The ambivalence of colonial discourse: Waiting for the barbarians in the gaze of the other

Abstract

In this paper J. M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians is seen as fundamentally disrupting the binary logic that underpins colonial discourse. The binary constructs an image of the civilized, rational and good, and the primitive, irrational and evil on the opposite sides of a fixed border. In this novel, as well as in colonial reality, the binary dissolves into ambivalence, overlap and often complete inversion of the two opposed constructed identities. This paper analyses the novel Waiting for the Barbarians identifying as the most important themes - the ambivalence and inversion of colonial identity, which are seen as a reflex of the fear of the indigenous other. The analysis focuses on the motifs of vision and surveillance in the novel, and Lacan’s psychoanalytic notions of the gaze and the scopic drive. It is observed that these concepts figure prominently in the narrative by establishing ambivalent psychological relationships of power between the main characters, discovering ambivalence within the characters and the inversion of their constructed colonial identities.

Keywords

• colonial identity
• othering
• colonial gaze
• male gaze
• fear
• ambivalence