![]() The Trial famously opens with its protagonist, Josef K., being arrested for some unspecified crime, and in the course of that novel (spoilers alert!), he finds it difficult to prove his innocence, not least because he doesn’t know what specific crime he has been charged with. In this connection, it’s worth remembering that Kafka was at work on his novel The Trial when he wrote ‘In the Penal Colony’, and in some respects we might view the latter text as a sort of pendant or offshoot from that longer and more ambitious work. He can variously be interpreted as the Old Testament God, Yahweh (in the English translations of Kafka’s story, ‘Commandant’ is close to ‘Commandment’, reminding us that in the Old Testament, God gave Moses the so-called Ten Commandments as a sign of his divine rule) or as Jesus, given that he ‘died’ and it is believed that he will return to the land at some unspecified time in the future. ![]() ![]() ![]() A religious or theological analysis of ‘In the Penal Colony’ also readily makes sense if we view the Commandant as God. ![]()
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