Waiting For The Barbarians Essay
AESTHETICS Pain and Suffering
Books:
“Waiting for the Barbarians” by J.M. Coetze “Nervous Conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga
AISTHETICS
Pain and suffering… What comes into your mind when you read these words? You probably just told yourself “I don’t want to read this”. Well, it is true that our minds connect pain with torture and scenes of horror. But let’s see how the two novels presented the theme of pain. In the first novel that we studied in class, “Waiting for the Barbarians” by J.M. Coetze, the theme of pain and suffering was evident throughout its course. The narrator, a magistrate of one South African frontier, faces the horror after the tortures and devastation that Colonel Joll left behind after his visit/hunt of “enemies of the Empire”. One of Colonel Jolls prisoners, a girl, is left behind temporarily blind and crippled comes into the story to give a body to torture. The magistrate feels responsible for her wounds and gives her self-cleansing baths, with no sexual interactions, trying to heal the pain that this …show more content…
This shows that once one experiences real pain, everything changes, the way you see death, the way you see life. After that is over, you feel fearless, like you are untouchable; nothing could hurt you more than those moments that your cries of pain were the only thing that you can hear all around. Lastly, pain was also used as a mean to truth. It is true that a man’s ability to sustain pain always seems to break. Unfortunately, sometimes human faith, ethics and beliefs, all seem to fall apart even in the thought of pain. But the fact that the characters survived some kind of torture, is enabling us, readers, to learn to control and endure pain, and realize the truth: immortality does not exist. When humans realize their weaknesses they can appreciate life and really understand their space in this
Books:
“Waiting for the Barbarians” by J.M. Coetze “Nervous Conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga
AISTHETICS
Pain and suffering… What comes into your mind when you read these words? You probably just told yourself “I don’t want to read this”. Well, it is true that our minds connect pain with torture and scenes of horror. But let’s see how the two novels presented the theme of pain. In the first novel that we studied in class, “Waiting for the Barbarians” by J.M. Coetze, the theme of pain and suffering was evident throughout its course. The narrator, a magistrate of one South African frontier, faces the horror after the tortures and devastation that Colonel Joll left behind after his visit/hunt of “enemies of the Empire”. One of Colonel Jolls prisoners, a girl, is left behind temporarily blind and crippled comes into the story to give a body to torture. The magistrate feels responsible for her wounds and gives her self-cleansing baths, with no sexual interactions, trying to heal the pain that this …show more content…
This shows that once one experiences real pain, everything changes, the way you see death, the way you see life. After that is over, you feel fearless, like you are untouchable; nothing could hurt you more than those moments that your cries of pain were the only thing that you can hear all around. Lastly, pain was also used as a mean to truth. It is true that a man’s ability to sustain pain always seems to break. Unfortunately, sometimes human faith, ethics and beliefs, all seem to fall apart even in the thought of pain. But the fact that the characters survived some kind of torture, is enabling us, readers, to learn to control and endure pain, and realize the truth: immortality does not exist. When humans realize their weaknesses they can appreciate life and really understand their space in this