A Phenomenological Perception toward the Other in J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians

Amongst the many works of J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians notably investigates the way in which one can encounter the realm of otherness. In arguing that the body is the vehicle which facilitates an ethical engagement with the Other, I examine the sensitive, aging body of the novel’s protagonist, who eventually comes to embody an empathic vision toward the image of otherness, resisting the epistemological paradigm imposed by the Empire. I argue that this ethical interaction alludes to the phenomenological mode of perception suggested by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, who stresses one’s ontological connection with the Other. I also suggest that the novel’s allegorical ending completes this ethical trope as the protagonist desists from taking political actions and incessantly “waits” for a new futurity to come.