Waiting for the Barbarians: A Bold Step Beyond Conrad

The parallels between Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians are remarkable. Both tell stories of Imperial forays into the uncivilized unknown. Both foreign settings reveal terrible truths to the narrators. Yet there are several distinct differences between the two novels. As Douglas Kerr explains, HoD is narrated by the lawman who is struck the changes that have overcome the “transgressor” of cultural values, while WfB is narrated by the actual transgressor – even if he is a sympathetic one.

Kurtz’s European values are supposedly corrupted by the native rituals, yet his viewpoint is clearly still one of a European. He creates his own kingdom exulting in the forbidden knowledge he has gained from his interactions with the Natives. He does not become one of the Natives; rather he seeks to rule over them – clearly a vestige of Kurtz’s European values. The culture that Marlow and Kurtz are products of tells them that Kurtz was corrupted either by the Natives or by his protracted time away from civilized society. In either case, the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the novel is that imperialism exploits the Natives and that the self-proclaimed European civilizers are not magnanimous reformers, but rather cruel masters who abuse the Natives.

Coetzee, in his WfB takes these lessons a step further. He demonstrates that not only are the Imperialists needlessly malicious, but that the Empire actually creates its enemies in an endless cycle of attempted self-perpetuation. The Empire – personified by Colonel Joll – is not interested in deciding whether a barbarian uprising is coming; it is hell-bent on crushing the uprising that it believes is inevitable. In this case, the ability to see through the lies of the Empire stems not from civilized logic, but rather from fraternizing with the barbarians. Unlike in Heart of Darkness, spending time with the barbarians does not corrupt an individual, but actually opens his eyes to the truth of the situation. Colonel Joll doggedly pursues what he is sure is true. The Magistrate investigates with an analytical eye what appears to be historically true. Yet against all Imperial logic, the barbarians are the only ones capable of seeing reality. That is what sets Waiting for the Barbarians apart from Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s story still portrays the Natives as primitive relative to the Europeans, while Coetzee dares to say that the barbarians are actually higher on a moral hierarchy than their Imperial counterparts.