Summary Of Franz Kafka's The Penal Colony Essay

There will always be issues when dissecting a person’s belief system in contrast to another person’s belief system. Much of this is caused by everyone involved always feeling as if their belief system is the right one. In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka approaches this issues through an explorer who is in a foreign colony, observing an unfamiliar justice system. The entire system is based around a machine, called the apparatus, which always declare the accused as guilty, inscribes the punishment of the accused onto their body, and then slowly kills them. The worst part of all is that this machine is not viewed as inhumane because it allows the person to have a religious epiphany and become a better person. Although Kafka’s short story was written

The officer demands that any of the primitive people of the land who are accused of an act, without the right to trial, or even any opportunity to not be guilty, are placed in the machine. Once the machine begins the punishment, which the prisoner may or may not have deserved, is inscribed onto his or her body in a code. Only the officer can translate this code though, leaving all trust in his translation. The machine then kills the prisoner over 12 hours, the first 6 involving excruciating pain, and the last 6 with the prisoner unconscious. This system was put in place by the Old Commandant and is looking to be replaced by the New Commandant, but the officer feels that there is so much good that comes from it. He believes that in the suffering that these prisoners encounter, bring about enlightenment, ultimately changing them. The explorer finds it very difficult to look at these actions as fair though and cannot agree with the

This is because Kafka takes on the larger theme of belief systems, and how a person can truly dedicate his or her entire reasoning behind a system that he or she has always been accustomed to, even if morally the system is not sound. That being said, who is to say that a present day person’s set of beliefs are superior to a person in the past, or that the New Commandant is more moral than the Old Commandant. Both have reasons for their actions, reasons that have been instilled through numerous people. Each sides is simply doing the same thing, by comparing their belief to another, and almost always taking the stance that their belief is better than the two. Obviously, it is easy to look at the apparatus and lynching and comprehend how they are immoral, but the important part lies in the fact that the white supremacists and the officer did not view either as immoral. Much of this is based from a person’s definition of justice and moral because so many actions are considered by some as just as others as