库切在《等待野蛮人》中通过对晚期帝国叙述的话语分析,告诉人们:帝国的叙述是帝国别有用心地站在单向的透视视角上运用多种技术、策略建构权威的过程,语言、书写符号、法律等都参与其中。通过对他者的强行书写,通过为他者塑造的否定性形象,帝国获得了自我确证。然而这样获得的权威毕竟是被制造的,并不稳固,当帝国权威赖以获得的野蛮人消失时,帝国便会无所适从,不胜自身问题的压力,而陷入崩溃。 Coetzee, in Waiting for the Barbarians, analyzes the narratives of the Late Empire by telling people that the narrative of the empire is a process, language, and writing that the Empire made use of various techniques and tactics to stand on one-way perspective with ulterior motives. Symbols, laws, etc. are all involved. The Empire gained self-confirmation by forcibly writing the other and by creating a negative image of the Other. However, the authority thus acquired was, after all, manufactured and not stable. When the barbarians won by the empire’s authority disappeared, the Empire would be at a loss and unable to meet the pressure of its own problems and fall into collapse.