistrate. Since so many people were watching and treating his torture as a spectacle, those who would want to help didn’t for fear of standing out. This fear of helping the magistrate and going against the Empire is a result of the pressure that war brings to stay completely loyal to a person’s nation.

Show More
Related

  • Insanity In The Things They Carried By O. Vonnegut

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    There is a fine line between sanity and insanity, a line that can be crossed or purposefully avoided. The books The Things They Carried and Slaughterhouse-Five both explore the space around this line as their characters confront war. While O’Brien and Vonnegut both use repetition to emphasize acceptance of fate, their characters’ psychological and internal responses to war differ significantly. In The Things They Carried, the narrator and Norman Bowker carry guilt as evidence of sanity. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim and the innkeepers carry on with life in order to perpetuate sanity. Both authors develop a distinct theme of responding in the face of the insanity of war.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying.  All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times go by.  This is similar to what war is like.  In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair.  There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of feel the same way about it.  During the war the men experience many feelings, especially the loss of loved ones.  These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.  Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men.  They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country.  Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war.  Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled.  It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him.  They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up.  Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect.  Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge.  Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment.  Training camp is as death and destruction.  Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is.  The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line.   The front line is the most brutal part of the war.  The front line is the place in which the battles are fought.  Battles can only be described in one word- chaos.  Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side.  This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired.  In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man.  First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life.  He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed.  The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side.    The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.

    Read More

  • To Go or Not To Go

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reading his emotional feelings during the event taken place, the audience is affected by the narrator’s problem. In addition, after the first impact of shock the narrator becomes defensive by stating that he is “too good for this war […] too smart, too compassionate, too everything” (41). Emotions rapidly running through his head, the narrator expresses his defensive opinions ...

    Read More

  • Richard Holmes Acts Of War: The Behavior Of Men In Battle

    1827 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Now the bleedin war is over Oh, how happy I was there; Now old Fritz and I have parted, Life’s one everlasting care. No more estaminets to sing in, No mamoiselles to make me gay; Civvie life’s a bleedin failure, I was happy yesterday.”(398). This post-World War II song exemplifies the complexity of soldiers’ feelings towards war. There is no simplicity in how a soldier feels in battle or in the sanity under which they operate; often there is no method to the madness. The extreme conditions of war reveal man’s basic instincts and expose human nature. In an attempt to understand the issues that influence a soldier on the front line, Richard Holmes’s Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle faces the grisly truth about men in war. Holmes addresses soldiers’ motivations in and out of battle. He addresses fear, pain, fatigue, the enemy, and death as a part of battle. Out of the field, he discusses boredom, patriotism, religion, basic training, and family. The main points are well-researched and essential to understanding soldiers’ actions within war. His attention to the unpleasant details, that he deems essential to a soldier’s

    Read More

  • War's Reality: Shattering Heroic Ideals

    1682 Words  | 4 Pages

    The human mind seem to neglect the reality of war because it is much easier to envision war heroes than a soldier cursed with PTSD. The ideals of war among humans have a tendency to describe war as if it were a positive experience. It's not all fun and games when you are face to face with the enemy and death is breathing down your neck, showing you the literal meaning behind the figurative saying, “scared half to death”. Paul Baumer and Lt Hans von Witzland both entered a war in which their heroic and glorious ideals of war would be proven wrong. The horrific nature of war does not only impact a persons ideals of war. Paul Baumer and Lt. Hans von Witzland were both reduced to a more primitive being that acts instinctively rather than intuitively.

    Read More

  • Mental Problematic Consequences of Warfare

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    Participation in warfare can create dramatic conditions and experiences for the mental health and well-being of military personnel. During the 20th century, US military psychiatrists attempted to deal with the mental problematic consequences of warfare while also helping to achieve to the military goal of preserving the number of people available for work, and decreasing the weakening impact of psychiatric syndromes by implementing screening programs to detect factors that would predispose individuals to mental disorders, providing early intervention strategies for difficult war-related syndromes, and treating long-term psychiatric disability after deployment.

    Read More

  • Bystander Behavior In Lord Of The Flies By William Golding

    1445 Words  | 3 Pages

    Do we ever really know how we will act when put into a hectic situation? Some may be calm and collected in times of need and step up as a leader; others may fall under the pressures put upon them. Though the boys from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, all react very differently in their particular situation, they all have one thing in common; they all fall victim of becoming a bystander. When looking at John Darley and Bibb Latane experiments on witness behavior, one can easily see that the boys on the island fell into what we know as the bystander effect, while stranded on the island. The work of William Golding shows many occasions where the bystander effect comes into play for the boys and changes their actions.

    Read More

  • Wiesel's The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, Day

    605 Words  | 2 Pages

    While writing this paper, as well as while presenting it orally, my overall goal is to present to my audience a different perspective on war literature. In other words, I want my audience to learn that war literature serves a coping mechanism for both those who have experienced war and for those who have simply experienced a similar suffering in life that forced he or she to question their faith and purpose in life. In fact, throughout my paper, I will describe how I encountered suffering on multiple occasions, as well as from time-to-time I began to question my faith and purpose in

    Read More

  • Dr Randall Jarrell Analysis

    1459 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout this paper we will discuss the emotional impact of war. Our bodies and minds are built to deal with and handle stress differently than others. War can affect a person physically but also emotionally. Knowing that it’s a possibility that you can either get hurt or not live to see another day is heart breaking. War not only affects the soldiers, but it also affects the families. Several soldiers returning home thinks no one cares and there will be no one there for them when they return. Certain life circumstances such as stress and even the effects of a traumatizing event like war can contribute to depression. Description of World War I were written by the poets who experienced the heartbreaking events through their writing.

    Read More

  • Waiting for the Barbarians

    2160 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many of us have heard of the “dysfunctional relationship” characterized by the twists and the turns of emotion and the outrageous behavior of two self-destructive individuals. However, we never envision ourselves in that situation, playing either the stereotyped role of the crazy woman or man, both blinded by love or another passionate emotion. However, in Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee creates an eye-brow rising, head-tilting relationship between the old and pedophilic magistrate and the damaged barbarian girl. The transformative relationship between the two individuals is based on torture, guilt, atonement, and power. Didactically, through their relationship, Coetzee intends for the reader to understand the effect of moral idleness and also to see himself reflected in the idea of the true barbarian.

    Read More

  • The Kitty Genovese Murder Case

    2234 Words  | 5 Pages

    The bystander effect plays a key role in society today. More and more people ignore a person in distress.

    Read More

  • Choices: Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Our ability to selectively engage and disengage our moral standards…helps explain how people can be barbarically cruel in one moment and compassionate the next (The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Philip Zimbardo pg18).” This quote by Albert Bandura is an accurate representation of the men in Police Battalion 101. They started their lives as regul...

    Read More

  • Bystander Effect

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the strengths is providing a new insight into bystander effect. The study argued that researchers have previously neglected the potential benefit of bystanders and thus, the study provided a new horizon by proving reversed bystander effect through experiment. This allows us to be aware of the fact that someone may be providing help merely due to impression management. This arouses a doubt on whether the one who provides help is genuinely concerned about the needs of the victims, or one is just motivated by upholding his/her reputation when surrounded by a crowd. Besides, carrying out a manipulation check right after this experiment is beneficial to this study as well....

    Read More

  • Mental Illness In Literature

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dalloway portrays how not only do gender roles impact mental illness treatment of females, but also males. “When Evans was killed, just before the Armistice, in Italy, Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognising that here was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably. The War had taught him” (Woolf 86). Even in a time of war, men are expected to cultivate their masculinity. Septimus at first feels numb when his best friend is killed due to the dehumanizing nature of war, by expecting soldiers to move on and not confront their inner pain. However, after the war “for now that it was all over, truce signed, and the dead buried, he had, especially in the evening, these sudden thunder-claps of fear. He could not feel” (Woolf 87). Woolf’s description of Septimus’s post-war reaction demonstrates how he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A study found that many veterans feel isolated from society because they only can relate with fellow war veterans and are often “reluctant to seek treatment” (Mittal 90). “So when a man comes into your room and says he is Christ (a common delusion), and has a message, as they mostly have, and threatens, as they often do, to kill himself, you invoke proportion; order rest in bed; rest in solitude; silent and rest” (Woolf

    Read More

  • Human Instinct and Survival

    586 Words  | 2 Pages

    In incredibly stressful situations, human’s instinctive state is needed to help a person survive. In other words, the emotions that people develop are too much of a burden. To rid themselves of this burden helps one stay alive. This is because one’s instinct validates dissolute and violent actions, such as the actions seen in wars. As said by Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front, “We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they may be ornamental enough in peacetime, would be out of place here” (39). Paul understands that, to live through the horror of the war, soldiers must suppress their emotions. Their own instin...

    Read More

More about Waiting for the Barbarians

Open Document