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Book
J. M. Coetzee · 1980
A novel set in an unnamed empire's frontier outpost, narrated by a magistrate who witnesses the arrival of Colonel Joll from the capital's secret police and the brutal interrogation of prisoners suspected of banditry. The work explores themes of power, torture, complicity, and moral ambiguity through the magistrate's increasingly troubled conscience.
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What this book knows
A colonial magistrate's complicity in torture reveals how empires corrupt conscience through bureaucratic obedience and the erotics of power.
obedience-and-authority
We have set procedures we go through — and my ear is even tuned to the pitch of human pain, yet I hear nothing.
WB-RC-004'All he said was, Prisoners are prisoners. I decided it was not my place to argue with him.'
WB-RC-020trauma-and-survival
She was brought in here and hurt before her father's eyes; after that she had no father. Her father had annihilated himself.
WB-RC-073A soldier slowly pulls the cord tighter and the prisoners bend further, their thoughts wholly concentrated on not giving the wire a chance to tear their flesh.
WB-RC-096erotic-as-power
My hands run up and down her legs, squeezing, stroking, moulding. Light as feathers they stray up the backs of her thighs.
WB-RC-027My freedom to make of the girl whatever I felt like — wife or concubine or daughter or slave or all at once — because I had no duty to her.
WB-RC-071Illuminates
6 published passages · book excerpt · research analysis
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