Question

write about an event in history that you feel is comparable to the allegorical story told in Waiting for the Barbarians.

https://archive.org/stream/waitingforbarbar01coet/waitingforbarbar01coet_djvu.txt

Answer 1

The response of United States to the September 11 attacks, in my view, is comparable to the allegorical story nbarrated in Waiting for the Barbarians. Authorized under emergency powers, the US administration began its “War on Terror” through which they justified the capture and ruthless torture of whoever they perceived to be their enemies. The violence perpetrated by the US administration is comparable to the use of torture by colonial and imperial powers. In this context, J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) offers allegorical terms for understanding the relationship between torture, law and power in the post? September 11 US society.