Genre
Fiction: Political allegory
Setting and Context
Fictionalized region loosely representing apartheid South Africa
Narrator and Point of View
Close first-person
Tone and Mood
Tragic, dramatic, ironic.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The magistrate (protagonist) Colonel Joll and the Empire (antagonist)
Major Conflict
Antagonism between one man and his empire. Internal conflict.
Climax
The public torture of a group of prisoners in which the magistrate finally speaks out against the brutalities of the Empire.
Foreshadowing
The first instance of torture foreshadows brutalities to come.
Understatement
n/a
Allusions
The title is an allusion to a poem by CP Cavafy, "Waiting for the Barbarians."
