View In The Penal Colony Kafka Background. A foreigner is invited to a penal colony in order to evaluate its judicial procedures and methods of execution. Of course, interest in the execution was not very high even in the penal colony itself.

Kafka Wired In The Penal Colony And The Metamorphosis By Martin Senn Nicholas S Anderson
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In the penal colony presents an officer who demonstrates his devotion to duty by submitting himself to the appalling (and clinically described) mutilations of his own instrument of torture. The officer in charge of the execution tells the traveler (who stands in for the reader) about the origins of the machine. The officer gives the previous governor of the penal colony a very dignified impression by telling the explorer how, while the old governor was still alive, the colony was full of his followers.

Of course, interest in the execution was not very high even in the penal colony itself.

This franz kafka edition, containing in the penal colony and the judgement, only amounts to eighty pages. A foreigner is invited to a penal colony in order to evaluate its judicial procedures and methods of execution. Is kafka giving us a parable of old vs. Such an evaluation proves to be difficult.