Waiting for First Impressions

Waiting for the Barbarians makes its point through the eyes of a tired old official of the Empire; this perspective gives a sort of inside look at the empire's evolution from the Magistrate's younger days to the unjust modern government. The first line reveals his out-of-touch relation with the current affairs of the more important areas of the Empire. The numerous conflicts he has with the officials from the capital give them the impression of his supposedly provincial nature, but it’s clear that this provinciality is a superior outlook. His speaking and thought style gives insight not only into the politics of his world, but also into his life, his struggle to find meaning as his life and zeal wanes.

The relationship between the magistrate and the barbarian woman, while somewhat creepy, shows their perspective on life. The woman has taken on the role of a passive observer, watching life go by, living out the days complacently, while the magistrate tries to find the pleasures of his younger years but ends up failing to even carry out the motions. It is not until the barbarian woman is about to return to her people that they find some sort of meaning to their relationship.

The uncertainty the magistrate always expresses makes him a very sympathetic character. He wonders if it would have been better if he had never visited the prisoners that night; if he never felt any sympathy at all for the captured fishermen and agreed with whatever the Colonel proposed. But the audience knows just as well as he that this is not possible; that to do so would be, quite simply, an affront to our sense of morality, even though the Empire’s “new morality” would claim otherwise: anything for peace, a notion the Magistrate entertains for just a moment.

Wallace and Galton

Alfred Russel Wallace: Are Humans One Race or Many?

• Humans are ultimately related
• Differences between races are due to environmental adaptation
• Even though other races may be "worse," they are still human, higher than animals

Francis Galton: The Comparative Worth of Different Races

• The "black race" is substantially less intelligent than the "white race"
• However, there is no shortage of men belonging to the former race that can be "raised above the average white"
• They are, though, on the whole, "childish, stupid, and simpleton-like"
  

Behind Blue Eyes

In the final moments of the novel, Benjy is placated by Jason's restoration of the routine. It is in this image that we see most clearly the degeneracy of the Compson family. Although the rest of the characters (except Dilsey, who knows better) believe Benjy to be "different" from the rest of the Compsons, we see in him reflected the fate of the family. As Benjy is unable to break away from the routines of the past eighteen years, so are mother and Jason unchanging.

Faulkner describes the Benjy's eyes as "empty and blue and serene again," describing both Benjy's state of mind and the state of the Compson family; devoid of life, as contrasted with Dilsey's family.

What is the fate of the Compson family after Quentin's departure? Has the state of the family ever been anything other than emptiness?