Waiting for the Barbarians can be read as an allegorical attack on apartheid South Africa. But it can also be read generally as an allegory of the oppressor and the oppressed. This is made possible by the fact that the writer does not use a specific temporal, geographical or historical context. It also uses an unnamed character, the Magistrate, as one of its main characters and hero. This essay focuses on this particular character and the role he takes on. To achieve this aim I will first give a brief plot of the novel putting the magistrate at the centre. Secondly, I will find some echoes of the Life and Passion of Christ in the experiences of the Magistrate. Third, I will discuss whether he is some kind of redeemer in a secular world. Then I will conclude. At the beginning of the novel the narrator is a magistrate of an unnamed city on the frontier of an Empire. The "Barbarians" live on its edges. The magistrate meets a secret service chief, Colonel Joll, sent by the empire to wage war on the "barbarians". Colonel Joll captures some of them and tortures them with the aim of discovering the "truth" (5) about the alleged revolt of the "barbarians". Meanwhile, the Magistrate welcomes a barbarian girl, who begins to beg in the city, after being abandoned by her people upon returning to the desert (28). After a while, taking pity on the girl, he takes her back to his people (79) and then the real trouble begins. A new officer named Mandel arrives in town and takes charge of his office (84). The Magistrate is arrested and tortured before being set free. Subsequently, the colonists tremble at the news of the looming barbarian uprising and leave the city for the capital. Mandel is killed while trying to leave the place with his family (143). T...... in the center of the sheet ......you find echoes of the Life and Passion of Christ. There are a number of examples for example; The magistrate's concern for the oppressed turns him into an enemy of the empire. He is then imprisoned and tortured. He is also publicly humiliated like Jesus with public torture and a mock execution where he is hanged from a tree. While hanging, he also cries out loud and is mocked just as Jesus was before his death on the cross. Secondly, keeping in mind the example of the Magistrate, the sage demonstrated that he is a type of redeemer that the secular world needs as he upholds justice. He is also not the true kind of redeemer as his past moral life is imperfect, so he is lucky with moral credibility. However, to a greater extent, the Magistrate's example is a kind of redeemer in a secular world. Works Cited Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coetzee