/lit/ - Literature

>>4890629
A modern interpretation of Kafka's "In the Penal Colony." Instead of physical torture, the story's execution device instead provides chemical and neurological stimulation to force the 1st victim to feel precisely what the 2nd victim does.

As Huxley points out in "The Doors of Perception": "We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves...By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies--all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable."

Bearing this in mind, the torture is to provide the victim with an understanding deep and intimate beyond anything any human has ever felt towards another. This shatters the victims mind, suicide, etc. etc.

What I really want to explore is the machine operator's attitude that this sort of execution is art. Art is, in many cases, an attempt to express and share the artist's emotions, ideas, unique perspectives with the outside world. The device provides that connection on a deeper level than any other art form could possibly hope to achieve.

Spoiler: Too bad I don't know how to end it without ripping Kafka off completely.

Who's your favorite short stories writer?