In The Penal Colony Sparknotes

1304 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Discuss the use of symbolism in franz kafka metamor

In the short story, In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, we are introduced to a horrible device that is used to torture and execute prisoners. This apparatus does this by repeatedly writing the word of the supposed crime that the condemned person did into their flesh like a bizarre tattoo artist made of pain and blood. It is both sickening and fascinating to read the account of how this machine operates from the character named the Officer as he describes in gross details just what monster of metal does to someone. But, why would Kafka go to such lengths to write about these grisly details of blood and torn flesh? In this paper, we will see how the machine is many metaphors about how people can view the justice system and how it may seem unfair …show more content…

To frighten the reader is the easy answer on the surface, but there is much more going on than that. Kafka was using the skill of metaphor to show how an unjust and unfair criminal punishment system can be to the individual that has been condemned by it. The person is trapped, and now the system will tear into them both physically and mentally. Being left to the whims of such a system is a terrible fate, a person can feel like they are being hammered and ripped into by what they are going through. This scene brings this across to the reader but in a very subtle way through the use of the word harrow when it is used with a metaphorical …show more content…

When it’s finished with the first part of the script on the man’s back, the layer of cotton wool rolls and turns the body slowly onto its side to give the Harrow a new area. Meanwhile those parts lacerated by the inscription are lying on the cotton wool which, because it has been specially treated, immediately stops the bleeding and prepares the script for a further deepening. Here, as the body continues to rotate, prongs on the edge of the Harrow then pull the cotton wool from the wounds, throw it into the pit, and the Harrow goes to work again.” These words depict a punishment that is very detailed and gruesome for the reader to try to take in when they envision what is happening to the person receiving the consent ripping and shredding of their skin as they die. What could be trying to be shown here is how the power and weight of being incarcerated can have on an individual in a system where punishment is more important than justice. Each day, each hour, minute and second that someone is in such a situation can exert a toll on them. Kafka is trying to get the reader to stop and think what this really means when the punishment no longer fits the

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Justifying Legal Punishment By Igor Primoratz

    262 Words  | 1 Pages

    Igor Primoratz’s article, “Justifying Legal Punishment” presents the argument which illustrates that the only punishment which is correlative to the offense of murder is the death penalty. In this article he speaks out that a murder’s equal punishment is to be killed. As long as the murderer is alive, he can experience some values which he took from another human being. He supports this argument with many inconsiderable reasons. One of the reasons is that there is a time period which is that lapses between the passing of a death sentence and its execution. This argument is then supported by the claim that this period can last from several weeks or months, and this can extends to years (390). However, this view does not support the view of abolitionists,

    Read More

  • The Penal Colony And Karen Russell's Reeling For The Empire

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Kafka’s The Penal Colony, the machine is both a symbol of imagine and literal power which also reminds me of the machine that is mentioned in Karen Russell’s Reeling for the Empire who also illustrated it as an embodiment of power. In both stories, the two machines are inanimate objects but for some reason they possess this power and seen as almighty objects even though they aren’t human. In The Fine Line, Zerubavel states that “It is the fact that it is differentiated from other entities that provides an entity with a distinctive meaning as well as a distinctive identity that sets it apart from everything else.” I believe that it means that power, control, and borders only exist if people believe in them.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Slavery In The Land Of The Free

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bales and Soodalter use this to their advantage very effectively by using a multitude of personal stories from people who went through slavery. They tug at your heart strings by starting with Maria, who was 12 years old when she was taken into slavery for seven months by Sandra Bearden. During that time she was reportedly “ . . . dragged into hell. Sandra Bearden used violence to squeeze work and obedience from the child.” (722). Bales and Soodalter begin by giving you an emotional connection with Maria by telling a short story of her life growing up with her two loving parents, and small details of their house and living conditions. After the backstory is established, it goes straight into the accounts of beatings and torture endured by Maria, to quote “ . . . Sandra would blast pepper spray into Maria’s eyes. A broom was broken over the girl’s back, and a few days later, a bottle against her head . . . Bearden tortured the twelve year old by jamming a garden tool up her vagina.” (722-723). The inclusion of the tortures paints an image of how horrible slavery is, and evokes a sense of dread, despair, and helplessness for Maria. Bales and Soodalter not only state the tortures but they follow the text immediately by stating “That was Maria’s workday; her “time off” was worse.”

    Read More

  • The History of Kingston Penitentiary

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kingston Penitentiary is located on the shore of Lake Ontario in Ontario, Canada. It has served as the main symbol of punishment in Canadian society. Penitentiary Houses were first created in Great Britain in 1779. It was on June 1, 1835 that Kingston Penitentiary formerly known as the Provincial Penitentiary admitted its first six inmates.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Convicts By Iain Lawrence

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Convicts, by Iain Lawrence, is a story of a young boy who faces great odds to complete his quest to help his father. This novel takes many twists and turns through the landscape of London, more specifically in nineteenth century London. However, London is not described in the picturesque view many people have come to know London as. Lawrence shows the uglier more rugged lifestyle of many poor people in London during this time period. Within a society like this in London, swindling, gangs, and prison become common subjects among the lower classes, especially in this novel. Although life was hard for many, the characters in this novel find adventure along the way while aboard ships and through underground sewers.

    Read More

  • Rebellion Against Slavery in Fires of Jubilee by Stephen B. Oates

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mutilating the whites and leaving their bodies lying is inhumane. It is such a shocking story! This book was meant to teach the reader about the inhumanity of slavery. It also gives us the image of what happened during the past years when slavery was practised. The book is significant in the sense that it gives even the current generation the knowledge of slavery, how it happened and the reason for slavery.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Stateville: The Penitentiary In Mass Society

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    Understanding the organization of prisons and how the are can is a very complex mechanism. In “Stateville: The penitentiary in Mass Society”, Jacobs seeks to understand the organization in the Stateville prison system, one of the world’s toughest prisons. Giving the history of the prison does this and how things ran under different wardens, and how things were coupled throughout different organizations. When looking at these things Jacobs also points out issues in the prison and how they happened under what type of organization. By doing this, Stateville is easily relatable to understand leadership and authority.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Irwin's The Jail: Managing The Underclass In American Society

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel, The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American Society, Irwin claims that the jails are inhabited by individuals based on their offensive behaviors, and most importantly, based on their social status, notably being poor. “The public impression is that the jail holds a collection of dangerous criminals. But familiarity and close inspection reveal that the jail holds only a few persons who fit the popular conception of a crime…some students of the jail have politely referred to them as the poor” (Irwin 1). In Chapter one, Irwin describes what a jail entails. He explains that a jail is the foremost start into the criminal justice system. Those individuals placed in jails, normally do less than a year 's time in a jail. A jail is created for individuals who cannot make their bail, and most likely have committed a

    Read More

  • Obsession in A Hunger, The Penal Colony, and Metamorphosis

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “A Hunger”, “The Penal Colony”, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka succeeded in showing his individuals as obsessed with their profession; however their obsession caused their doom because society asks so much from an individual, only so much can be done. However, regardless of that, these individuals choose their work over themselves, and not even bad health or death can stop them. Because society places immures pressure on Kafka’s work obsessed character, they neglect their well-being and cause their own downfall.

    Read More

  • Gresham Sykes's Five Major Deplusions Of Prisons

    1618 Words  | 4 Pages

    Most prisoners that are in prison now are more than likely to be free one day where some will spend the rest of their living life there. When they enter into the prison system, they lose more than just being able to wear what they want. They even lose more than just their civil liberties. Gresham Sykes was the first to outline these major deprivations that prisoners go through in his book The Society of Captives. His five major pains, which he calls “pains of imprisonment”, were loss of liberty, loss of autonomy, loss of security, deprivation of heterosexual relationships, and deprivation of goods and services. Matthew Robinson adds onto Sykes’ five pains with three more of his own. His additional pains are loss of voting rights, loss of dignity,

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Kroll's Unquiet Death Of Robert Harris

    449 Words  | 1 Pages

    He first puts forth the two mainstream arguments against capital punishment and then organizedly refutes each standpoint with credible explanations. By illustrating there are “many other jobs that are unpleasant”, he easily indicates the flaw and weakness of first argument asserted by the opposite side without much refutation and statistical evidence. In addition, in order to disprove the second argument, he proposes that death penalty is not established to deter other potential criminals but to relieve. He employs great length of humor, logos and ethos to introduce and exemplify this new concept of “katharsis” which is defined as a health and positive way to “let off steam”. Thus, the act of punishing the murders can be interpreted as “justice is served” in this case instead of “cold-blood killing” and the audiences get the feeling of satisfaction because it is a part of their human nature. In the later discussion, he also mentions that it is extremely cruel and immoral that people are put in the death house just for simply torture. By having both side perspectives, the readers are more convinced and become more acceptable to Mencken’s ideas.

    Read More

  • John Edgar's Brothers and Keepers: A Struggle Against the Prison Institution

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the base of most stories is conflict; the protagonist verses the antagonist. This conflict is what works to drive the plot and contributes to the climax and resolutions of a story. The conflicts of a story are not always obvious and most times there are multiple conflicts within a single story. This case is no different for Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman. Wideman’s work is memoir that focuses on a comparison between himself and his brother that works to understand how each one of them ended up where they did in life. With in this work by Wideman there exist numerous conflicts, protagonists, and antagonists. One of the main conflicts that occur throughout the novel is between Robby (the protagonist) and Institutions (the antagonist). (Abbott 55).

    Read More

  • Analysis of George Orwell’s Essay, A Hanging

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author’s purpose is to also allow the audience to understand the way the guards and superintendent felt towards the prisoners. We see this when the superintendent is upset because the execution is running late, and says, “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis.” And “The man ought to have been dead by this time.” This allows the reader to see the disrespect the authority has towards the prisoners.

    Read More

  • Justice On Trial in Kafka's The Trial

    3824 Words  | 8 Pages

    ii Kafka, F.  The Trial.  Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir.  Introduction by George Steiner.  New York, Schocken Books, 1992, 1.

    Read More

  • God is Potrayed as Law in Before the Law by Franz Kafka

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is often referred to as a parable. Thus, it is logical to approach Kafka’s work as an allegory and search for the deeper meaning underneath the story. We can then try to uncover the identity of the characters; of the gatekeeper, the man from the country, and the Law and subsequently relating them to something that fits the example of the plot; a man’s confused search for god, a man’s quest for happiness but never accomplishing it, a academic’s quest for recognition which never comes. Any given number of innovative readers...

    Read More

More about In The Penal Colony Sparknotes

Open Document