The Power of Dreams

My initial impression of Waiting for the Barbarians was a negative one; I thought the novel was quite odd. I was thrown off by the strange emotional and physical relationship between the narrator and the barbarian girl. I, however, have since become fond of this allegorical story. I enjoyed the Magistrate as the narrator. He seems an honest, observant, and unassuming man who seeks the truth and wants make sense of the cruelty around him. He is heroic in his own simple way. He defends those who cannot defend themselves, shows pity and mercy for the victims of the Empire’s torture, and quietly but firmly defies the Empire. I also enjoy the simple, straightforward style of the novel; it is refreshing after the dense writing of Joseph Conrad.

My favorite parts of the novel so far have been the dreams of the narrator. I am particularly fascinated by the symbolism in the dreams about the children playing in the snow. The Magistrate first has this dream after he sees the barbarian boy who has been tortured. The dream reflects his internal struggle over the evil in what the agents of the Empire have done to the little boy and his father. The Magistrate has always been a loyal servant to the Empire, but now he cannot allow innocent people to be treated so unjustly. According to www.mydreamvisions.com, a dream interpreting website, the snow in these recurring dreams represents “the idea of covering up, blanketing, hiding or obscuring what lies beneath.” Throughout the novel, the Magistrate is obsessed with uncovering the truth. He cannot simply turn a blind eye to the hidden evils of the Empire. The girl child building the snow castle in the Magistrate’s dream is a symbol of innocence. She represents the innocent barbarians who are tortured and mistreated by the agents of the Empire. According to the dream interpreting site, children in dreams can represent a feeling of responsibility for something or someone else in your life. The Magistrate feels responsible for the cruel treatment of the barbarians because he is a representative of the Empire. Thus far the novel has captured my attention, and I am anxious to see how it will end.

The African Race

“The African Character” by G.W. F. Hegel
• Africans do not have a concept of Law or a Higher Being. Because Africans regard themselves as the “highest beings,” they do not have respect for themselves. With the reverence to a Higher Being (God), comes respect for oneself.
• Africans represent humans in their most wild and untamed state. They do not exhibit morality and have no knowledge of the “immortality of the soul.” They see tyranny, cannibalism, and slavery as customary practices. These traits show that, Africans do not have self-control.

“On the Races of Man” by Charles Darwin
• Existing Races of man differ in skin color, hair, shape of skull & proportion of body; however, they resemble each other in many respects
• They share similar minds, tastes, dispositions, and habits (All enjoy dancing, rude music, acting, painting, and tattooing; use similar gestures; use same cries when excited by certain emotions). They also have similar inventive powers (arrowheads found all over the globe)
• Races of man descended from a single primitive stock; therefore they should be considered one species instead of many
• The intellectual capabilities of this primitive stock is equal to that of the lowest savages in Africa
• The races of man could be different sub-species
• Different conditions of life did not necessarily create the differences in the races (the Fuegians and the Botocudos in South America live in different climates and have completely different diets and yet resemble each other; the Botocudos live in the same climate as coastal tribes in Africa and yet do not resemble them)
• Inherited effects of the increase or decrease of certain parts of the body do not account for the differences between races of man either
• The slight differences between races did not come about because of natural selection. Therefore none of the differences in man are beneficial or important.

Considerations of Race

“Are Humans One Race or Many?” By Alfred Russel Wallace
• Once humans developed intellectual capacities, natural selection ceased to affect their physical characteristics and instead began to modify their mental faculties. This is why human’s physical forms remained stationary for most of their history, whereas their minds have evolved.
• Inhabitants of temperate countries are superior to those of hotter climates. All the great invasions of races have occurred from North to South.
• Humans consist of many races. Humans may have been a homogeneous race at one time; however, it was before they had developed a brain, speech, or ‘moral’ feelings and therefore could not be considered human. By the time humans developed these capacities, they had already spread over the earth and had formed distinct races.

“The Comparative Worth of Different Races” By Francis Galton
• Galton had a sixteen “class” system to rank the intellectual and cognitive abilities of different races. There were 8 classes above the mean (X and G-A) and 8 classes below the mean (a-g and x). Galton believed that the G and X classes of Africans equaled only the E and F classes of Englishmen. This meant that the average intellectual standard of the Africans were two grades below that of Englishmen.
• Galton also believed that the average ability of Englishmen should be raised a grade or two in order to address the growing need of centralization and communication in the developing British Empire

Creatures of Habit

The final section of The Sound and the Fury provides closure to the novel by giving the reader a glimpse into the future of the remaining Compson family members. Father drank himself to death. Caddy became a family outcast when her husband divorced her. Son, Quentin committed suicide, and grand daughter Quentin ran away from home. The status of the remaining family members, Mother, Jason, Benjy and Dilsey is the question. The symbolism of the final scene gives the readers a hint as to what the future holds for the remaining family members. Luster takes Benjy on his usual Sunday carriage ride but instead of turning right at the monument as was the habit he turns left. Benjy begins to howl, to bellow, to roar with “horror; shock; agony eyeless, tongueless; just sound” (320). Jason appears and brutally removes Luster and turns the carriage in the correct direction. Benjy calms when the status quo is re-established and everything returns to its “ordered place” (321). The symbolism of Benjy being consoled when his habits are restored, seems to suggest that Faulkner is telling his readers that the remaining family members lives will continue as they had throughout the novel. (198)