The Magistrate's Conscience

Waiting for the Barbarians is a fascinating story about the Magistrate and his struggle in dealing with the unjust actions of Colonel Joll. Because the story is set in an unknown place and time period, it shows that this story could happen in the past, present, or future. The Magistrate is very conscious of human behavior and emotion and he often has uncontrollable thoughts that leave him emptied-hearted or confused.

The Magistrate notices the way that Joll’s appearance and from these attributes the Magistrate develops a deep dislike for Joll. In the first encounter between Joll and the magistrate, the Magistrate notices Joll’s strange eyeglasses that are opaque. Immediately the Magistrate sees the glasses as a barrier that separate Joll from everyone else. Later, the Magistrate notices the way that Joll remains quiet and will not smile in front the prisoners because “before prisoners, it appears, one maintains a certain front” (3). Then, the Magistrate is thinking about Joll and he wonders “does he wash his hands very carefully, perhaps, or change all his clothes; or has the Bureau created new men who can pass without disquiet between the unclean and the clean?” (12) The Magistrate believes that Joll is conducting useless torturing and questioning, and the Magistrate cannot comprehend how a man could carry out such measures and not feel quilt. Finally the Magistrate says that “all my life I have believed in civilized behaviour; on this occasion, however, I cannot deny it, the memory leaves me sick with myself” because a man like Joll calls the people barbarians is not civilized himself (23).

Another character that the Magistrate focuses on is a barbarian girl who he finds crippled and blind. He becomes very curious about the girl and eventually invites her into his home where he provides her a home and job. He gets into the ritual of cleaning her wounds and bathing her each night. The Magistrate is uncertain about why he keeps her in his house because he cannot decipher his feelings toward her and he feels “no desire to enter this stocky little body glistening by now in the firelight. It is a week since words have passed between” them. He feeds her, shelters her, uses “her body, if that is what [he] is doing, in this foreign way” (30). As the story progressed, the Magistrate is unable to have sexual relations with her because he does not have the desire. The Magistrate continuously tries to have intellectual conversations with the girl, but she will answer factually and the Magistrate notices they would be a ill-matched couple.

The Magistrate is getting old and he wishes to live the rest of his days in peace. He observes Joll and the Barbarian girl wishing that he could let them do as they desire, but his conscious pushed him to act in what he knows is right even if his actions may reap horrible consequences.
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