The Construction Of "the Other" In Coetzee's Waiting For The Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegorical work written by John Maxwell Coetzee from south Africa, which wins the international reputation for the author. This novel tells a story without time and space limitation that one empire levies asymmetrical war against the barbarians in its border, but fail at last. Most of home commentators regard this novel as an irony of colonial rule by postcolonial theory, and believe that it indicates spallation of colonialism. But this kind of review method can not explore the fiction's various deep implication for its much concentration on the relation between author's background and the novel . This article recurs to the Other theory, on the one hand discusses this novel how to portray many "barbaric" other images in obvious narrative level, on the other hand considers this novel potentially deconstructs suppression of other. Based on this, the auther concludes that the most important topic of this novel is how to treat others and what you have to afford when you meet the other.This article contains four parts. The first part is the background introduce concluding Coetzee's life, creation course, and the main domestic comments on Waiting For the Barbarians. The focus of this part is the relation between Coetzee's edge position and his creative practice, why marginalized the Other images always become the object in Coetzee's works. The second part deals with the means by which the military empire triumphantly brings other into being in this novel. The empire commits himself to shape other into marginal, savage, blank, its purpose is to consolidate his central position. This kind of subjective imagination replaces intersubjective communicate with interior monologue. It is not only the sequela of colonial era, but also another kind of knowledge and power suppression. According to the other theory of Levinasian, the third part discusses the primitive experience of old magistrate when he meet others, the interior monologue of empire becomes emphasis on strangeness of other, thus breaks the fictive authority of the empire. The fourth part tries to conclude the two expression forms with academic terms in thisnovel——"imaginary other" and "strange other", and the different two kinds ofcorresponding strategies. Drawing "the Other" topic of this novel into discussion about the present social condition, we will discuss the value of "strange other" with ethical dimension in order to arouse estimation and understanding of other.Waiting For the Barbarians discusses "the Other" from empire and old magistrate two different aspects, which denies the former's violence when the empire tries to integrate the Other, at the same time praises the latter because he positively treats the Other. Looking at the strangeness and differences of the Other in a right perspective, it is a way out of contemporary troubles.