A way Achebe would read it

The story of 'Waiting for the Barbarians', in my opinion connects to the known example of what Achebe wrote in his essay towards Conrad. I think that the narrator Achebe can be compared to the Magistrate in this story. THe way the Magistrate feels guilt of how the people, 'the barbarians', where treated by the colonell joll, as being a racist. The colonel treated these people as if they wheren't worth anything, although the Magistrate was also in a way racist by describing the people as "simple people",(4), who where separated from other classes. There was the people who live within the empire, and the other who lived along the river.

The way Achebe would read this story, is in a similar way he wrotew for 'Heart of Darkness', it focused on the meaning of racism, mistreatment, casualties. The way the Magistrate introduces the colonell, as being someone superior to everyone, afterwards the colonell discriminate the prisoners who where brought by interogating them in painful ways by torturing them,"Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt." (5) A way of seeing the Magistrate as racist is when he compares the people captive as animals, "We stand watching them eat as though they are strange animals." (18) The prisoners as one could compare them to slaves where beaten, and at the end of the first chapter are compared to words said by Achebe as being "ugly people", "It would be best if this obscure chapter in the history of the world were terminated at once, if these ugly people were obliterated from the face of the earth and we swore to make a new start, to run an empire in which there would be no more injustice, no more pain." (24) Therefore, the magistrate refers to the prisoners as being ugly. although the words would have come by all the events that took place when the colonell interogated them. In the end, the Magistrate would have been also seen as a racist when he discriminates the girl he helped after she was in the streets begging, he would compare her as having "alien" characteristics, who where not attracted to him. The Magistrate resulted discriminating the girl, and also taken advantage of other girls who worked for him, as making him feel superior.