What makes a "barbarian" a "barbarian"

Although the author’s bio includes details of his birth and upbringing in South Africa I think it is important to note that this novel is left deliberately without geography. This was probably done in order to preserve the allegorical nature of the story. The author would rather us look at the relationships between characters and the various themes rather than dwell on where’s and when’s.

That being said I can see Achebe reacting very similarly to “Waiting for the Barbarians” as he reacted to Heart of Darkness. His main complaint is still preserved. The fact is that as far as we’ve gotten we are given little to no details about the “barbarians”. I was starved for information to the point where early on in the novel I began to wonder if these “barbarians” really existed. If this entire story was going to culminate in some grand contagious mob mentality paranoia, inventing an aggressor that doesn’t exist at all except for in the delusions of the frightened wealthy.

But even as we get toward the end of chapter two we are still given almost nothing in terms of solid useful descriptions of the “barbarians”. Similar to Heart of Darkness the only time we see these “barbarians” is when the authorities of our citadel bring them in. And even then the only thing that seems to identify them as “barbarians” is their condition and appearance and perhaps the fact that they were found what would be considered “too close” to the citadel.

I wonder if we were forced to define a “barbarian” and describe one based on what the book gives us so far, what would we come up with? And perhaps more importantly how many of the features that we would ascribe to these “barbarians” would be inherently theirs as opposed to having been inflicted or assigned by the empire?