Kafka - In the Penal Colony

[Anonymous No.15203091]

What was the meaning of this story?

Was the torture machine a symbol of religion that inscribes meaning on the body of those who submit at the cost of their life? The machine was in decay and irrelevant but it seems strange that the traveler, who barely was a character, could more or less cause its downfall with just his presence.

[Anonymous No.15203124]

>>15203091

I’m sorry I don’t think that’s a very good interpretation at all.

[Anonymous No.15203154]

>>15203124

To elaborate if I can at all, Kafka was not such a brooding, angst-filled nihilist that he would make such scathing critiques of religion. Nothing from his work has lead me to believe him so bleak and spiteful, even the hunger artist, which is more overtly in religious conversation, doesn’t take such a tone. I could be all wrong ofc but I truly can’t help but feel your reading is the projection of an inner despair onto others than something vividly present in the text. I’m sorry.

[Anonymous No.15203244]

>>15203154
thanks for the two bit psychoanalysis, daddy. if you have a better interpretation of the story, please share that instead.

[Anonymous No.15203248]

Yes. The Machine represents OT religion, the warden represents Christ. Kafka is showing how absurd to the point of obscenity the worldview of these religions is.

[Anonymous No.15203265]

>>15203248
>warden
Or, rather, the guy who sacrificed himself on the machine when he saw it was no longer desired anymore. Not sure if he was a warden or what. It's been a while

[Anonymous No.15203267]

>>15203244

I’ll share what I please, son.

[Anonymous No.15203313]

Kafka probably didn't intend you to take his work as some kind of direct political or religious allegory.

>>15203154
>I truly can’t help but feel your reading is the projection of an inner despair onto others than something vividly present in the text.
Kafka was a professed atheist and there's probably few writers with as much "inner despair", although he had a pretty strong sense of irony about everything. Saying that Kafka wasn't "brooding" and "angst-filled" is downright hilarious--he's both of those things in the extreme, which if it isn't clear from his work (it should be), his diary makes perfectly explicit.

[Anonymous No.15203372]

>>15203313
Why do you say that? He heavily uses religious symbols (old Commandant, the blueprint which can't be read by anyone else, the tombstone which has a resurrection message, divine ecstasy of the torture machine). Pretending like it can't be read as a religious allegory seems like willful ignorance of the text.

[Anonymous No.15203842]

>>15203091
he just wanted to write about a detailed torture machine

[Anonymous No.15203857]

Kafka's stories didn't have greater meanings,

[Anonymous No.15203864]

>>15203313
>Kafka probably didn't intend you to take his work as some kind of direct political or religious allegory.
Awful take. Literally every story of his is imbued with so much Judaism and Politics it's impossible to miss.

[Anonymous No.15203880]

>muh kafka isn't deep
educate thyselves, plebs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDxQXzT_9F4

[Anonymous No.15204045]

>>15203880
torture machine goes brrrr

[Anonymous No.15204325]

>>15204045
tpbp

[Anonymous No.15205067]

>>15203842
do you think he he bust a nut to it?

[Anonymous No.15206457]

>>15203091
I like your interpretation. Due to Kafka’s nature there isn’t really one “correct” way to decipher an allegory in his short stories, so you draw value through your own personal decoding of his ambivalence.

[Anonymous No.15206874]

>>15206457
cringe when people say this. also the word "ambivalence" makes no sense here. don't act smarter than you are

[Anonymous No.15207921]

>>15203091
>>what was the meaning of the story?
>dad makes me find an office work
>get job in insurance
>spend weeks reading about workingplace accidents in the industry
>amputations, dismemberments, deaths
fuck you dad I hate this job

[Anonymous No.15208076]

haha torture machine go brrrrrrr

[Anonymous No.15208083]

>>15208076

fuck I should have read the thread first now I look like an idiot

[Anonymous No.15209715]

bump