Occidental Colonial Motif in J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians

Abstract

This thesis attempts to illustrate how the Orientalists exploit, dominate and misrepresent the Orientals in the name of civilization. The text Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee has been taken to conclude the finding mentioned above. British officers Colonel Joll and Mandel in Waiting for the Barbarians misrepresent the African people as the Other due to their power. The Euro-centric prejudices demonstrate the African native people as barbarians, and legitimize African language, culture, custom and life-style as inferior. The characters who are victimized by the Orientalists’ ideology, fix the inferior identity of the Africans. They represent the West as the centre and Africa as the Other. A theoretical application of Orientalism has been discussed to study the thesis. Orientalism is the western mentality, thought, pattern, or the thinking parameter regarding the Orient. This mentality divides the world into two parts; Orient and Occident. In this division all the positive terms are given to the Occident and negative ones are given to the Orient. The African people who are colonized have to accept the concept that is constructed by the Orientalists. Colonial discourse has shown how the Orientalists exercise institutionalized power over the Orientals to rule them. It has also been an instrument to inferiorize them. The Orientalists cannot be free from the grip of colonial mentality that regards themselves as modern, civilized, superior, and the Orientals as uncivilized, backward and barbaric Others. This novel illustrates the success of imperial power over colonized people. The African people have been misrepresented in the novel by creating the discourse of othering.