my topic

As we've talked about on Wednesday, I'll be discussing Attack of the 50ft. Woman, reviewing it as a feminist would and comparing it to the reading of As Things Fall Apart in my report on feminism.

Most difficult blog ever produced ever!

I too, will be taking the feminist route. The center of this essay will be the film "Dogma", as there were some interesting ideas about the film that I have touched upon on the blog, but have not truly explored as of yet. I will be discussing this film in relation to what can be considered as "feminist" in relation to the general cultural capital of feminism and in relation to two of the feminist philosophy readings done in class.

Kasey's a douche for stealing my essay topic

I decided I want to take the feminist route and discuss two peices we have done in class as well as how they fit into the general ideas of mainstream society, and how men view women. Now that my topics been theifed (and no thats not a real word) this is my default Idea

Topic #2

For my topic I'm going to analyze Waiting for the Barbarians, through the theme of colonization found in the story. I will also talk about another major example of colonization in another country, that can be related and be useful in comparing it to the story. I will also include examples that are useful in Achebe's essay, hopefully these work out in order to write my essay.

Essay 2 Topic

I will be analyzing 'Waiting for the Barbarians' in a feminist perspective, in other words, analyzing the Magistrate's relationship with the barbarian girl. I'm planning on referring to the feminist criticism of Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' and compare Woolf's 'The New Dress' to Carter's 'The Company of Wolves'.

Essay #2

For my Second Essay I plan to talk about Feminism and how two works we have discussed offer different representations of women. The two pieces I am going to focus on are, Luce Irigaray "Sexual Difference", and Aimee Bender "Mfer". I will show through each piece a different interpretation of how the author portrays the role of women in society. Then examine how one of their opinions compare to the viewpoint of another Feminist theorist that we have discussed in class, showing overall if all Feminist theorists have the same or a different perspective when talking about the role of women in society. Finally evaluating the benefits that one theorist could have over the other when talking about Feminism.

Does this mean I don't have to email it?

I'll be writing (hopefully, if you approve and all that) on how feminist views are represented in Sarah Cole and Waiting, with a focus on how both main characters idolize women, yet use them. I might even throw some Motherf*cker in there, I'm not sure yet.

11/07

In the interests of what alleviating a generalized fatigue, no response for class on Monday. Please post your topic for your next essay, however, so we all can see it.

And read at least to the beginning of Part V of Waiting, though the discussion will be much richer if you can finish the book.

Is he black?

The problem with both Conrad and Coetzee I have is that when they say he, they, women, prisoners, or boy, they don't specify whether the person is white or black, and I believe if they did, it would have helped. Coetzee thought Conrad is a racist based on the way Conrad portrayed the Africans as a group. It doesn't take Coetzee to realize that the main character is a kind, sympathetic, and conscious man. And yet, there's not much going on in the first chapter I just read. I remember the three women (I assume they're black) walking by, looking at the party curiously. And there's a boy who seemed to lost his grandfather, killed by interrogator. The main character is very kind to the boy. When he learns that the boy hadn't eaten anything that evening, his heart "grows heavy." Well I guess this might not be enough for Achebe to conclude that this person isn't a racist. I mean, even Marlow in Heart of Darkness gave a biscuit to one of the African who was finding a shelter from the explosioin under the tree? All I can say is, we do not seem to have enough stuff to judge him through Achebe's eyes (or any theorists). But I do know that when the main character says "barbarian", I know he is refering to an African.

Misrepresentation

As many people have stated already Coetzee does the same thing that Conrad did."The characters are not represented as individuals but as stereotypes." This is a short line from the Achebe/Conrad Controversy. If you have been reading the book you should have noticed that for some reason not much is known about the barbarians yet. We just know minor things and they aren't supported really by facts yet because we don't know if the barbarians are really like the way the author depicts them to be. Hopefully as we get further into the story the barbarians will appear so they can represent themselves. The barbarians have to appear in the book and do what they do. If they come pillage villages, rape women, and steal things then we will know that Coetzee was not just making up stereotypes.

It is not just with the barbarians either. There is also the fishermen and the other prisoners in chapter one. When they are first introduced they don’t seem like very pleasant people and they don’t speak because no one speaks their language. Then comes all of the bad things about that like they pick each others lice and they go to the bathroom in a corner. Also the people living in the frontier, they dream about barbarians doing horrible things but have they ever met a barbarian in person? Everything about the barbarians so far are just stereotypes. Achebe would probably be furious if he only read up to this point. Just like with the African people in Conrads novel, Achebe would feel that Coetzee is devaluing the barbarians.

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.

Waiting...for something to happen!

After reading up to page 70, I am still waiting for something to happen, or even a description of where this takes place and more information about the barbarians and why the Empire wants
them to move up towards the mountains. I keep trying to put myself in the place of Achebe or Hooks and read it maybe through their eyes. I believe that just like everything we discuss in class, there is most definitely two arguments that can be made. First of all, I don't even recall the name of the character who is the narrator. As a matter of fact, the only name that I do know is Colonel Joll, so I wish there would be more description in this book by Coetzee, however, I assume (without making an ass out of u and me, as they say) there is a reason for everything an author does, therefore, I try to stop myself from questioning too much and read it nevertheless.
Also, like Hook says himself, this type of literature, "excludes certain information."

I believe that the arguments could go as follows: maybe Achebe or another post colonialism theorist would say that Coetzee is a racist because he writes a story where the main character is fascinated with the barbarian women and completely takes advantage of them, almost as if that is how he gains his feeling of power by subjugating them, i.e. the barbarian girl he shares his bed with and the barbarian prostitute. The other argument could be that he is not racist at all, because there are many examples where he shows such concern and discernment for helping the barbarians that are taken to be prisoners and feels such pity for them, screaming at the guards when they take in a family of fishing people for prisoners, which is where the barbarian girl he shares his bed with came into play, although he doesn't remember her at all. All he remembers is a blank space next to her father.

I am looking foward to finishing this book to see where it goes because it is easy reading, but it leaves me with so many questions and wonderment, but I almost womnder if that's what Coetzee intended for his readers to feel.

Coetzee and hook = Radical Posmodernism ???

From the very perspective of bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins), Coetzee’s Waiting for Barbarians would definitely fit on the shelves with all the other postmodernist literature. Hooks argues that postmodernism ‘excludes certain information’. It is literature, by the voices of ‘academic elites who speak to and about one another with coded familiarity’. After reading Adams post, it became clear that the setting isn’t precisely mentioned (I haven’t read the entire book. I’ll take his word for it). Through our own fascinations we can predict a given setting, within the context of our class room, and having background information on Coetzee, we can assume (invalidly) that the setting takes place in Africa. Nevertheless, this information is not given to the readers. Under the scopes of postmodernism, the very notion of ambiguity is extremely present. In Waiting for the Barbarians, it is very clear that the audience is aware what a ‘barbarian’ is, but the narrator does not seem to really emphasize in detail what a barbarian is. After reading the posts of Leslie and Julia, who have equally demonstrated the dehumanizing elements as the pertain to women in the text, I also realized that Coetzee does not seem to put much thought into the detail of each, raped, or physically abused female. It is this unclearness that hooks would focus on. She argues that “Postmodernism does not focus on ‘otherness and difference’, or mentions very little with no emphasis” (p.362). Postmodernism hardly ever mentions black experience. It is books like Coetzee, that helped contribute to Black Movement, which has helped focus on the issue of ‘identity’. And Coetzee’s literature helps to create, what Hooks calls ‘hopelessness’, which in tern states that “this hopelessness creates longing for insight and strategies for change that can renew spirits and reconstruct grounds for collective black liberation.”

Achebe and the Unknown

One problem I have with Coetzee's waiting for the barbarians is that you don't really get a good description of anything. For instance we really don't know much about the narrator's people just as much as not knowing much about the barbarians. The only diffrence explained is that their ways of living seem to be different. But the way the narrator's people see the barbarians, is as those people who annually come by town to trade that are dirty and reek of all the time. This is where Achebe's arguement comes into play depending how far along in the book you been through, that you really don't get a good view of Africa and what their people are all about just what one town feels about a group with nothing good to say about them; just like we seen in Conrad. Also the way the narrator describes the "barbarian girl" he keeps in his room that he has pity for because his people tortured the Barbarians AKA Nomads is seen as a person to feel bad for and that is what the Megistrate(narrator) is getting at. He stands up for these Nomads knowing that their must be more to them than they know about. This arguement yet again brings up the arguement of seeing a story from one point of view, you really don't have a sense of everything going on especially in this case with the Barbarians.

is coetzee like conrad?

As we have seen ourselves in Heart of Darkness, Achebe criticized Conrad of being, without a doubt, racist as the man kept on using derogatory terms to describe the people of Africa, describing them as if they were wild, unkempt and, even diseased animals. Through the exploits of the main character (and all other characters) in his story, Conrad has descriptively treated the African people as inhuman savages. Does Coetzee do the same in Waiting for the Barbarians? From what I’ve read so far, I would have to say yes and no simultaneously. Though it is true we find a similar treatment of one group subjugating another, treating another as total dogs, we are not given any detail as to what two groups these are. They’re pretty much two generic social, political, racial or religious classes. And, as has been proven by history, with two different groups occupying the same space, whichever one’s in power will look down upon the other. In Conrad’s text, he, whether intentionally or not, makes it clear that he is a part of the “superior” race deriding the other “less superior” one. His character seems to be an extension of himself. Coetzee, on the other hand, seems to want to expose such ugly prejudice to the light. He to uses a lot of negative, insulting terms in his description of the poor fisher-people but it’s not in the same tone as Conrad. It’s more like he’s building up from such bigoted feelings in a way to understand why they are present in the first place.

Waiting on a feminist

When asked to use one of the Theories so far in combination with the reading, I thought it would be interesting to respond with a reading done from a feminist perspective, probably should have emailed to ask, but it is extremely late and I doubt I will get a response. First I would like to say I agree with Lesley's notion that there is alot of sexualized content in the novel. This is the main reason I decided to do the reading as a feminist. Besides the sexual mentions in the text there are also moments where the main character has Maternal moments or feelings that would be associated with a mother or woman in general. An example of this can be cited on (P7)

I cannot pretend to be any better than a a mother comforting a child between a fathers spells of rath. It has not escaped me that an interegator can wear two masks, speak with two voices, one harsh on seductive

Though he does exhibit some form of caring towards the boy this does not stop him from doing his job, he later on asks that after the boy has eaten his hands be bound, just not as tightly which struck me as a sort of 'rough him up but don't kill him yet" mentality. The author I chose to compare "Waiting" to in this case was I decided to use "To his Coy Mistress" to compare it to.I think that the argument can go back to when we talked about Misrepresentation of women in works of literature. First we are given a stereotype of what women are supposed to behave like when their children are threatened. Then later on though unintentionally done there is a child on (P9) that is described in a sexual manner, this was seen in

She sits in the snow with her hooded back to me working at the door of the Castle, her legs splayed, burrowing, patting, molding I stand behind her and watch. I try to Imagine the face between the petals of her peaked hood but cannot

Wheter women in the novel are being depicted as animals, helpless or maternal there is no definite way to identify women in the story that is positive, if a feminist were to read this, it could easily be said that objectification is present. Also the way the author first describes the children playing in the snow makes it seem like he is talking about animals or pygmies. Going back to the Novel, I was able to find much more when arguing the ideas that women are barely represented, represented in a negative light, and sexualized. Citing page thirteen, the main character is dreaming

I sleep, wake to another round of dance-music from the square, fall asleep again and dream of a body spread on its back, a wealth of pubic hair glistening liquid black and gold across the belly,up the loins, and down like an arrow into the furrow of the legs. When I stretch out a hand to brush the hair it begins to writhe it its not hair but bees clustered atop one another honey drenched sticky

In comparison to His Coy mistress, though each interpretation of women of female characters is different, I was still reminded of Marvell's use of isolating body parts of the woman in the poem and having the speaker identify them as separate entities, leaving the reader with the idea that the woman in the poem has no sense of identity, until the author choses to give her one

Waiting for the Barbarians and Achebe

Achebe claims that Conrad in his novel Heart of Darkness describes Africa as “a place where man’s vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality.” In the novel Conrad describes the people through animalistic characteristics. This idea can be observed, for example, by when he illustrate the thirsty man by the lake. Not only was the man drinking directly from the lake, but was also positioned on his four limbs. He even calls them “creatures”. The aspect of “triumphant beastiality” can also be observed in Waiting for the Barbarians.

The people of this book are also portrayed as beastly. They are abused, tortured, and neglected. This idea can be demonstrated through a number of examples. (Or what I have read so far). The narrator on page 34 states that “People say that I keep two wild animals in my rooms, a fox and a girl.” The girl is considered to be an animal. The people automatically compare her to a wild fox. They dehumanize her by bestowing animalistic traits upon her. Also on page 36, the narrator asked a few men about how and where the young girl was abused. One of the men replied by saying that “I do not know sir, most of the time I was not there.” “Some times there was screaming, I think they beat her.” Why did they beat her? How can a man abuse a woman? They accomplished these actions due to the fact that they did not consider her as a human or a woman with genuine feelings. An animal does not possess feelings.

After the narrator has a number of sexual encounters with the girl he states that “I can not imagine what ever drew me to that alien body”. Why did he specifically utilize the term “alien”? Did she physically appear different than non-African women or did his stereotype of African women cloud his judgment and eyes. By using the term “alien” he is practically describing her as an aspect that is non-existence in this world. This term is far worse than describing them as creatures.

Finally, the term Barbarian is a well illustration of degrading the natives. Why did the narrator and his colleagues utilize this repulsive word? If their purpose was simply to identify them, they could have used terms such as natives, the Africa people, or other non-discriminating names. Their main intention was to illustrate these people as non-humans.

11.7

One of the many racist undertones that I gathered from "Waiting" was the casual mention of many rampant sexual acts throughout the book. How the magistrate visited the same young lady at the inn (her name escapes me and I do not have my copy handy), forming almost a suedo-relationship with her, only to actually bear witness (sort of) to her conducting business with another man. The magistrate's odd sexual acts with the barbarian girl stuck out at me as well. As it was only until far later in the book did he actually "enter her." Instead choosing to rub oils on her and sleep (literally) with her while visiting the girl at the inn on the side. Even towards the end of the book, the magistrate describes his lack of self control, leading him to seek out the not-quite-so-satisfying cook to fulfill his sexual desires. This all serves to paint the picture that people out on the frontier (wherever that may be) have little to know control over their sexual desires, and seemingly go at it like wild dogs, not even bothering to cover it up, as the magistrate mentions several girls who were not kept secret. He even goes so far as to refer to the barbarian girl as the magistrate's slut (from the other men's perspective, that is). Not once is there mention of any form of birth control or protection, which means decease and pregnancy would run rampant. Is this the right message to be sending about the frontier (wherever it may be)? Not from the perspective of a racist reader, I imagine they would take much offense at the inclination that these people have no self control. Which, as the book goes, happens to be true in more ways than one, but that's a different argument.

Waiting For Hatred and Lies?

Given that Chiuna Achebe found the ideas and the author behind Heart of Darkness to be racist, he might also consider J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting For The Barbarians to be racist as well. One particular scene that stuck out to me was when the narrator was speaking to Colonial Joll early on in the book about how Joll can distinguish lies from the truth when trying to find information about his prisoners AKA “the barbarians” through torture. This scene represents and begins to delve into how judgmental the character of Joll truly is (as he is the antagonist of the book). There is a portion where the magistrate (the narrator) asks how Joll would know if a prisoner is telling the truth. In response, Joll says that there is a “certain tone” that can be heard through “training and experience”. That “training and experience” that Joll speaks of could possibly be a bias, as the magistrate asks him immediately if he is speaking the truth at that moment in time. Joll’s response is: “No, you misunderstand me. I am speaking of a special situation… in which I have to exert pressure to find it. [the truth]” If I were looking at it from Achebe’s point of view, I would have reason to believe that this whole “certain tone” business is quite flawed and is basically an excuse to persecute people that Joll does not favor, regardless of any necessity of information, as the torture is truly the “tone of truth” that Joll speaks of. It’s a small portion of the book, but this section is particularly important to the idea of Joll being against “barbarians” in torturing and imprisoning them.

COETZEE THE BARBARIAN !

Coetzee seems to fall into the same problem that Achebe has with Conrad and his portrayal of the natives. Coetzee portrays the natives as Barbarians, in image they may look like Barbarians old, haggard, dirty, and unkempt. In actuality they are not Barbarians, they are just surviving off the land. The attributes that the settlers consider Barbaric, the raiding of camps, raping of tribesmen, are all attempts of the nomads reciprocate against the those who have invaded on there land.

Colonel Joll considers them barbaric when in actuality his actions of torture are barbaric and inhumane; the abuse of a young child is not the actions of a civilized nature. The actions of the settlers over the past 100 years can also be Barbaric, they invaded a land that did not belong to them, they set up villages and settlements in regions usually used for grazing and hunting, in nomadic society life revolves around the lake. They rape the land barren forcing the livestock away with their unconventional ways of hunting; guns have made hunting more efficient drastically dwindling populations.

The settlers see everything opposite to their confirmed lifestyle as being Barbaric, though many of the village soldiers have been drunk, they seem to find drunken nomads as utterly disgusting they describe them as lazy and dirty. The introduction of alcohol, a substance that they nothing about, alters the way the settlers view the nomads. Not only are the “Barbarians” savage but they are drunks too.

I don’t think the problem is with the lack of an explanation of what a Barbarian is, it lies with the fact that the settlers do not realize that their own actions are Barbaric in itself.