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Saturday, October 08, 2005
The Body in Pain
It is enlightening when we use Scarry’s “Pain and Imagining” to analyse the motivations of the officer in Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”. At one point in her article, Scarry discusses the notion of work and how one can come to feel a sense of self-worth when one’s work is recognised and acknowledged by others (170). In many ways, the officer craves for that recognition in his work. Consider how absorbed he is when narrating the Golden Age of the Harrow, where people gathered in the thousands to see a prisoner executed by the machine and revelled in the pain and torture the punished individual was made to undergo. Contrast this to his bitter confession that the Harrow and the punishments it executes are not held in high esteem with the new Commandant. This is further reinforced by the officer’s great sense of disappointment when he realises that the explorer is not going to speak up for him and the torture machine. This particular moment in the story is especially revealing:
It did not look as if the officer had been listening. “So you did not find the procedure convincing,” he said to himself and smiled, as an old man smiles at childish nonsense and yet pursues his own meditations behind the smile. (160)
The smile here is more powerful and conveys a deeper sense of dejection and resignation than a sob is capable of. Because no one recognises his work as work anymore, the officer has lost all purpose in life, and is better off dead than being in a suspended mode of living where everyone treats him like an alien from another dimension. The officer therefore experiences the greatest torture in the story, a torture that stems from an unfulfilled desire for respect and recognition for his work and efforts in maintaining the machine and its serviceability. It is also significant that he receives no enlightenment from his execution as a result of the machine’s malfunction during the procedure. Because of the officer’s inability to change and move on with the times, his death is cold and gruesome, and provides him with no relief, with no release.
An After-thought
After reading Kafka's "In the Penal Colony", I thought about the various characters in the story and gave them each an archetypal representation.
The list is as follows:
The Officer - The old-guard elites; the creator and preserver of the eroding political ideologies of the Colony;
The Explorer - Representative of an alternative ideology; his presence challenges and threatens the already declining mores of the Colony;
The Soldier - The law enforcer; the preserver of the status quo; however his mindless subjection to the Officer actually accelerates the fall of the old system;
The Prisoner - The masses; to follow rules and orders without questioning them; it is significant that the Prisoner is condemned to death because of disobedience.
The story presents a chaotic period of transition from the old order to a new, still crystalising, order. The officer is the last protector of the old faith, and with his dying the new order can begin its full-fledged development towards social progress and modernisation.
It is also revealing that the explorer is unable to decipher the calligraphy of the Harrow, highlighting the obsolete language and ideology of the dead Commandant and his servant the officer. This is emphatic in that the society is in need of change, which is representative of the foreign explorer and the new Commandant of the colony.
It is enlightening when we use Scarry’s “Pain and Imagining” to analyse the motivations of the officer in Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”. At one point in her article, Scarry discusses the notion of work and how one can come to feel a sense of self-worth when one’s work is recognised and acknowledged by others (170). In many ways, the officer craves for that recognition in his work. Consider how absorbed he is when narrating the Golden Age of the Harrow, where people gathered in the thousands to see a prisoner executed by the machine and revelled in the pain and torture the punished individual was made to undergo. Contrast this to his bitter confession that the Harrow and the punishments it executes are not held in high esteem with the new Commandant. This is further reinforced by the officer’s great sense of disappointment when he realises that the explorer is not going to speak up for him and the torture machine. This particular moment in the story is especially revealing:
It did not look as if the officer had been listening. “So you did not find the procedure convincing,” he said to himself and smiled, as an old man smiles at childish nonsense and yet pursues his own meditations behind the smile. (160)
The smile here is more powerful and conveys a deeper sense of dejection and resignation than a sob is capable of. Because no one recognises his work as work anymore, the officer has lost all purpose in life, and is better off dead than being in a suspended mode of living where everyone treats him like an alien from another dimension. The officer therefore experiences the greatest torture in the story, a torture that stems from an unfulfilled desire for respect and recognition for his work and efforts in maintaining the machine and its serviceability. It is also significant that he receives no enlightenment from his execution as a result of the machine’s malfunction during the procedure. Because of the officer’s inability to change and move on with the times, his death is cold and gruesome, and provides him with no relief, with no release.
An After-thought
After reading Kafka's "In the Penal Colony", I thought about the various characters in the story and gave them each an archetypal representation.
The list is as follows:
The Officer - The old-guard elites; the creator and preserver of the eroding political ideologies of the Colony;
The Explorer - Representative of an alternative ideology; his presence challenges and threatens the already declining mores of the Colony;
The Soldier - The law enforcer; the preserver of the status quo; however his mindless subjection to the Officer actually accelerates the fall of the old system;
The Prisoner - The masses; to follow rules and orders without questioning them; it is significant that the Prisoner is condemned to death because of disobedience.
The story presents a chaotic period of transition from the old order to a new, still crystalising, order. The officer is the last protector of the old faith, and with his dying the new order can begin its full-fledged development towards social progress and modernisation.
It is also revealing that the explorer is unable to decipher the calligraphy of the Harrow, highlighting the obsolete language and ideology of the dead Commandant and his servant the officer. This is emphatic in that the society is in need of change, which is representative of the foreign explorer and the new Commandant of the colony.
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