Waiting for the Barbarians Essay

In this world, there is no individual more tragic than the one who gazes into their future and is only able to see a perpetual cycle of despair and agony. War, in particular, has this incomprehensibly dark power—the ability to drive even the most cheerful among us into the oppressive void of depression. Indeed, the total and complete loss of hope is among the most destructive consequences of war on the human psyche. An expression of this phenomenon is visible in Paul Baumer’s statement regarding the true psychological state of soldiers. When reflecting upon the experience of being in the military, Baumer says “We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out...Our only comfort is the steady breathing of our comrades asleep, and thus we

After finishing the novel, Catch-22, I can definitely say that I have learned quite a lot about how mental illnesses can affect soldiers throughout a lifetime. As I have seen through the eyes of Yossarian, painful memories, like the death of his best friend, Snowden, have resonated throughout his life. And while, Yossarian had continued to experience flashbacks, and have mental breakdowns. The disease he was experiencing (PTSD) was not yet discovered until the 1980’s. While this novel was not exactly what I was expecting, I had found it to be rather intriguing as I had learned about mental illnesses in Health class.

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

She begins recounting the notorious details, how innocent college students labeled prisoners and guards displayed psychological abuse after only six days of confinement, and makes reference to Stanley Milgram’s obedience study and Abu Ghraib, where similar maltreatment, perceived or real, was conducted on civilians by civilians. She addresses and refutes the accepted belief that the Stanford Prison Experiment proved that anyone could become a tyrant when given or instructed by a source of authority. Instead, she suggests that Zimbardo’s inquiry points toward but does not land on one exact conclusion. She explains the influence of the setting, the presentation of the roles, Zimbardo’s participation, and perhaps a sense of expectation felt, all of which can be reflected in the shocking behavior of a few guards. She argues that it should not have been so shocking. Konnikova discredits the neutrality of Zimbardo’s experiment by insisting that people who would respond to an ad for a psychological study of prison life were not “normal” people. However, with her diction and choice of evidence she displaces the study's culpability in a way that ultimately blurs and undermines her claim.

According to the Romans nomads were considered to be barbarians, however over time Romans began to develop nomadic customs which were no longer considered barbaric but civilized. To the Romans a ‘barbarian’ was anyone who was an outsider of their land, and in that case nomads were considered to be barbaric. Nomads are known as a small group of people that don’t have a permanent settlement, and travel and migrate from place to place. Nomadic people also had a different type of lifestyle from the Romans, for example the nomads hunted and gathered their food, and which was considered cave man like. Before the fall of Rome the Romans were considered to be civilized people with a respectable religion and

Even though soldiers are able to distract themselves from the horrors that they witness on the front, war psychologically damages them and creates the “lost generation”. The young men find it increasingly difficult to think and act with the mindset of a civilian. In war, the men only experience despair, death, and fear, so their mind is enveloped by negative thoughts that

If just the thought of what the soldiers endure would cause anxiety, one could imagine how mentally draining war must be. An example of the draining nature of war is how after Paul attacked adversary soldier named Gérard Duval, he certainly comprehended how war had “taxed his brain beyond endurance,” (Remarque 225). So, there was a major convergence between the German and Indian soldiers due to the emotional trauma of war. But, while there are very strong connections between the Indian and German soldiers through their correlated mental and physical trauma along with their mass lack of awareness of the details of war prior to enlisting, there is some divergence in the experiences of the soldiers. One of the divergences is money, but this could just be a divergence between these specifically soldiers or it could be the differing point on why these ordinary characters decided to fight for their empires. The German soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front are basically living in poverty when fighting in the

The Cuisine of Barbarians The journey of the Chinese-American immigrant is characterized by conflicting identities and culture clashes. In his novel, The Barbarians Are Coming, David Wong Louie captures the struggles of this journey. Using food to symbolize the Chinese-American cultural clash, Louie writes about the life of Sterling Lung, a 26 year-old American born Chinese. Sterling’s American Dream is to become a white, middle-class American. In order to do so, Sterling believes he must become a member of the wealthy class, dine with white foodways, and severe his ties with Chinese culture.

Last but definitely not least, Polyphemos from the Odyssey is by far at the tip of that barbarians scale. In the beginning passage about Polyphemus, he is presented as quite gentle with his heard of sheep while milking them, this give no indication to him being uncivilized and violent (Homer, pg. 143). But as the story progress, the audience can sense that he is less and less similar to their ideal of a Greek citizens. Polyphemus expressed that the Cyclopes do not concern themselves with Zeus since they are far better than the gods, this means he does not adhere to the same religious system as the Greeks do (Homer, pg. 144). Not only that, Polyphemus does not adhere to the Greek custom of giving gifts and hospitality to guests in the worst

Peter S. Wells’ Barbarians to Angels is focused on overturning the common belief that the after the collapse of the Roman Empire it was followed by dark times in which everything declined. However, Wells explains that it was dark in comparison to what Rome had once been before. Barbarians to Angels portrays the Dark ages as a time that is still economically stable and flourishing culturally due to the kingdoms that emerged and were ruled by powerful leaders such as Clovis I. In Barbarians to Angels, Wells presents several information based on artifacts that have been found that argue with what has been previously said about the Dark Ages. Wells reasons that, after the fall of the Roman Empire, people were not in constant suffering or living in fear but that as evidence shows it was still a decent place.

Alessandro Barbero wrote The Day of the Barbarians with the goal of informing the reader of the eventual fall of the Roman empire. According to Barbero, the entire fall of Rome centered around one battle which occurred at Adrianople. The book gives the small details of which lead to the battle, but also how the battle effected the Romans. As Barbero states in the his writings, the Goths, today’s Germans, feared the Huns who they believed would attack and overcome them. At the same time, the Roman military as decreasing because the citizens were no longer volunteering themselves to serve. The emperor at the time, Valens, did not want to force citizens into the army because it would cause damage to agriculture production and reduce revenue generated

Sales taxes has now reached an incredible rate of 37%, riots are now breaking out in the suburban parts of Rome. Peasants are now refusing to work and the we are having less and less grain everyday. Farmers are abandoning farms to collect public entitlements. Many slaves and peasants are willing to fight among with the invading barbarians. Our young and inexperienced emperor Marius has declared war on Roma, most of our tax dollars are going towards the army and public

Physical harm is the predominate form of dehumanization in Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. The people of the Empire demonstrate physical domination to establish the power held over the prisoners and the indigenous barbarians. “The grey bearded is caked with blood. The lips are crushed and drawn back, the teeth are broken. One eye is rolled back, the other eye-socket is a bloody hole” (Coetzee 7).

We deceive ourselves each and every day into thinking that we are something truly extraordinary when in reality, we are nothing more than the white lies we tell ourselves. J.M. Coetzee explores the aspect of self-deceptive thinking through a withdrawn and vacant character underneath the power of a manipulative oppressive empire in his novel Waiting for Barbarians. Coetzee's protagonist, the Magistrate, always believed himself to be the pleasure-loving identity of the Empire, the exact opposite of the cold steel-like Colonel Joll. As the Magistrate soon comes to learns in the passage, he was no more the same or different than Colonel Joll since they were both puppets exploited by the very same power that once gave them authority and standing in a world they thought they commanded. However, as he realizes this earth-shattering truth, he does not get furious nor does he try to fight back. Rather, his mind drifts back to a world where the siestas flourished, waterbirds flew in and out, and where lakes glittered with an angelic divinity. The world that he sees was once his promised land and despite it now being replaced with shrines of the Empire, he knows he'll end up in the center of that forgotten world once again. Coetzee showcases the dramatic realization and the traumatic state of his protagonist while exploring the manipulative destruction an oppressive empire can leave on a soul through the complex metaphor of a labyrinth illustrating the ruins the Empire leaves in the

Waiting For The Barbarians” by J.M Coetzee is a novel that truly helps the world understand how colonization might just be the worst thing human has done to destroy other civilizations culture and respect. “The Empire “ is a nation that is set up to have a centralized government. The capital is where all the power is contain and then there are other subunits of smaller governments such as the magistrate who rules the frontier of the whole country. The magistrate lives and guard a town on the frontier and from his years there everything been peaceful with the barbarians. However, once the third Berru which is a powerful branch of government arrive to town everything changes. Violence, torture, and chao overwhelmingly flood the town and the rest of the capital. Resulting in major realization of how colonization is a pattern of destruction that can be seen in this novel and in real life. A close resemblances of The Empire is The Song Dynasty which begins from 960 to 1279 and share a common barbarian enemies known as the mongols who are from Mongolia which is north of China. The Song Dynastie follows many of The Empires principles that eventually causes internal demolition.