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What Does The Magistrate Symbolize

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An empire generally has three types of people: those who are for military conquest, those who question it, and those who couldn’t care less. Colonel Joll, an officer of the Third Bureau of the Civil Guard, represents someone who is definitely for military conquest. On the other hand, the Magistrate, a civil servant of an outlying frontier town, represents someone who questions the meaning behind torture and military invasion. In the final confrontation between the Magistrate and Colonel Joll, the Magistrate says, “The crime that is latent in us we must inflict on ourselves…not on others” (170). He means that we must deal with inner conflict within ourselves, not through attacks on others. Colonel Joll and the Magistrate symbolize two different …show more content…

He is one of few who despise the shameless torture they inflict on the Barbarian prisoners. The Magistrate believes in a different sort of justice, in which he sides with the Barbarians and sympathizes their cause: “They want an end to the spread of settlements across their land. They want their land back, finally. They want to be free to move about with their flocks from pasture to pasture as they used to” (57). Although we only get the Magistrate’s point of view, it seems like the Empire is invading to expand, not protect. The citizens are led on to believe that the Barbarians are definitely going to come and kill them. However, for the most part, the Barbarians have receded away from the Empire’s soldiers and protected themselves as every person should. Stories are fabricated about them. For example, a girl is raped and her friends claim it’s a barbarian due to his ugliness: “ Her friends claim a barbarian did it. They saw him running away into the reeds. They recognized him as a barbarian by his ugliness” (142). Slowly but surely the Barbarians are blamed for a number of problems. The Barbarians are not at fault for the wrongdoings and invasions of the …show more content…

Joll has always believed that the Barbarians are the enemies that need to be subjugated and controlled. While the Magistrate held the same belief at the beginning of the novel, he has quickly moved away from torture after seeing the results of it firsthand. He wonders how the torturers can eat after doing such cruel acts to other human beings. The Magistrate tells Colonel Joll, “The crime that is latent within us we must inflict upon ourselves…not on others” (170). He believes that the monstrous personality hidden within Colonel Joll must be recognized and inflicted upon himself, not on others. Colonel Joll is the true barbarian who has decimated the nomads’ way of living and forced others to face his inner crime of being a

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