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Synopsis. The story focuses on the Traveler, who has just arrived in an island penal colony and is encountering its brutal execution machine for the first time. Everything about the functioning of the intricate machine and its purpose and history is told to him by the Officer.
- Franz Kafka
- In der Strafkolonie
- 1919
- October 1919
A story of a man who visits a remote island where a brutal execution device is used to inscribe the condemned person's crime on their body. The story explores themes of autobiography, politics, and theology, and foreshadows the horrors of totalitarian regimes.
A short story by Franz Kafka about a mysterious execution device in a tropical island colony. A traveler witnesses the gruesome process of a condemned man who never had a trial or a chance to defend himself.
A story by Franz Kafka about a machine that writes a prisoner's sentence on his body. The explorer witnesses the execution and questions the cruel and arbitrary justice of the penal colony.
Learn about Kafka's surreal and tragic short story of a visitor to an island penal colony and an officer who executes men with a machine. Find plot summary, analysis, quotes, and study tools.
In the Penal Colony, novella by Franz Kafka, written in 1914 and published in German as In der Strafkolonie in 1919. An allegorical fantasy about law and punishment, it was also viewed as an existential comment on human torment and on strict devotion to an ambiguous task.
In Print. “In the Penal Colony” was one of the few stories that was published in Kafka’s lifetime. The best study guide to In the Penal Colony on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.
