Community and Individual in
Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”
David Pan
Humanities Core Course
Winter 2011, Lecture 6
1
“In the Penal Colony” describes how both the
community-oriented and the individualist
approaches to justice lead to specific
structures for society.
1.
2.
3.
“In the Penal Colony” presents in the officer
and the explorer an intractable conflict
between a community-oriented Eastern Jewish
culture and an individualist Western Jewish
culture.
The officer’s justice creates a relation between
spirituality and materiality in which a pattern of
sacrifice creates a structure of spirituality for the
community.
The community is alienated from the law in a world
dominated by the explorer’s system of justice.
2
Though the narrator is in a similar position of knowledge
about the colony as the explorer, the narrator still has a
distinct perspective.
Opening Lines of “In the Penal Colony”
The third-person
narrator voices the
same bemusement
as the explorer
would have about
the officer’s “air of
admiration” for what
must be familiar to
him and the
emptiness of the
valley.
“It’s a remarkable piece of
apparatus,” said the officer to the
explorer and surveyed with a certain
air of admiration the apparatus which
was after all quite familiar to him. The
explorer seemed to have accepted
merely out of politeness the
Commandant’s invitation to witness
the execution of a soldier condemned
to death for disobedience and
insulting behavior to a superior. Nor
did the colony itself betray much
interest in this execution. At least, in
the small sandy valley, a deep hollow
surrounded on all sides by naked
crags, there was no one present save
the officer, the explorer, the
condemned man… (213).
Yet, the narrator is
not in the mind of
the explorer
because the
narrator can only
make conjectures
about the explorer’s
intentions.
Kafka, Franz. “In the Penal Colony.” Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. The Complete Stories. New York: Schocken, 1971.
Reprinted in The Human and Its Others: Divinity, Society, Nature. Humanities Core Course Guide and Reader. Ed.
David T. Pan. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010. 213-229.
3
The narrator has the same bewilderment and
poses the same kind of questions as the
explorer.
the condemned man, who was a stupidlooking, wide-mouthed creature with
bewildered hair and face, and the soldier
who held the heavy chain controlling the
small chains locked on the prisoner’s
ankles, wrists, and neck, chains that were
themselves attached to each other by
communicating links (213).
The narrator:
•points out that the chains seem to
have an ornamental as well as a
practical function.
•reproduces with this remark the
explorer’s attention to this anomaly.
These were tasks that might well have
been left to a mechanic, but the officer
performed them with great zeal,
whether because he was a devoted
admirer of the apparatus or because of
other reasons the work could be
entrusted to no one else (213).
The narrator:
•has no insight into the inner
motives of the officer.
•makes conjectures similar to the
ones the explorer must be making.
4
The narrator’s perspective shifts
after the death of the officer.
…through the forehead went the point of the
great iron spike.
*
*
*
As the explorer, with the soldier and the
condemned man behind him, reached the
first houses of the colony, the soldier point to
one of them and said: “There is the
teahouse.” (228-29)
•After the death of the
officer, the story could end.
•But instead the gaze of the
narrator shifts and the
explorer suddenly becomes
the focus of the narrator’s
attention.
In the original German
edition, these three stars
were inserted in the text
here as a separation (In der
Strafkolonie 246).
Kafka, Franz. In der Strafkolonie. Franz Kafka Kritische Ausgabe. Ed. Juergen Born, Gerhard Neumann, Malcolm
Pasley, and Jost Schillemeit. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1982-94. Kafkas Werke im WWW. Web. 18 January 2011.
5
The officer and explorer have diverging
presuppositions about the process of
judgment.
The explorer
expects that
the sentence
is part of a
discursive
process in
which the
prisoner
•understands
the sentence
conceptually
•presents
arguments in
his defense.
“Does he know his sentence?” “No,” said the officer, eager
to go on with his exposition, but the explorer interrupted
him: “He doesn’t know the sentence that has been passed
on him?” “No,” said the officer again, pausing a moment as
if to let the explorer elaborate his question, and then said:
“There would be no point in telling him. He’ll learn it on his
body.” The explorer intended to make no answer, but he
felt the prisoner’s gaze turned on him; it seemed to ask if
he approved such goings-on. So he bent forward again,
having already leaned back in his chair, and put another
question: “But surely he know that he has been
sentenced?” “Nor that either,” said the officer, smiling at
the explorer as if expecting him to make further surprising
remarks. “No,” said the explorer, wiping his forehead, “then
he can’t know either whether his defense was effective?”
“He has had no chance of putting up a defense,” said the
officer, turning his eyes away as if speaking to himself and
so sparing the explorer the shame of hearing self-evident
matters explained. “But he must have had some chance of
defending himself,” said the explorer, and rose from his
seat. (215-16)
The officer
rejects the
discursive
understanding
of justice and
•sees the
judgment as a
bodily
experience
•considers his
view to be
self-evident
and without
need for
explanation
6
The explorer focuses on the content of
the sentence while the officer focuses on
the form.
The explorer
is interested in
the content of
the sentence.
“And the harrow is the instrument for the actual
execution of the sentence.”
“And how does the sentence run?” asked the
explorer.
“that such an important visitor should not even
be told about the kind of sentence we pass is
a new development, which—”
The officer is
interested in
the form of the
sentence.
“Our sentence does not sound severe.
Whatever commandment the prisoner has
disobeyed is written upon his body by the
Harrow. This prisoner, for instance,”—the officer
indicated the man—”will have written on his
body: HONOR THY SUPERIORS!” (215)
7
“In the Penal Colony” describes how both the
community-oriented and the individualist
approaches to justice lead to specific
structures for society.
1.
2.
3.
“In the Penal Colony” presents in the officer and
the explorer an intractable conflict between a
community-oriented Eastern Jewish culture and an
individualist Western Jewish culture.
The officer’s justice creates a relation between
spirituality and materiality in which a pattern of
sacrifice creates a structure of spirituality for
the community.
The community is alienated from the law in a world
dominated by the explorer’s system of justice.
8
For Kafka’s friend, Hugo Bergmann, our
attitude toward the world establishes a
relation to God.
“Western” culture separates
God from the world.
In the perspective of today’s
Western culture … God and the
world are given once and for all
and the world and the people in
it are separate from God (33).
Judaism creates relation
between God and the world.
The Jewish understanding also
separates God and the world, but
it connects the fate of the world
and the fate of God with each
other in such a way that the world
is not simply dependent upon God,
but - and this is of central
importance for our considerations the fate of God depends upon the
world. (33)
Bergmann, Hugo. “Die Heiligung des Namens.” Vom Judentum. Ed. Verein jüdischer Hochschüler Bar Kochba in
Prag. Leipzig: Kurt Wolff, 1913.
9
Bergmann describes Judaism as a sacrifice of
sensual being that confirms the name of God.
The life that confirms God is
therefore one that pulls itself out of
the tangle of conditions, cares and
compromises, the unconditioned
life. The consecration of the name
of God thus becomes the
imperative of a heroic life. For the
Jew, the deepest proof of a supersensual reality was the sacrifice of
sensual being, the death of the
witness, the martyr (42).
The sacrifice
merges sensual
being with the
name of God.
10
For the officer, the goal of punishment is
to attain a spiritual transfiguration that
consecrates the word.
The man rarely swallows his last
mouthful, he only rolls it around his
mouth and spits it out into the pit. I
have to duck just then or he would spit
it in my face. But how quiet he grows at
just about the sixth hour!
Enlightenment comes to the most dullwitted. It begins around the eyes. From
there it radiates. A moment that might
tempt one to get under the Harrow
oneself. Nothing more happens than
that the man begins to decipher the
inscription, he purses his mouth as if
he were listening. You have seen how
difficult it is to decipher the script with
one’s eyes; but our man deciphers it
with his wounds. (219)
Rejection
of pleasure
Sixth hour
is turning
point
Like in the
circumcision, the
pain becomes less
important than the
affirmation of the
word.
11
German penal law theory of 1913
emphasizes the influence of punishment
on the community.
both the threat of punishment and the
execution exist primarily to influence
the entire community bound by the law,
and they can only maintain this
influence to the extent that they create
an impression on both the criminal and
the collective, if possible, or only on the
collective, if this double effect is not
possible. For this latter effect is
infinitely more significant and
beneficial! (15)
Punishment is
more for the
collective than
for the criminal.
Binding, Karl. Grundriß des deutschen Strafrechts, Allgemeiner Teil, 8th ed. Leipzig, 1913; reprint Aalen:
Scientia, 1975.
12
The execution process used to function
as a collective ceremony.
The whole day before the
ceremony the valley was
packed with people; they all
came only to look on (221).
Many did not care to watch it
but lay with closed eyes in the
sand; they all knew: Now
justice is being done (221).
The crowds
participated
in the
experience of
justice.
13
Justice for the community is based in
their experience of the prisoner’s shift
from bodily concerns to the law.
Well, and then came the sixth hour! It was
impossible to grant all the requests to be
allowed to watch it from nearby. The
Commandant in his wisdom ordained that
the children should have the preference; I,
of course, because of my office had the
privilege of always being at hand; often
enough I would be squatting there with a
small child in either arm. How we all
absorbed the look of transfiguration on the
face of the sufferer, how we bathed our
cheeks in the radiance of that justice,
achieved at last and fading so quickly!
What times these were, my comrade! (221)
The crowd
participates in the
same movement
from materiality to
the word as the
prisoner.
14
“In the Penal Colony” describes how both the
community-oriented and the individualist
approaches to justice lead to specific
structures for society.
1.
2.
3.
“In the Penal Colony” presents in the officer and
the explorer an intractable conflict between a
community-oriented Eastern Jewish culture and an
individualist Western Jewish culture.
The officer’s justice creates a relation between
spirituality and materiality in which a pattern of
sacrifice creates a structure of spirituality for the
community.
The community is alienated from the law in a
world dominated by the explorer’s system of
justice.
15
The explorer becomes the judge over the
officer’s system of justice.
for he traveled only as
an observer, with no
intention at all of altering
other people’s methods
of administering justice
(220).
your sincere conviction
has touched me, even
though it cannot
influence my judgment
(225).
The explorer attempts
to remain neutral
but cannot avoid
passing judgment.
16
The officer has the same position in the
explorer’s judgment process as the prisoner
has in the officer’s process.
Position of prisoner
The explorer intended to
make no answer, but he felt
the prisoner’s gaze turned
on him; it seemed to ask if
he approved such goings-on
(216).
Yet the movement of his [the
prisoner’s] blubber lips,
closely pressed together,
showed clearly that he could
not understand a word (215).
My guiding principle is this:
Guilt is never to be doubted
(216).
Position of officer
Both
attempt to
read the
explorer’s
reaction
Neither can
understand
process
No doubt
about guilt
for both
The officer kept watching the explorer
sideways, as if seeking to read from his
face the impression made on him by
the execution, which had been at least
cursorily explained to him (219).
the new Commandant, who was
apparently of a mind to bring in,
although gradually, a new kind of
procedure which the officer’s narrow
mind was incapable of understanding
(217).
From the very beginning the explorer
had no doubt about what answer he
must give (224).
17
The judgment against the officer results
in the expansion of individual freedom,
but also the breakdown of discipline.
The explorer intended to make no
answer, but he felt the prisoner’s gaze
turned on him; it seemed to ask if he
approved such goings-on (216).
The explorer saw that it was no use
merely giving orders, he was on the
point of going over and driving them
away (228).
But the other two could not make up
their minds to come; the condemned
man actually turned away; the explorer
had to go over to them and force them
into position at the officer’s head (228).
The plight of the individual
prisoner compels the
explorer to act.
After the prisoner is
freed, he does not
heed the explorer’s
orders.
18
The New Commandant’s rule is based on
discussion and commerce rather than
community unity and spirituality.
Tomorrow in the Commandant’s office
there is to be a large conference of all
the high administrative officials, the
Commandant presiding. Of course the
Commandant is the kind of man to have
turned these conferences into public
spectacles. He has had a gallery built
that is always packed with spectators. I
am compelled to take part in the
conferences, but they make me sick
with disgust (223-24).
After various trivial and ridiculous
matters, brought in merely to impress the
audience – mostly harbor works, nothing
but harbor works! – our judicial
procedure comes up for discussion too
(224).
1. Conferences instead
of spiritual
transfiguration.
2. Separation between
speakers and
spectators instead of
unity of community.
3. Economic activity
instead of spiritual
focus.
19
The explorer’s verdict leads to an
execution without the experience of
transfiguration.
The Harrow was not writing, it was only
jabbing, and the Bed was not turning the
body over but only bringing it up quivering
against the needles. The explorer wanted
to do something, if possible, to bring the
whole machine to a standstill, for this was
no exquisite torture such as the officer
desired, this was plain murder (228).
It [the face of the corpse] was as it had
been in life; no sign was visible of the
promised redemption; what others had
found in the machine the officer had not
found (228).
The officer is simply
killed.
He does not experience
the redemption that
others had found.
20
The explorer’s justice does not maintain
a relation to the community.
They [the soldier and the
condemned man] could
have jumped into the boat,
but the explorer lifted a
heavy knotted rope from
the floor boards,
threatened them with it,
and so kept them from
attempting the leap (229).
Though he has
established a new
law, the explorer
breaks all ties with
the colony.
21
Conclusion: Literature has influenced Germanspeaking society by providing different models for
imagining the relation of materiality and spirituality.
I.
Each version of the Faust legend has a distinctive
structure with its own particular effects.
A.
B.
The 1587 Faustbuch helped to establish the idea of the pact
with the devil that legitimated witch hunts.
Goethe’s Faust created the ideal of the Faustian man, whose
individualist goals helped justify a Nazi ethic that is beyond
good and evil.
“In the Penal Colony” describes how both the
individualist and the community-oriented approaches
to justice lead to specific structures for society.
III. If the trajectory of German culture has been shaped by
its particular founding texts, they provide a specific
example of cultural development that can be compared
with others.
II.
22
II. “In the Penal Colony” describes how both the
community-oriented and the individualist approaches
to justice lead to specific structures for society.
1.
“In the Penal Colony” presents in the officer and the explorer an intractable conflict between a
community-oriented Eastern Jewish culture and an individualist Western Jewish culture.
a.
The narrator shifts between the perspective of the officer and the perspective of the explorer.
i.
ii.
iii.
b.
The officer and explorer have diverging presuppositions about the process of judgment.
i.
ii.
2.
The explorer expects a discursive process and the officer expects a bodily experience.
The explorer focuses on the content of the sentence while the officer focuses on the form.
The officer’s justice creates a relation between spirituality and materiality in which a pattern of sacrifice
creates a structure of spirituality for the community.
a.
The Officer’s justice establishes the sacrifice of materiality as the basis of law.
i.
ii.
iii.
b.
For Kafka’s friend, Hugo Bergmann, our attitude toward the world establishes a relation to God.
Bergmann describes Judaism as a sacrifice of sensual being that confirms the name of God.
For the officer, the goal of punishment is to attain a spiritual transfiguration that consecrates the word.
The apparatus functions to establish community unity in a shared spiritual experience.
i.
ii.
iii.
3.
Though the narrator is in a similar position of knowledge about the colony as the explorer, the narrator still has a distinct
perspective.
The narrator has the same bewilderment and poses the same kind of questions as the explorer.
The narrator’s perspective shifts after the death of the officer.
German penal law theory of 1913 emphasizes the influence of punishment on the community.
The execution process used to function as a collective ceremony.
Justice for the community is based in their experience of the prisoner’s shift from bodily concerns to the law.
The community is alienated from the law in a world dominated by the explorer’s system of justice.
a.
The explorer relates to the officer in the same way that the officer relates to the prisoner.
i.
ii.
b.
The explorer establishes a new system of justice based on individualism, discussion, and materiality.
i.
ii.
iii.
c.
The explorer becomes the judge over the officer’s system of justice.
The officer has the same position in the explorer’s judgment process as the prisoner has in the officer’s process.
The judgment against the officer results in the expansion of individual freedom, but also the breakdown of discipline.
The New Commandant’s rule is based on discussion and commerce rather than community unity and spirituality.
The explorer’s verdict leads to an execution without the experience of transfiguration.
The explorer’s justice does not maintain a relation to the community.
23