쿳시의 『야만인을 기다리며』 ―문자화된 타자의 몸

J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians is a textual analysis of historical torture branded on the Barbarian Girl’s body. Coetzee deploys reading, writing, decoding, elucidating, understanding, and rewriting as the main motifs in what the author refers to as ‘the empire of pain’ which is written with vivid accounts of physical, sexual, epistemic, and psychological torture. These tortures are inscribed as an act of power writing and reading for the purpose of extracting information, coercing a confession, or imposing severe punishment, all carried out by the authority. The mechanism-imposed method of the barbarians’ broken body is that the barbarians are seen as the enemy since they are tortured, not that they are tortured since they are the enemy. In the story, Colonel Joll and Magistrate, who are public officials, turn Barbarian Girl into a living canvas. Joll writes the torture marks which can be read as the result and proof of her guilt by Magistrate. In spite of these crimes against humanity, these situations can be explained from psychologist Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘the banality of evil’: they are not just ‘doing their jobs and duties’ but also they are ‘obeying orders and the laws’ as the bureaucrats who do not need to think of others in English Imperial Government. However, this interpretation should be considered beyond the personal tragedies and wounds as there is a possibility of overly violating individual human rights.