Waiting for the Barbarians

Vision and eyesight are recurring motifs in the novel. The main vision-related image in the novel is Joll’s sunglasses. Joll’s sunglasses are symbols of concealment and power, and the loss of his sunglasses is a symbol of exposure and weakness. The novel contains other references to vision and blindness as well. The first prisoner who is tortured by Joll, the old man, is killed, and when the Magistrate examines the body, he discovers that the man has lost one of his eyes. Likewise, the Indigenous girl is partially blinded by the hot iron that is held extremely close to her eye as part of her torture. The symbolism here is that the process of destroying the eyesight of the accused helps provide further concealment of the cruelty exhibited by Joll.

Being able to see has both literal and metaphoric meaning in the text. The Magistrate suspects the girl is unable to see despite her insisting that she is able. There is the actual eyesight here but also the suggestion that she is able to decipher what the Empire stands for in a way that is far clearer, even when compared to Mandel who is described as having “clear blue eyes, as clear as if there were crystal lenses slipped over his eyeballs” (117).