Coatzee and Conrad Collide

While I believe that Coetzee and Conrad had entirely different intentions in writing Waiting for the Barbarians and Heart of Darkness, there is one strikingly similar facet that is present in both novels: both the Magistrate and Marlow are characters whose consciences and perceptiveness are raised above those of the secondary characters within each respective novel. That is to say that the Magistrate is unlike any other character within Waiting for the Barbarians. He is utilized as Coetzee’s tool to highlight the folly and ruthlessness of the Empire—an empire who claims superiority over a “barbarian” race, when it is truly the empire itself that is barbaric and coldblooded. That is to say that Marlow was unlike any other character in Heart of Darkness. He is utilized as Conrad’s means to point out the hypocrisy that festers beneath the surface of a self-proclaimed, “superior” race—a race among which even the highest of its imperialist members oftentimes acted more animalistic and savage than they presumed their African “sub-population” would.

Furthermore, the Magistrate and Marlow serve to embody a perennial struggle, that of the individual versus the greater power. Both individuals exhibit awareness regarding the inhumanity of their greater powers—the Empire and Kurtz—and yet they are hesitant to resist this cruelty. At which point can individual morality subdue the devastating fear of resisting the greater power and the greater population? Why does the fear to act in accordance with one’s personal principles and decency exist in the first place, and why is it ever-more present when its adversary is endowed with greater authority? It is this fear that keeps the flames of a triumphant, prevailing empire alive, and both the Magistrate and Marlow serve to symbolize this fear—a fear that suffocated each of their consciences for the greater part of each novel.

On the broader spectrum, Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness both convey a similar message: an empire simply cannot exist without an adversary—whether that adversary is truly an enemy, or one that is feigned. An adversary symbolizes a force against which a population can unite and find patriotism. An adversary embodies at least one crucial correspondence between every individual within a population. The members of the Empire band against the impending danger of the Barbarians—who are not actually a threat initially. The members of imperialist Europe band against the savagery of the African world, and take upon themselves a communal duty to raise these tribes above their animalistic nature—which is not actually animalistic, but simply different from the European way of life. The Empire of Waiting for the Barbarians and the imperialist Europeans of Heart of Darkness have fabricated from thin air and nothingness a means to unify their peoples at the expense of another population. (467)