The Outsiders

The Outsiders

            Like Nikki, I also found myself drawing comparisons to Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude while reading Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians.  In both novels, a fear of outsiders exists which ends up causing destruction.  Both towns get corrupted by outside influence and an otherwise peaceful town is thrown into shambles.  However, a key difference between the two novels is the reason that the corruption occurs.  In One Hundred Years of Solitude the outsiders are the ones who corrupt the town.  The townspeople live peacefully with no fights or death.  However, when outsiders appear (western influence) in the town and set up a factory, the town goes downhill.  The outsiders take what they want, and then when the endless rain begins, they leave the town to fend for themselves. 

The difference in Waiting for the Barbarians is that the reason for the corruption is fear of the natives (the barbarians), not an outsider.  Similar to One Hundred Years, the town is peaceful and the Magistrate enjoys, “serving out his days on this lazy frontier, waiting to retire” (9).  The town does not even have a proper prison because of their lack of crime.  However, the natives lived on the land first, and the Empire pushed them out.  For this reason, the Empire is convinced that the barbarians are forming an army and are going to attack.  The Empire imposes itself in the town, tears down homes to build barracks, imprisons innocent people, and even accuses the Magistrate of treason.  The town begins to live in fear, not only of the barbarians, but also of the soldiers who are supposed to be protecting them.

Nevertheless, even though the corruption of the town in Waiting for the Barbarians was caused by fear of the natives, I think it is important to note that the corruption was carried out by the Empire.  I believe that this novel, like One Hundred Years of Solitude, is trying to make a statement about government and imperialism causing destruction.  In Barbarians, not only does the town’s own government cause the corruption, but it is done in fear of people the government had conquered and mistreated in the first place.  These actions make the government to blame for the destruction of the town.  Even when the barbarians do attack and whitewash the town, they only do so because they are first provoked by the Empire.  While in Barbarians it is the town’s own government causing the corruption (unlike in One Hundred Years where it was an outside one), both towns lose their peace and innocence as a result of others’ influence.