Where is the Interpreter "In the Penal Colony"?
=============================================
Wolran Kim
December 2013
“Any problem, big or small, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening,” said Emma Thompson. The tragedy of bad communication is all over the world from families to countries. From trivial matters in daily lives to extreme situations of the Middle East in politics, they all start with bad communication. Someone is not listening or someone is not speaking.
In the stage of the Penal Colony, there is this same problem. The four characters all use different methods of communication: the Traveler uses the tongue of a spectator, the Officer uses a dialect of power, and the Soldier and the Condemned Man use a vernacular of obedience. The Traveler and the Officer use the same language, so they can communicate if they want to. But, there is a serious problem, “The Traveler was not surprised at that, for the Officer spoke French, and clearly neither the Soldier nor the Condemned Man understood the language (5).” The Traveler was not surprised, but the readers find it absurd, seeing two different stages in one scene.
Besides the horrible killing apparatus, this wild setting is eerily like a black comedy. The language barrier flashes back to the biblical Tower of Babel. Language barriers were used as a way to separate human beings. It could be the best cure to treat the absurdity of the separation of characters. There is no doubt, and all disconnections are explained with this obstacle.
Foreign languages cannot be learned in a short time. So this language barrier creates a strong disconnection. This barrier explains many of the future strange words, deeds, and disconnections between the Officer, the Soldier and the Condemned Man. This Penal Colony started irrationally without any devices to solve the problems. According to the Officer’s words, all these efforts are “useless” anyway. The hidden card, the language barrier, overturns common sense because there is always an interpreter in modern courtrooms. An interpreter is the artificial bridge that connects two separated islands. There is no interpreter in Kafka’s Penal Colony. Interestingly, though the Traveler and the Officer speak the same language, there is a barricade between them, as high as a language barrier.
"The Traveler wanted to raise various questions, but after looking at the Condemned Man he merely asked, “Does he know his sentence?” ”No,” said the Officer. He wished to get on with his explanation right away, but the Traveler interrupted him: “He doesn’t know his own sentence?” “No,” said the Officer once more. He then paused for a moment, as if he was asking the Traveler for a more detailed reason for his question, and said, “It would be useless to give him that information. He experiences it on his own body.” The Traveler really wanted to keep quiet at this point (7)."
A sense of alienation between the Traveler and the Officer occupies the greater part of this novel, and this passage lively demonstrates their disconnection. The Traveler was tired and bored from the beginning and he was never interested in the Officer’s enthusiastic descriptions (from the previous story). But now, he wanted to ask “various questions.” This is a turning point, because he and the Officer were as far apart from each other as enthusiasm and apathy. Asking something is the same action as making a small door in the wall. He chooses the most valuable among the “various questions,” after seeing the Condemned Man. He wanted to at least make sure the Condemned Man knows his own sentence.
His only one question was not for himself but for the Condemned Man, and this shows the Traveler’s humanity. The Officer answers “No” two times to the Traveler’s question. Right after the first “No,” he “wished to get on with his explanation right away.” However, “the Traveler interrupted him.”: the disconnection between the two people started from the Traveler’s interference. The Officer wanted to explain, but the Traveler did not need his explanation; the Traveler’s question was about the basis of commonsense, which needs confirmation rather than explanation. This split is equal to the separation between water and oil.
The Traveler talks about a basis of commonsense and common law, but the Officer is only concerned with necessity. Rational consideration becomes valuable to the Officer only when it is useful to him. To the Officer, the sentence that controls the Condemned Man’s life is just “that information.” The word “information” is a very trivial nuance. “He experiences it on his own body.”; “it” refer to “his own sentence,” and this sentence somehow sounds very abstract. The experience of the apparatus carving his sentence on his body and him reading it could be the awareness of his guilt from physical pain.
“The Traveler really wanted to keep quiet at this point,”: a protagonist declares the disconnection. This is the beginning of a complete break. “At this point” is the time when the Officer shortly explains why the Condemned Man does not need to know his sentence. Then, interestingly, the Officer’s further enthusiastic descriptions and the reason for the existence of the apparatus will be “useless” to the Traveler. There is evidence in later text that the Officer’s words return to him as a boomerang: “From the start the Traveler had had no doubts about the answer he must give.”…“No” (19). A character’s silence does not only represent a disconnection between the characters, but also between the characters and readers. Despite the Traveler’s despair, readers sympathize with him rather than the Officer, because of justice, not usefulness.
"The Traveler would have been happy to say something appreciative . . .”Read it,” said the Officer. ”I can’t,” said the Traveler. “But it’s clear,” said the Officer.” “It’s very elaborate,” said the Traveler evasively, “but I can’t decipher it.” “Yes,” . . . You too will finally understand it clearly (10)."
In this passage, contrary to the first quote, the Officer asks and the Traveler refuses. The Traveler really wanted to cooperate with the Officer’s request, because he was enthusiastic about the diagram. However, the Traveler keeps saying “can’t” and the Officer is repeating “clear.” The diagram is not a combination of letters, but a symbolic drawing. It could be readable or not, but the Officer is forced to read it to the Traveler. Readers cannot see the diagram. It could be a yardstick between two opposite opinions. The diagram is a visible barrier between the two characters but is invisible evidence to the readers.
Readers cannot decide who is right. The diagram is just seen as a clear symbol and evidence of disconnection in their conversations. It also is “the most cherished thing (10)” to the Officer, but it is just an unreadable “useless (7)” sign to the Traveler. All the legal system, the killing machine, and the Officer’s social status are metaphorically expressed through this diagram. As the Traveler’s expression, if it could not be read, although “very elaborate,” it is clearly “useless” as the Officer says. Their intercourse is beyond all hope, and the readers are thrown out of the stage at this point.
All the descriptions of the diagram are impossible for the Traveler to understand, but are simple and clear to the Officer. Here, readers really want to see this diagram, but the narrator never clearly explains a third person’s standpoint. This extreme confrontation shows the separation between the two main characters. Two characters have two opposite results, and the readers’ awareness becomes even more vague than before without seeing the diagram. Staccato dialogues between the Officer’s words, “read,” “clear,” “Yes,” “will,” “understand,” and “clearly,” and the Traveler’s ”can’t,“ ”elaborate, but,“ and ”can’t decipher“ seem like comic chats between two children who repeat yes and no to each other.
Their grammar is visually disrupted by simple negations of each other. Conversation is the invisible struggle, but the diagram is the visible evidence, even though readers cannot see it. The readers’ sympathy toward the Traveler about this diagram may be caused by the Officer’s credit that is lost in the first passage.
"If the judicial process to which the officer clung was really so close to the point of being cancelled—perhaps as a result of the intervention of the Traveler, something to which he for his part felt dutybound—then the Officer was now acting in a completely correct manner. In his place, the Traveler would not have acted any differently (22)."
Despite all these disengagements, surprisingly, there is a moment of communication between the Traveler and the Officer. This is a kind of malicious connection: the Traveler only connects with the Officer once he decides to commit suicide, and this prevents further communication. This moment starts as soon as the beginning of self-destruction of the Officer, and this turns in the reverse direction beyond conception. When the Officer throws away all his belongings as a meaning of giving up his power and standing naked, the Traveler had already guessed his suicide and evokes complete sympathy.
Why must the Officer choose death? Is destruction of a value system the same as death? The Traveler has been doubtful, neglectful, or refusing toward all the Officer’s words and actions. However, the Traveler describes the Officer’s decision as a “completely correct manner.” This is the first and last complete empathy exchanged between them. He also confesses his intervention and his dutybound feeling in the Officer’s tragic ending. Consequently, the Traveler expresses the Officer’s non-morality and irrational system indirectly.
“The Traveler would not have acted any differently.”: the Traveler affirms that he would act just like the Officer if he were in the Officer’s shoes. This is a surprising twist. This turning point happened during the Officer’s ruin, and this mutual understanding never happened during the Officer’s enthusiastic behavior. His honesty in this moment seems somewhat cowardice because he has been acting only as a visitor consistently without any clear mediation. Inconstancy of the two characters (the Officer’s decision of suicide and the Traveler’s empathy) occurs in an instant, and readers are not wild enough to follow this wildness.
The last passion of the Officer dropped straight down a steep cliff without any sign of going downhill. The sudden collapse of the apparatus also happens in a moment further in the story. This sudden conclusion could not be imagined. Interestingly, the “dutybound” feeling mentioned through the Traveler’s narration is accomplished by the Officer who represented a symbol of irrationality.
"But as they reached the bottom, the Traveler was already in the boat, and the sailor at once cast off from shore. They could still have jumped into the boat, but the Traveler picked up a heavy knotted rope from the boat bottom, threatened them with it, and thus prevented them from jumping in (26)."
In the last scene, the Traveler cuts off his relationship from the Condemned Man and the Soldier with a single stroke of his sword. The Traveler had sympathy for the Soldier and the Condemned Man in front of the Officer’s unreasonable behaviors until the Officer’s mind changed. This was due to the language barriers and the fact that the Condemned Man did not even know his own sentence. They actually seemed to be innocent men to the Traveler. However, the Traveler felt something “embarrassing (23)”
in their lively and interesting behavior in front of the Officer’s horrible suicide. He told them, “Go home (23).” The Traveler felt sympathy for the evil Officer’s self-destruction; on the contrary, he felt disgust for the Soldier’s and the Condemned Man’s revenge. Then, he denies the two characters’ opportunism. If the Officer is the offender, these two men are the victims, but the Traveler could not sympathize for them. He changes his mind depending on his environment and condition rather than using the dual yardstick of absolute evil and absolute good.
In the Penal Colony, the criterion of good and evil or rationality and irrationality becomes more ambiguous because of the Traveler’s attitude. The Traveler leaves this island, and the two men remain. The last person who was the symbol of irrational power is dead. The Traveler leaves without any lingering attachment. He is only a spectator in the end. Readers also leave this island when closing the book. The narrator never directly intervenes with the characters, but describes each scene on a stage from a third person’s position.
The four characters are read as disconnections rather than connections from beginning to end. The Traveler is always “the other” to the Soldier and the Condemned Man. The Traveler leaving is perfectly natural, considering his name, the Traveler. The Traveler is just going back home or going to other places to travel. The home of the Soldier and the Condemned Man is this island, the Penal Colony, and the Traveler’s home is the land. They cannot share their natural environment and condition. The disconnection between the Traveler and the Officer is never connected to the Officer’s death.
The Traveler and the Officer imply freedom and restraint even only with their names. Their separation is never slighter than the language barrier. In the Penal Colony, there is no interpreter, neither for foreign languages nor for any types of dialects.
=============================================
Wolran Kim
December 2013
“Any problem, big or small, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening,” said Emma Thompson. The tragedy of bad communication is all over the world from families to countries. From trivial matters in daily lives to extreme situations of the Middle East in politics, they all start with bad communication. Someone is not listening or someone is not speaking.
In the stage of the Penal Colony, there is this same problem. The four characters all use different methods of communication: the Traveler uses the tongue of a spectator, the Officer uses a dialect of power, and the Soldier and the Condemned Man use a vernacular of obedience. The Traveler and the Officer use the same language, so they can communicate if they want to. But, there is a serious problem, “The Traveler was not surprised at that, for the Officer spoke French, and clearly neither the Soldier nor the Condemned Man understood the language (5).” The Traveler was not surprised, but the readers find it absurd, seeing two different stages in one scene.
Besides the horrible killing apparatus, this wild setting is eerily like a black comedy. The language barrier flashes back to the biblical Tower of Babel. Language barriers were used as a way to separate human beings. It could be the best cure to treat the absurdity of the separation of characters. There is no doubt, and all disconnections are explained with this obstacle.
Foreign languages cannot be learned in a short time. So this language barrier creates a strong disconnection. This barrier explains many of the future strange words, deeds, and disconnections between the Officer, the Soldier and the Condemned Man. This Penal Colony started irrationally without any devices to solve the problems. According to the Officer’s words, all these efforts are “useless” anyway. The hidden card, the language barrier, overturns common sense because there is always an interpreter in modern courtrooms. An interpreter is the artificial bridge that connects two separated islands. There is no interpreter in Kafka’s Penal Colony. Interestingly, though the Traveler and the Officer speak the same language, there is a barricade between them, as high as a language barrier.
"The Traveler wanted to raise various questions, but after looking at the Condemned Man he merely asked, “Does he know his sentence?” ”No,” said the Officer. He wished to get on with his explanation right away, but the Traveler interrupted him: “He doesn’t know his own sentence?” “No,” said the Officer once more. He then paused for a moment, as if he was asking the Traveler for a more detailed reason for his question, and said, “It would be useless to give him that information. He experiences it on his own body.” The Traveler really wanted to keep quiet at this point (7)."
A sense of alienation between the Traveler and the Officer occupies the greater part of this novel, and this passage lively demonstrates their disconnection. The Traveler was tired and bored from the beginning and he was never interested in the Officer’s enthusiastic descriptions (from the previous story). But now, he wanted to ask “various questions.” This is a turning point, because he and the Officer were as far apart from each other as enthusiasm and apathy. Asking something is the same action as making a small door in the wall. He chooses the most valuable among the “various questions,” after seeing the Condemned Man. He wanted to at least make sure the Condemned Man knows his own sentence.
His only one question was not for himself but for the Condemned Man, and this shows the Traveler’s humanity. The Officer answers “No” two times to the Traveler’s question. Right after the first “No,” he “wished to get on with his explanation right away.” However, “the Traveler interrupted him.”: the disconnection between the two people started from the Traveler’s interference. The Officer wanted to explain, but the Traveler did not need his explanation; the Traveler’s question was about the basis of commonsense, which needs confirmation rather than explanation. This split is equal to the separation between water and oil.
The Traveler talks about a basis of commonsense and common law, but the Officer is only concerned with necessity. Rational consideration becomes valuable to the Officer only when it is useful to him. To the Officer, the sentence that controls the Condemned Man’s life is just “that information.” The word “information” is a very trivial nuance. “He experiences it on his own body.”; “it” refer to “his own sentence,” and this sentence somehow sounds very abstract. The experience of the apparatus carving his sentence on his body and him reading it could be the awareness of his guilt from physical pain.
“The Traveler really wanted to keep quiet at this point,”: a protagonist declares the disconnection. This is the beginning of a complete break. “At this point” is the time when the Officer shortly explains why the Condemned Man does not need to know his sentence. Then, interestingly, the Officer’s further enthusiastic descriptions and the reason for the existence of the apparatus will be “useless” to the Traveler. There is evidence in later text that the Officer’s words return to him as a boomerang: “From the start the Traveler had had no doubts about the answer he must give.”…“No” (19). A character’s silence does not only represent a disconnection between the characters, but also between the characters and readers. Despite the Traveler’s despair, readers sympathize with him rather than the Officer, because of justice, not usefulness.
"The Traveler would have been happy to say something appreciative . . .”Read it,” said the Officer. ”I can’t,” said the Traveler. “But it’s clear,” said the Officer.” “It’s very elaborate,” said the Traveler evasively, “but I can’t decipher it.” “Yes,” . . . You too will finally understand it clearly (10)."
In this passage, contrary to the first quote, the Officer asks and the Traveler refuses. The Traveler really wanted to cooperate with the Officer’s request, because he was enthusiastic about the diagram. However, the Traveler keeps saying “can’t” and the Officer is repeating “clear.” The diagram is not a combination of letters, but a symbolic drawing. It could be readable or not, but the Officer is forced to read it to the Traveler. Readers cannot see the diagram. It could be a yardstick between two opposite opinions. The diagram is a visible barrier between the two characters but is invisible evidence to the readers.
Readers cannot decide who is right. The diagram is just seen as a clear symbol and evidence of disconnection in their conversations. It also is “the most cherished thing (10)” to the Officer, but it is just an unreadable “useless (7)” sign to the Traveler. All the legal system, the killing machine, and the Officer’s social status are metaphorically expressed through this diagram. As the Traveler’s expression, if it could not be read, although “very elaborate,” it is clearly “useless” as the Officer says. Their intercourse is beyond all hope, and the readers are thrown out of the stage at this point.
All the descriptions of the diagram are impossible for the Traveler to understand, but are simple and clear to the Officer. Here, readers really want to see this diagram, but the narrator never clearly explains a third person’s standpoint. This extreme confrontation shows the separation between the two main characters. Two characters have two opposite results, and the readers’ awareness becomes even more vague than before without seeing the diagram. Staccato dialogues between the Officer’s words, “read,” “clear,” “Yes,” “will,” “understand,” and “clearly,” and the Traveler’s ”can’t,“ ”elaborate, but,“ and ”can’t decipher“ seem like comic chats between two children who repeat yes and no to each other.
Their grammar is visually disrupted by simple negations of each other. Conversation is the invisible struggle, but the diagram is the visible evidence, even though readers cannot see it. The readers’ sympathy toward the Traveler about this diagram may be caused by the Officer’s credit that is lost in the first passage.
"If the judicial process to which the officer clung was really so close to the point of being cancelled—perhaps as a result of the intervention of the Traveler, something to which he for his part felt dutybound—then the Officer was now acting in a completely correct manner. In his place, the Traveler would not have acted any differently (22)."
Despite all these disengagements, surprisingly, there is a moment of communication between the Traveler and the Officer. This is a kind of malicious connection: the Traveler only connects with the Officer once he decides to commit suicide, and this prevents further communication. This moment starts as soon as the beginning of self-destruction of the Officer, and this turns in the reverse direction beyond conception. When the Officer throws away all his belongings as a meaning of giving up his power and standing naked, the Traveler had already guessed his suicide and evokes complete sympathy.
Why must the Officer choose death? Is destruction of a value system the same as death? The Traveler has been doubtful, neglectful, or refusing toward all the Officer’s words and actions. However, the Traveler describes the Officer’s decision as a “completely correct manner.” This is the first and last complete empathy exchanged between them. He also confesses his intervention and his dutybound feeling in the Officer’s tragic ending. Consequently, the Traveler expresses the Officer’s non-morality and irrational system indirectly.
“The Traveler would not have acted any differently.”: the Traveler affirms that he would act just like the Officer if he were in the Officer’s shoes. This is a surprising twist. This turning point happened during the Officer’s ruin, and this mutual understanding never happened during the Officer’s enthusiastic behavior. His honesty in this moment seems somewhat cowardice because he has been acting only as a visitor consistently without any clear mediation. Inconstancy of the two characters (the Officer’s decision of suicide and the Traveler’s empathy) occurs in an instant, and readers are not wild enough to follow this wildness.
The last passion of the Officer dropped straight down a steep cliff without any sign of going downhill. The sudden collapse of the apparatus also happens in a moment further in the story. This sudden conclusion could not be imagined. Interestingly, the “dutybound” feeling mentioned through the Traveler’s narration is accomplished by the Officer who represented a symbol of irrationality.
"But as they reached the bottom, the Traveler was already in the boat, and the sailor at once cast off from shore. They could still have jumped into the boat, but the Traveler picked up a heavy knotted rope from the boat bottom, threatened them with it, and thus prevented them from jumping in (26)."
In the last scene, the Traveler cuts off his relationship from the Condemned Man and the Soldier with a single stroke of his sword. The Traveler had sympathy for the Soldier and the Condemned Man in front of the Officer’s unreasonable behaviors until the Officer’s mind changed. This was due to the language barriers and the fact that the Condemned Man did not even know his own sentence. They actually seemed to be innocent men to the Traveler. However, the Traveler felt something “embarrassing (23)”
in their lively and interesting behavior in front of the Officer’s horrible suicide. He told them, “Go home (23).” The Traveler felt sympathy for the evil Officer’s self-destruction; on the contrary, he felt disgust for the Soldier’s and the Condemned Man’s revenge. Then, he denies the two characters’ opportunism. If the Officer is the offender, these two men are the victims, but the Traveler could not sympathize for them. He changes his mind depending on his environment and condition rather than using the dual yardstick of absolute evil and absolute good.
In the Penal Colony, the criterion of good and evil or rationality and irrationality becomes more ambiguous because of the Traveler’s attitude. The Traveler leaves this island, and the two men remain. The last person who was the symbol of irrational power is dead. The Traveler leaves without any lingering attachment. He is only a spectator in the end. Readers also leave this island when closing the book. The narrator never directly intervenes with the characters, but describes each scene on a stage from a third person’s position.
The four characters are read as disconnections rather than connections from beginning to end. The Traveler is always “the other” to the Soldier and the Condemned Man. The Traveler leaving is perfectly natural, considering his name, the Traveler. The Traveler is just going back home or going to other places to travel. The home of the Soldier and the Condemned Man is this island, the Penal Colony, and the Traveler’s home is the land. They cannot share their natural environment and condition. The disconnection between the Traveler and the Officer is never connected to the Officer’s death.
The Traveler and the Officer imply freedom and restraint even only with their names. Their separation is never slighter than the language barrier. In the Penal Colony, there is no interpreter, neither for foreign languages nor for any types of dialects.