700 - 900 words.

Choose one of the texts we have studied by Kafka and analyze the way its central
theme(s) is/are constructed through the use of literary techniques such as
characterization, symbolism/allegory/metaphors, diction, tone, narration and setting.
When defining the theme(s) you may or may not choose one of the "frameworks" we
have looked at: Psychoanalysis, existentialism, autobiographical elements, political
criticism, modernism.

Each writer has their own truth, their own world, woven into thousands of
experiences. Franz Kafka's works are always full of absurdity. Penetrated by fear of
the supreme authority and the outside world, they create a vague anxiety in the
reader's mind, and a strange, aching sense of melancholy.
This essay is focusing on Kafkas short story In the Penal Colony and its themes.
The title follows the stories setting, which takes place in a penal colony.
In this story, we are introduced to four characters: The Officer, the Traveler, the
Condemned man and the Soldier. The story describes the final use of an apparatus,
which tortures and executes condemned prisoners by carving the sentence on their
skin before letting them die. As the short story unfolds, the reader finds out more
about the mysterious machine.
Its a peculiar apparatus, that is how this story begins, by the Officer proudly
explaining the strange machine to the newly arrived Traveler. It is a horrifically brutal
machine terrifying with its unjustified litigation towards the quilty. In Kafkas vision this
strange mechanism is ultimately linked to the only remaining supporter of the former
regime in the penal colony. The Officer judges on the principle "Guilt is never to be
doubted, and he lives for his devotion to "Justice" as he sees it.
"Many did not care to watch it but lay with closed eyes in the sand; they all knew:
Now Justice is being done."(p.59)
This is a principle the Traveler is not able to comprehend and agree with. The
contrast in thoughts and opinions of the main characters is one the tools set up by
Kafka to characterize the story.

The narration of In the Penal Colony is in the third person, but is closely following
the Traveler. The other characters are described from the outside, as they seem,
whereas the Traveler gets his feelings and thoughts described closely by the
narrator. Nevertheless, the narrator keeps a distance from this character and never
switches to first person.
Franz Kafka skillfully creates a certain unemotional diction which gives the narration
a gloomy tone and a seemingly uninvolved atmosphere. The diction makes the
storytelling as objective as possible, to the extent that everything happening seems

unsurprising to him.
In any case, the condemned man looked so like a submissive dog that one might
have thought he could be left to run free on the surrounding hills and would only
need to be whistled for when the execution was due to begin. (p.53)
In this quote reader gets a sense of how the narrator dehumanizes a character and
makes us think of him as an animal. That, subsequently, is made utterly insignificant
by the in any case. The narrator suggests that all actions are obvious and makes
everything sound casual. This moment supports the fact of the idea present in
Kafkas works - a strange unexplainable melancholy, projecting in the readers mind
as he goes along the story.
Not many details are given for the setting of the short story. The Penal Colony has no
name and no direct location, besides the details of it being situated somewhere in
the tropics. The setting, as the whole story itself, is surreal. This links to some kind
of symbolical setting.
The story can be read and interpreted in many ways. One interpretation is that the
colony is a totalitarian society, like the USSR or Nazi Germany. The people inside the
colony are kept under strict control by violent methods of torture, just as in a
totalitarian society. There is not trial nor defense for the guilty and no actual justice.
The old Commandant, that the Officer worships so much, is presented as a godlike
leader figure. That is also a way in which totalitarian societies tend to make their
leaders. In this interpretation, the Traveler is horrified by the Officers irrational
actions as the result of brainwashing.
As the Officer dies from sacrificing himself to the mysterious apparatus the surreal
nightmare ends. It becomes clear that the old Commandants time has come to an
end, and so, his invented installation has collapsed with his last faithful follower. Still,
the reader does not feel any relief, as if there is still waiting for something terrible.
The climax of the story implies that the Officer pressured by his fear of the power of
his formal leader to choose death as the only way out. By that, Kafka, again created
a vague dreamlike narrative. The Traveler, greatly affected, sees the grave of the
commandant and leaves the colony with haste.
The Traveler keeps a thin distance between whats happening, and so does the
narrator to the Traveler. The tone created by Franz Kafka keeps the reader feeling
uneasy and, and times shocked, throughout the whole story. The setting is truly
surreal, which leads to more symbolical interpretations. One of which is an element
highly reminding of a totalitarian state.