Take half an hour to write a paragraph exploring what puzzles you about "In the Penal Colony." Feel free to incorporate some of the ideas we brought up in class, but your quotes should be from the final pages that we hadn't read yet. Although in formal writing a topic sentence needs to start the paragraph, here you may want to arrive at it in your final sentence.
I will only evaluate these for effort. If it looks like you spent half an hour thinking and writing, you get full credit.
Due before lunch Monday.
One thing that puzzles me about this story is how the first governor came up with the idea for the machine in the first place. What kind of man was he? What kind of sick person would torture people like that? Even though they broke the law in some way, doesn’t it only stain your own shirt with the blood of the dead, even if the machine was the one that did it? How can this guy's followers see him as a hero when the only thing I see is a beast? How is it possible that the same person is viewed in such different ways? At least I have an answer to that question.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways, people can be seen differently. For example, my sister. Everyone sees her as a sweet, smart, young girl. She is the Chinese little sister of an American girl. They see her good grades, they see her perfect appearance. ["Was he a combination of everything, then? Was he a soldier, judge, engineer, chemist, and designer?" "Yes indeed", said the officer (56).] But what they don’t see is the inner workings and developments of that image of my sister. I am not saying that my sister is not any of these things, but in fact I am saying that she most certainly is all of those things. But I know more than what others know. My sister, well, she is the kind of person who won't say thank you (to her family) so that you can hear it. She says it in a mumble, and then we think she didn’t say it. She is the type of girl who will stay in her room, and stay there until she gets hungry. Only then does she come out, and then ask for food. I love my sister very much, but people just don’t see certain things that my family does. She doesn’t show affection very well to her family. An example of this: she'd rather give me a dollar than brush my hair. Isn't that weird? I think so… But yet, even after everything that I told you (and I could tell you a million more, I just don't care to), I still learn about my sister with each passing day. Even now, I haven't discovered all of the doors that lead me to those inner workings, because I am often swept away. ["They might have still been able to jump into the boat, but the explorer picked up a heavy, knotted hawser from the floor, threatened them with it and thus prevented them from jumping" (75).
The point of this is that people aren't always as they seem. Just when you think you know someone, you discover more closed doors. Once you've opened all of those doors, they trust you more, and eventually more doors open by themselves. The cycle continues until there is a point in both of your lives where you don’t have any more doors to open. Once you have accomplished this, then and only then will you understand that person.
As I reached the end of the story, I was puzzled as to what was the meaning or purpose of the ending. It didn't make sense as to why the officer would put himself through the great pain and suffering and why the soldier and condemned man could not jump on to the boat with the explorer. As I tried to relate this story to the other works by Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, I realized "In a Penal Colony" could potentially have an allegorical meaning.
ReplyDeleteA penal colony is a place where guilty prisoners of crime are exiled to. The officer was explaining their customs to the explorer when he said, "Guilt is never to be doubted." In their society, when a citizen is accused of breaking the law, they are not given a trial or a chance to prove their innocence. This is because everyone in the society is guilty about something. Religiously, we are like the penal colony because the Bible says we are all born with original sin, just as the penal citizens. In the religious world we are all guilty about a sin that we have committed. When the officer decided to go into the machine himself, he read aloud his punishment which said to "Be Just!" In a sense, the officer is like Jesus in the penal colony because he wants to bring justice to their society. Just as in "a hunger artist," the officer may have had to undergo great pain or self denial in order to reach spiritual accomplishments. As he undergoes the procedure, it goes horribly wrong and different for him than for all the others. The machine begins to break down and instead impales him within minutes rather than within a course of several hours. This too is like Jesus because they both suffered horrible, painful deaths of being pierced for wanting to bring justice to their societies. At the very end of the book, as the explorer was leaving the penal colony, the soldier and the condemned man tried jumping on the boat to leave with him, however they could not. I believe the explorer represents pure soul who was going to Heaven. However the soldier and the condemned man had "bad consciences" or were guilty with sin, therefore unable to enter the boat as the gate to Heaven.
I'm not really sure if these connections truly work in this instance, but after reading many stories with religious and spiritual connections, I assumed this story must have some too.
Throughout the story, even til death, the officer adores and truly loves his machine. Although what he does in the end seems absurd, the soldier, the condemned man, and the explorer all understand. "...he knew what was going to happen, but he had no right to prevent the officer from doing anything he wanted. If the judicial procedure to which the officer was devoted was really so close to being abolished...then the officer was now acting perfectly correctly; in his place the explorer would have acted no differently." It makes sense that they understand why he is doing it, but I don't quite get why they are letting him do it. Though what the officer was doing was completely unethical, the fact that they are allowing him to do the same isn't right. It does, however, correlate with the inscription on the little sheet of paper that says "Be Just." And, similar to the other writing about the Law and the gatekeeper, as the man trying to get through the gate dies, his gate is closed. In the Penal Colony, as the officer is dying, his machine finally comes apart. "The harrow wasn't writing, it was merely stabbing, and the bed wasn't turning the body over but merely lifting it...the blood was flowing in a hundred streams, not mixed with water; the little water pipes had failed to work this time, as well. and now the final failure took place; the body didn't come loose from the long needles; it poured out its blood, but hung over the pit without falling." The fact that his body clung to the machine could symbolize his willingness, even in death, to not let go. Still, the men seem only slightly affected by this.
ReplyDeleteWhy does the author not go into detail in describing the characters other than the prisoner, do there roles help define them as people, or should we just see what they are like with their actions? I think this is some smaller aspect of the story that shows how our positions can shape who we are and corrupt us as in the case of the officer. Towards the end the explorer, "bit his lips and said nothing. Of course, he knew what was going to happen, but he had no right to prevent the officer from doing anything he wanted". Shouldn't the explorer venture past his role to stop something that he truly believes to be immoral? Another one of my questions is one that we deal with in our judicial systems. What is the point of all these punishments? is it to scare people so they don't commit crimes, is it revenge for what they have done to society, or is merely to make them incapable of doing them again? Why wouldn't they tell the condemned man what he had done, why would they make him wait to after being tortured to find out. Wouldn't the torture be more effective if the condemned people knew exactly why they were being tortured and could think about what they did and what it is causing them, not finding out by some almost cryptic method. Roles make us do things against our original will for reasons we don't understand.
ReplyDeleteWhy did the machine work everytime except for on the person whose job it was to make sure the machine ran perfectly? I would have thought that it would have been a glorious ending to the machine; to be used on its own master. I think this might say something about this whole operation. Maybe this is what was supposed to happen. The officer had this coming. He was going to be repaid for all the times he used the machine on others, but worse. This also points to the how gruesome the machine actually is. The inscription does teach a lesson, but what if they were innocent. What if the person did not really do what they were said to do. THis teaches no lesson to the person being punished. It teaches a lesson of flawed judicial system. This is basically what the machine does in the end. It teaches no lesson, it just kills him.
ReplyDeleteSamuel
ReplyDeleteThe most confusing and yet the most obviously important part of the Penal Colony was the fact that when the officer put himself into the machine it fell apart. This confuses me because the officer was the most completely devoted to the machine and its wellbeing. I believe that the only explanation for why this was happening is that the machine represented the old governors system, and the officer was the one protecting and carrying on the old governor’s ideas. This is why when the explorer finally showed the officer that the ideas that the officer believed in were wrong and inhumane, the officer knew that he had to punish himself and him dying was also the death of the old governors beliefs and thus the machine. I believe that this is obvious because the officer was not only killed but viciously stabbed him without having him be tortured which defeats the purpose of learning from it and makes it simply murder, as they say in the story. His gruesome death shows the fall of the colonies past ideas.
One thing that really confused me about this story is the condemned man's personality in general. "in his poinion the execution wouldn't be perfect if the straps weren't buckled tight; he made a vigorous sign to the soldier and they ran over to strap in the officer." The way that the condemned man is so ready to run over to the officer and strap him in to the machine that was about to kill him is a little disturbing. Also I found the way that the condemned man and the soldier were "play fighting" wierd because a few minutes before the condemned man was supposed to be killed, the officer was completely indifferent to him. I think that the relationship between the condemned man and the officer relates to the Oedipus Complex, with the machine and the officer fighting over the condemned man. The officer explains the machine to the explorer with a lot of detail and care, almost like it is his son. When the officer willingly lets the machine kill him, I think the machine wins over the condemned man, as he looks at it in awe. When the explorer, the soldier, and the condemned man go to bury the officer, they read the head stone of the old governor. "Here lies the old governor. His followers... dug this grave for him and erected the stone. There exists a prophecy that after a certain number of years the gobernor will rise again and will lead his followers out of this house to reconquer the colony." Reading this tomb stone, the officer takes the form of a god, in the eyes of the condemned man. I think that the explorer takes up the position of the god returning when he sails off in his boat and the condemned man and the soldier are not able to jump on to the boat with him.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the story I was confused by the significance of the breakdown of the machine once the officer had put himself under it. Once he hears that punishment through the machine may soon come to an end, the officer makes the huge gesture of putting himself through the torture he had preformed on so many men throughout the years.However, he, unlike the other criminals put under the machine, does not experience the moment of understanding during the torture which gives purpose to the whole showy process of the execution. In this moment, midway through the execution, the criminal, previously unaware of his crime, is meant to receive an understanding of the reason he is here, "But then, how quiet the man becomes around the sixth hour! Even the dumbest one starts to understand It begins around the eyes. From there it spreads out. A sight that could tempt someone to lie down alongside the man under the harrow." (61). As well as sacrificing himself for his cause, receiving this understanding may have been the reason that the officer put himself through the torture, which makes it confusing as to why he did not receive it. The lesson which the officer was supposed to learn still remains a mystery. What was the inscription which he set to be inscribed on his back? What is the significance of the officer not receiving this final lesson?
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