That is difficult for me - LOL. Waiting for the Barbarians
By J.M. Coetzee
Page 45
“Sometimes my sex seemed to me another being entirely, a stupid animal living parasitically upon me, swelling and dwindling according to autonomous appetites, anchored to my flesh with claws I could not detach. Why do I have to carry you about from woman to woman, I asked: simply because you were born without legs? Would it make any difference to you if you were rooted in a cat or a dog instead of me?”
This passage illustrates the Magistrate’s growing disenchantment with himself and his sexual behavior. The Magistrate is beginning to see himself as an unwilling participant in his life, pulled along by desires and expectations out of his control, whether it is through his own body or through the Empire. In fact, the author J.M. Coetzee is using the Magistrate’s penis to symbolically represent the Empire.
The magistrates disenchantment with his penis, thus with the Empire, is represented throughout the whole passage but is best illustrated through this line, “Sometimes my sex seemed to me another being entirely, a stupid animal living parasitically upon me, swelling and dwindling according to autonomous appetites, anchored to my flesh with claws I could not detach.” Overall, Coetzee wants the reader to feel that the Magistrate is controlled by a faceless entity or idea.
First, the Magistrate refers to his penis as “my sex” which depersonalizes it. Coetzee chose this phrase to make the magistrate’s penis seem unimportant, a mere biological designation. Then he goes on to give the penis a sort of personification through the use of the word being, likening it to a stupid animal. Coetzee wants the reader to think of the penis as not part of the Magistrate – he wants the reader to picture the penis (or ‘being’) as a mere biological functioning entity with no intelligence other than that of survival (a stupid animal). The words stupid and animal are used here to show that the penis did not have the intelligence of a human. Not only is the penis a stupid animal, it is a parasite. It derives its nourishment and mobility from the host – which is the Magistrate.
The penis is in control of the Magistrate through its “swelling and dwindling”. Swelling refers to an erection - the penis swells when it wants to ‘feed’; dwindling refers to the penis when it is flaccid, or sated. The Magistrate is powerless against this routine; he does not have control over it and does not understand why it occurs. Indeed the next words in the sentence gives evidence to this for the penis is “swelling and dwindling according to autonomous appetites”. Coetzee chose the word autonomous to illustrate the Magistrate’s belief that the penis has freedom and a will of its own. It also has an appetite - it hungers or desires for things the magistrate does not. Coetzee is trying to dissociate the Magistrate from the desires of his penis and to illustrate his feeling of being controlled by this thing that is “anchored to (his) my flesh with claws I could not detach.” The words anchor and claws brings about the feeling of pain in relationship to the word flesh. Also, the word anchor evokes the feeling of weight or heaviness and permanence in which the Magistrate cannot be separated from. Coetzee uses claws to continue with the whole animalistic being theme.
In the last part of the passage, the Magistrate begins to have an internal dialogue with himself or between himself and his penis. He asks rhetorical questions of his penis, such as, “Why do I have to carry you about from woman to woman, I asked: simply because you were born without legs? Would it make any difference to you if you were rooted in a cat or a dog instead of me?” This sentence as a whole, with the reference to “a cat or a dog” (this also calls to mind that whole stupid animal theme again) makes the reader question the Magistrates importance in the scheme of things. He is just a host, anyone or anything else will do. The word carry is used to make the Magistrate just a passive assistant, the “legs” of this parasite, his penis, moving it from place to place, meal to meal, conquest to conquest – “from woman to woman”. Coetzee uses the word rooted in the last sentence to suggest just how much the penis (the Empire) is a part of the Magistrate. Rooted means to have put down roots, to be firmly implanted or embedded into an organ or structure.
This passage occurs early on it the book. Winter has set in, Colonel Joll has left and the Magistrate realizes he cannot, or does not want to have sex with the blind girl. At first read, this passage might not seem that important in relationship to the text as whole; possibly just a few amusing sentences. But with further analysis into it, especially in relationship to what had just happened – the Magistrate’s inability to have sex with the blind girl; it becomes clear that Coetzee wants this passage to show that the Magistrate is starting to question his behavior, his desires, and his own autonomy in relationship to these.
Here is a llink to info about the book (plot synopsis). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_the_Barbarians
I have never written the word 'penis' so many times in my life LOL! I feel like Dr Ruth Westheimer.
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