I have to write a paper about allegory in Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony". Can anybody help with what the allegory in this story is? i just cant figure it out. I know that its kinda about justice/morals/law but is there a deeper meaning to the story? thanks for your help.

Refresh my memory, isn't that the story about the new form of death penalty where the guy has his crime tattooed all over his body til he dies?

Refresh my memory, isn't that the story about the new form of death penalty where the guy has his crime tattooed all over his body til he dies?

yes, it is

Cutting to the chase, for Kafka the condemned soldier represented all of us. Just as he never truly knows what his verdict is, the jury remains out on our lives and the verdict is never actually revealed to us - merely etched into our flesh until we die.

 

Nobody's going all cockroachy in this one, but a good read nonetheless.

 

And, if your teacher is an old 60's throwback, you can probably get bonus points by working in somewhere that Frank Zappa in his liner notes to the album "We're Only In It For The Money" specifically instructs his audience to read The Penal Colony while listening to his composition "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny." I did, at the tender age of 15, and I haven't been quite the same since...

OK, Shagar, I've been patiently waiting for a grade from you on my 'Kafka's soldier as Everyman' allegory, but to no avail. C'mon, man – you're as slow at getting grades back to your students as I am!!

 

Well, ok then if that's the way you're going to be. Just don't come asking for help when you need to do that report on Albert Camus' The Stranger.

This reminds me of that scene in Back to School where Rodney Dangerfield had Kurt Vonnegut write a paper about one of Vonnegut's own works and received a "C" because, according to the Professor, the student knew nothing about Vonnegut.

OK, Shagar, I've been patiently waiting for a grade from you on my 'Kafka's soldier as Everyman' allegory, but to no avail.  C'mon, man – you're as slow at getting grades back to your students as I am!!

 

Well, ok then if that's the way you're going to be.  Just don't come asking for help when you need to do that report on Albert Camus' The Stranger. 

 

That was one of my favorite books in High School. 20th Century French Lit is about all of the French lit that I can stand. Camus, Sartre and St Exupery.

 

Hats off, gentlemen!

That was one of my favorite books in High School. 20th Century French Lit is about all of the French lit that I can stand. Camus, Sartre and St Exupery.

 

Hats off, gentlemen!

 

Voltaire is pretty damn good pre-20th Century French Lit, but largely I concur.

Given that I own five different versions of Candide, I'd agree. I actually wrote a paper on it in college, but I didn't have a translation, just my copy in the original french. So I quoted it in the original French. I think my teacher looked at it, shook her head and just gave me an A for effort.