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Description
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An unruly soldier is sentenced to death. The decision will be executed by a "quirky" machine that engraves his offense on his bare body with sharp spikes. Two figures play a significant role: the officer, who is solely interested in the proper functioning of the machine, and the researcher-traveler, who, although expressing his opposition, essentially remains detached and hurriedly seeks to escape from the grim place.
This prominent yet enigmatic text has inspired numerous interpretations. Whether interpreted as an allegory for the monstrous aspects of lawless societies or as a critique of the barbarism that the worship of technology leads to, or recognized within the narrower historical context of the time it was written (1914), The Penal Colony poses a question of moral nature. Not only are the perpetrators responsible for committing the crime; the inactive, those who procrastinated and did not prevent the prevalence of evil, are also co-responsible.
Written with the clarity of a nightmarish dream, Kafka's text astonishingly foretells what soon followed in the heart of Europe.
“The traveler is the central figure of this story, and together with him, the average European, the reader, that is. This European will confront practices carried out by Europeans, even in distant places, which he perceives as profoundly unjust and inhumane, and which simultaneously push his understanding of humanity to its limits. His humanitarianism is tested as a conventional behavior, which operates among civilized people around a tea table, but outside these civilized circles, it collapses. In the penal colony, it collides with the limits of European culture, which, at those limits rather than at its core, proves to be extremely fragile. The traveler will escape from this experience.” H.D. ZIMMERMANN, “The perpetrators and the inactive,” p. 105.
“Do not ask about the meaning of the story. There is no meaning. […] Perhaps this book does not belong to its time […]. It is completely inconceivable.” K. TUCHOLSKY, p. 129.
Manufacturer
- Author
- Franz Kafka
- Publisher
- Kichli
- Publishers
- Thrush
- Type
- Classic Literature
- Cover
- Soft
- Number of Pages
- 192
- Release Date
- 2/2017
- Publication Date
- 2017
- Dimensions
- 11.8x16.5 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9786185004514
Important information
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