03.405.bhatt.maulik
- 1. “Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.” - Cavafy (1904) Maulik Bhadreshkumar Bhatt, M.A. Part – II, Sem – IV, Roll No - 03 Paper – E-E-405-D- The African Literature, Unit – 03 – Waiting for the Barbarians, Department of English, Bhavnagar University. 24-Mar-12 Department of English 1
- 2. Self – Other Binary Magistrate / Colonel Joll Excavation of the nearby ruin of a former civilization Enigmatic washing and oiling “ritual” with a naked barbarian girl Alterity is Inter-subjective for him Self and other – inseparable – if distinct Mikhail Bakhtin‟s view – self-other interdependence and interanimation “I am conscious of myself only while revealing myself to another, through another, and with the help of another… A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary; looking inside himself, he looks into the eyes of another or with the eyes of another… I cannot manage without another, I cannot become myself without another; I must find myself in another by finding another in myself” (Shaffer, 134) Mutual reflection and mutual acceptance In order to understand – Locate outside – time, space and culture Life is Dialogical – to dialogue/commune 24-Mar-12 Department of English 2
- 3. Magistrate‟s relationship with a Barbarian Girl linked with that of Third Bureau‟s. Both trying to „trespass into the forbidden‟ Girl – Indecipherable – unreadable – obscure – opaque – blank – incomplete “There is only blankness and desolation that that there has to be such blankness” (Coetzee, 79) Magistrate – A man who has lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere. Anatomizes the difficulty faced by even the most well-intentioned Self in in understanding and valuing the other The empire projects its own barbarism onto the other beyond the borders 24-Mar-12 Department of English 3
- 4. References: Cavafy, Constantine P. Waiting for the Barbarians, 1904, Print. Coetzee, J.M., Waiting for the Barbarians, 79. 1980, Print. Shaffer, W. Brian., Reading the Novel in English, 121-137, 2006, Print. 24-Mar-12 Department of English 4