294 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
described as “grey,” but taken in context, this is only
because the prisoner is dirty from making a long trek
on foot. All other descriptions of the two prisoners
show them only as human and do not describe any
racial characteristics.
One of the only words in Waiting for the Barbar-
ians that could possibly be construed as describing a
difference in races is dark. The narrator relates that
“there is no woman living along the frontier who
has not dreamed of a dark barbarian hand coming
from under the bed to grip her ankle.” How is the
reader supposed to interpret this statement? Many
times the word dark is used as a synonym for the
words evil or bad, and it is entirely possible that the
narrator is using it in this way. After all, monsters
coming from under the bed are bad, or evil, and they
only try to grab us when we have turned out the
lights—when it is “dark.” Even when the Magistrate
describes children playing in the snow as “square,
dark figures,” he contrasts them against the “white-
ness” of the snow. Compared to freshly fallen snow,
almost anything could be described as “dark.”
And then there is the question of the girl. So
much of what the reader is led to assume about the
girl brings up the question of her race. The Mag-
istrate describes her as having “straight black eye-
brows and the glossy black hair of the barbarians,”
as well as a “broad mouth, [and] the black eyes.” Yet
nowhere in the physical description of the woman
is her specific race mentioned. The reader knows
only that the Magistrate considers her one of the
former barbarian prisoners, and that he finds a soft
spot in his heart for her as winter approaches. But
just because the girl is from a barbarian tribe, the
reader cannot necessarily assume anything about her
race. In fact, as the story progresses, the Magistrate
describes the girl more and more with terms that are
less “dark.” For instance, when he describes what sex
with her would be like in his mind, she is the “milk
... honey... bread” while he is the “acid... ashes
... chalk.” The Magistrate sees her body in front of
the fire as “glowing a vegetal gold.”
Through the rest of the story, even after the girl
has been returned to her tribe by the Magistrate,
the barbarians are simply described as barbarians.
The Magistrate explores no physical features of
anyone other than himself, and he describes him-
self as growing more and more like an animal. He
hears that the barbarians are responsible for recent
atrocities against the community, but he has no
tangible proof other than descriptions of a barbar-
ian suspected of rape. The children who describe
the barbarian “recognized him as a barbarian by his
ugliness” (123).
It is ironic that a reader will assume something
that is never mentioned. By putting together the
fact that Coetzee is from South Africa, and that
Waiting for the Barbarians is about an empire trying
to colonize lands currently controlled by “barbarian”
tribes, a reader may dangerously misperceive what
is happening within the story. Ultimately, by not
specifically introducing the race of any character in
Waiting for the Barbarians, Coetzee forces readers to
confront their own views of race.
Colin ChristopherCOLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
(1798)
Perpetually haunting and evocative, and a seminal
romanticist work, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was first published in
1798, when it opened Lyrical Ballads, the collected
poems of Coleridge (1772–1834) and William
Wordsworth. Central to romantic interests were
exploring the role of the imagination and looking
to nature and ancient literary forms for inspiration
and expression of human thought, emotion, and
curiosity.
The poem’s original title, “The Rime of the
Ancyent Marinere,” reflects its mode as a medieval
ballad. Although the spelling was soon modern-
ized, the style generally retains the ballad stanza.
The frame narrative depicts two characters on the
threshold of a church, the Ancient Mariner telling
the tale of his journey to a Wedding-Guest anxious
to get to the ceremony. But it is the mariner’s tale of
a torturous sea voyage, his shooting of the albatross,
and his search for redemption that is unforget-
table. This internal narrative works on many closely
entwined levels, creating thematic webs of nature,
fate, and death as it treats allegorical, metaphori-
cal, and metaphysical forms of storytelling.