On the first day of class we were asked what makes a story memorable and what makes it worth reading. These kinds of questions are often difficult to answer, because the answer more often than not depends upon one's opinions or experiences with the stories they've read. One person may say a story is memorable if the characters were relatable and had attributes that were applicable to one's own life. That's the case for me every time I read R.A. Salvatore's novels pertaining to his character Drizzt Do'Urden. I can relate to this character and wish to embody many of his characteristics as they would make me a better person if I did so. For some, the worth in the story is in its themes which are usually many or a single grand one. Herman Melville once stated, "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it."
Franz Kafka's short story "In the Penal Colony" had many themes and was indeed a memorable read, but it is worth less than a handful of dirt. I understand that to be a well-educated person in the literary realm one must read at least one piece by Kafka. He is after all considered a literary great, but a well written monstrosity is still a monstrosity. I had been warned of the violence of this particular story, but I was surprised to find that it was not violent through the use of action like a movie would be. "In the Penal Colony" is violent in the very nature of the story itself, the ideas which are embedded in the myriad themes, are they themselves the agents of violence. The most evident theme, which I'm sure was the primary one, is that of justice or the contortion thereof. The "villain" of the story, the Officer (none of the characters had real names), is the purveyor of a so-called justice within the colony. The "hero" is to be found in a lone Traveler who slowly recognizes that the Officer is in fact the purveyor of injustice through torturous murder.
The colony has a flawed judicial system; no trial, no jury, no defense. Any infraction, no matter how minor it be, is punishable by execution. The Officer declares those in question to be guilty, writes up the sentence for the now condemned, and then performs as well as presides over the execution. The execution is applied through a machine, an apparatus, that etches the sentence in a script (probably a fanciful one for more effect) onto the flesh of the condemned by way of needles for twelve hours. The Officer is completely dyspathic towards the condemned and is rather a bit of a sadist as he takes great pride in this apparatus and great pleasure in watching the execution being performed. This flawed system of guilty-with-no-trial is representative of a totalitarian judicial system. I cannot think of anyone who would willingly accept this system much less live under it, so I think it's pretty safe to say, no one wants a system like that. The system is not one of justice but one of a cruel, torturous murder to men who more often than not were probably guilty of nothing more than falling asleep on the job.
This particular piece was striving to make a point of how horrible a totalitarian judicial system is, in fact a totalitarian system of any kind in any branch of life is a bad idea. That was the grand theme of this "volume" so Kafka obeyed Melville in that regard. But the grand theme (this grand idea) was no match for the moral depravity that presided within the structure of this piece (structure being characters, plot, setting, etc.). What made this story worthy of the claim "morally deprived?" To make ones readers feel no more emotion other than a sickening sorrow and a fear of death at the hands of an unjust judge is wrong. To write and further publish a story that leaves your audience sitting traumatized in an emotionally drained state is cruel.
The worth should have been in the masterfully crafted exposé of what a totalitarian judicial system is. However, this was clouded by the failure to present a clear solution to the problem. We've all heard the phrase "if you aren't a part of the solution you're a part of the problem." Well Kafka deftly pointed out the problem, but he forgot to mention an escape clause for those poor, unfortunate souls we call characters. The reader is left not with a feeling of relief for the characters, but a feeling of dread as they continue to live in the unjust penal colony. The only relief to be found is when the Officer dies by the very machine he commands, and the Traveler gets to leave, but he leaves the colony in a state of disarray (the original condemned man is free from execution but is left to fend for himself amidst a riot of the penal colony's residents). How is this a solution or even a happy ending?
At no point is it acceptable for traumatization to be written and considered worthy of publication. As this phrase states, "some things are best left unsaid" so to are some things best left unwritten and unpublished.
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