ABSTRACT
The above stanza from Constantine Cavafy’s poem describes how during the ritual of waiting normal facets of everyday life are disrupted, leaving humans in a state of apprehension and paralysis. In such circumstances, everything is suspended, and the only action allowed is the actual waiting. The vague essence that defines the waiting can hold people captive. People wait, ensnared by a power they fail to understand, and their wait becomes the inactive activity that defines their lives. The artificial state that is begotten by the process of waiting not only suspends the linear passage of time but also allows certain realities to be imposed under the pretext of times of emergency. In Cavafy’s poem, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” the citizens are paralyzed by this uncertainty, awaiting further instructions from the authorities who inform them that when the barbarians arrive the state of suspension will be lifted. At least that is what the emperor has promised, but the night nears and there are no signs of the barbarians; instead, Cavafy writes: What does this sudden uneasiness mean, And this confusion?(How grave the faces have become!) Why are the streets and squares rapidly emptying, and why is everyone going back home so lost in thought? Because it is night and the barbarians have not come. And some men have arrived from the frontiers and they say that there are no barbarians any longer (Cavafy 143). The persistent question is no longer when the barbarians would come, but “now, what will become of us without barbarians? /Those people were a kind of solution” (Cavafy 143). As with Estragon and Vladimir in Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot , who continuously wait, marking their days with futile words and useless acts bordering on inactivity in the hope that Godot may appear, they wait without respite clinging to a promise. In order that Estragon and Vladimir do not despair, Godot dispatches his messenger at the end of both acts with virtually the same message (WFG 33). At the end of the second act, Vladimir recites the same promise (WFG 58). They continue to wait as the final stage direction states “They do not move” (Beckett WFG 60).
