kafka before the law essay

A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Before the Law’ is a short story or parable by the German-language Bohemian (now Czech) author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It was published in 1915 and later included in Kafka’s (posthumously published) novel The Trial , where its meaning is discussed by the protagonist Josef K. and a priest he meets in a cathedral. ‘Before the Law’ has inspired numerous critical interpretations and prompted many a debate, in its turn, about what it means.

So, what is the meaning of this short fable? You can read ‘Before the Law’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis below.

‘Before the Law’: summary

Before the law there stands a doorkeeper (or gatekeeper in some translations). A man from the country turns up and asks to be admitted to the law. But the doorkeeper tells him that he cannot grant him access to the law now. The man asks if he can be admitted later, and the doorkeeper replies that it’s possible. But not now.

The door to the law is open, and the man tries to peer through it. The doorkeeper challenges him to try to look through to the law, but warns him that if the man tries to get past him, he is powerful and will stop him. And there are other, more powerful doorkeepers beyond him, too.

The man considers this, taking in the powerful appearance of the doorkeeper, who is dressed in a fur coat and has a hooked nose and black beard. The man decides it would be better to wait until he has permission to enter.

The man ends up sitting there for years, continually pleading with the doorkeeper to let him have admittance to the law. But the doorkeeper’s answer is always the same. The man even tries to bribe the doorkeeper, but although the doorkeeper accepts the bribes, he still doesn’t let the man through the door, telling him that he’s only taken the bribes ‘so you don’t think you have neglected anything.’

As the years go by, the man forgets that there are other doorkeepers beyond this one, and thinks this first doorkeeper is the only thing between him and the law. He grows old, and has become fully acquainted with the doorkeeper, even down to the fleas in the man’s collar. His eyes start to fail.

As he lies dying, he asks the doorkeeper one last question. Everyone wants admittance to the law, so how come nobody else except him has tried to gain entry to it?

The doorkeeper tells him, as the man dies, that nobody else could be admitted to this particular door. ‘This door was meant only for you,’ he tells him. ‘Now I am going to close it.’

‘Before the Law’: analysis

One of the ways to ‘get’ Kafka and understand what his work means is to view it as one vast metaphor for the struggle of life itself.

So The Trial , the novel in which ‘Before the Law’ appears, is not about one man’s specific trial for some specific crime, but is instead about the ‘trials’ of living, the ‘process’ (to use the original German word for the novel’s title) of dealing with a nagging sense of guilt for some vague and unspecified sin or wrongdoing, just as it is about the ‘process’ or ‘trial’ of negotiating innumerable bureaucratic obstacles that dominate our adult life.

One critic, Mark Spilka, produced a study in the 1960s, Dickens and Kafka: A mutal interpretation , which argued that Kafka, like Dickens, was essentially childlike in his understanding of the world. And children both fail to understand the need for tortuous administrative and legal process (where necessary) and immediately see through such processes when they are clearly unneeded, or even actively harmful.

Viewed this way, Kafka is essentially the authorial version, writ large, of the little boy at the end of ‘ The Emperor’s New Clothes ’ who calls out the delusion that all the adults are blindly (or, in many cases, willingly) following.

In one sense, then, ‘Before the Law’ – which was written around the time that Kafka wrote The Trial – might be analysed as a microcosm of that longer work, a distilling of the central meaning of that 200-page novel into just two pages.

Much as Josef K. in The Trial tries to penetrate the obscurities and complexities of the law in order to clear his name of whatever crime he has been accused of (famously, he never learns what this crime is supposed to be), so the ‘man from the country’ in ‘Before the Law’ comes to ‘the law’, represented as some physical space that lies beyond the doorway being guarded, in the hope of being admitted to it and, we presume, understanding it. But like Josef K. he discovers nothing before his death.

Well, he does discover something: namely that this door was meant for him and him alone. What does the ‘law’ and this special exclusive ‘door’ represent? As so often with Kafka’s writing, a religious interpretation seems likely. After all, in The Trial , it is a priest who tells the parable to Josef K.

Those wishing to understand God, represented here as a ‘law’, are ready to devote their lives to him and want to get to know God in some deeper sense. But they are always kept out from God, and are not meant to understand him fully in this life. As the Bible famously says, in 1 Corinthians 13:12:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

In other words, Christians (though we might also include Jews and the Rabbinic tradition in this, stretching back to before St Paul) are not meant to ‘know’ God directly in this life. Like the man from the country, a sort of everyman representing us all, we are always kept outside the door and can never gain admittance.

But if ‘Before the Law’ should be analysed as an allegory for religious faith, especially in the Judeo-Christian tradition, what is the significance of the door being closed at the end of the story? Surely when the man dies he should be granted access to the door, and ‘the law’, and see ‘God’ or the law ‘face to face’?

Well, Kafka’s fiction doesn’t necessarily endorse religion or promote a belief in the existence of God. What is known is the secular world of the here-and-now, where men ferociously guard ‘the law’ and determine what is the ‘right’ way to get to God and heaven, much as St Paul was doing in his ‘through a glass darkly’ quotation.

So if ‘Before the Law’ is a parable for religious faith, it is one which ends, not with revelation and epiphany, but simply with death. The man who devoted his life to attempting to gain admittance to God has died and still not gained admittance.

Perhaps there is nothing beyond the door after all. He has only the doorkeeper’s word that there is something beyond there. (And think of ‘doorkeeper’ here as a description of this man’s role. It’s akin to the term ‘gatekeeper’, which we use for those people who fiercely guard something and try to keep others out.)

This interpretation also helps to make sense of the bribes that the man gives to the doorkeeper, echoing the ways in which wealthy people have often bought indulgences and other special favours from the Church in the hope that they can buy their way into heaven.

But if ‘Before the Law’ is a parable, designed to convey a message to those who read or hear it – i.e., much like the parables that Jesus tells his followers in the New Testament – then it is also like Jesus’ parables in another, more troubling sense.

In the Gospel of Mark , Jesus tells his disciples (in Mark 4:11-12) that not everyone is meant to ‘perceive’ the meaning of his preachments, and that he actually doesn’t want everyone to be converted and have their sins forgiven. Jesus doesn’t want everyone to follow him because that would mean they would all be forgiven for their sins; and he uses parables as a way of concealing the truth from people (or, at best, only partially revealing it), rather than using parables to help them understand.

There is a sense, then, in which ‘Before the Law’ is like a riddle without a solution, and it is meant to be as impenetrable as the process that it describes. It is playful and frustrating on purpose. Like ‘the law’ itself, ‘Before the Law’ remains impenetrable.

About Franz Kafka

The German-speaking Bohemian (now Czech) author Franz Kafka (1883-1924) has been called everything from a modernist to an existentialist, a fantasy writer to a realist. His work almost stands alone as its own subgenre, and the adjective ‘Kafkaesque’ – whose meaning, like the meaning of Kafka’s work, is hard to pin down – has become well-known even to people who have never read a word of Kafka’s writing.

Perhaps inevitably, he is often misinterpreted as being a gloomy and humourless writer about nightmarish scenarios, when this at best conveys only part of what he is about.

Much of Kafka’s work remained unpublished until after his death. As he lay dying of tuberculosis in 1924, he commanded his friend Max Brod to burn all of his unpublished material (and even his published work). Brod refused to honour Kafka’s dying wish, seeing his friend’s slim body of work as an original contribution to literature and too important not to publish.

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2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’”

I myself interpreted this as how the Law obscures itself.

It is a story of that man’s failure to pass through the gateway that was assigned to him. The ending seems to mean he should have pushed through, put the gatekeeper’s assertion of his power and more power behind to test.

Was there truly that many gatekeepers? Shortly before his death, he perceives an illumination that passes inexhaustibly through. Perhaps he hadn’t even needed to open the Gate, perhaps all what he needed was to realize the Law’s light was shining on him all along instead of fixating on the gatekeeper’s pomp and wasting away in waiting.

I love this story, as I do The Trial as a whole (and the scene in the TV movie version where Anthony Hopkins plays the priest is superb!). I’ll add my own thoughts here.

I’ve always described Kafka as being ‘Lewis Carroll but for adults’ in that where LC writes like a child’s dream, Kafka writes like an adult’s nightmare – one of bureaucracy and the unfeeling nature of ‘the system’. This story I’ve always thought of as the inevitable nature of the mechanics of society to grind you down to death. Despite a fairly upbeat view on life, I still find that this isn’t far from the truth. There’s little that’s more soul-sucking than trying to deal with government rules and procedures or even just trying to get anything done in your place of work where it involves ‘the management’…

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Franz Kafka online

Before the law.

by Franz Kafka

Before The Law (Allegory Explained)

Before the Law is a parable written by Franz Kafka that tells the story of a man who seeks entrance to the law, but is denied access by a gatekeeper. The story has been analyzed and interpreted in various ways, with many scholars considering it an allegory for the corruption of bureaucracy and the ways in which authority wields symbolic power over its citizens. The story has also been seen as a commentary on the human condition, with the gatekeeper representing the existential dilemma of human beings who are constantly searching for meaning and purpose in life.

The parable has been widely studied and analyzed by scholars, and has been the subject of many interpretations. Some have seen it as a critique of the legal system, while others have viewed it as a comment on the nature of power and authority. Regardless of its interpretation, the story remains a powerful and thought-provoking work of literature that continues to captivate readers and inspire further analysis and exploration.

Origins of ‘Before The Law’

Franz Kafka’s Biography

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Jewish novelist and short-story writer, born in Prague in 1883. Kafka’s works, including ‘Before The Law’, often explore themes of alienation, anxiety, and the absurdity of bureaucratic systems. Kafka was known for his unique writing style, which often featured surreal and dreamlike elements.

Historical Context

‘Before The Law’ was written by Kafka in 1914, during a time of political and social upheaval in Europe. The early 20th century saw the rise of totalitarian regimes and the erosion of individual freedoms. Kafka’s works, including ‘Before The Law’, often reflect the anxieties of the time.

Kafka’s own experiences with bureaucracy and the legal system likely influenced his writing. Kafka worked as a lawyer for several years and was intimately familiar with the inner workings of the legal system. ‘Before The Law’ can be seen as a critique of the legal system and its ability to grant or withhold access to justice.

Overall, ‘Before The Law’ is a powerful allegory that continues to resonate with readers today. Kafka’s unique writing style and insightful commentary on the human condition make this work a timeless classic.

Synopsis of the Allegory

Before the Law is a short story or parable written by Franz Kafka. The allegory describes a man from the countryside who arrives at a gate that leads to the Law. The man asks the gatekeeper for permission to enter, but the gatekeeper refuses, stating that he cannot grant entry at the moment. The man then inquires if he will be allowed to enter later, to which the gatekeeper replies in the affirmative. The man decides to wait for permission to enter.

The man waits for years at the gate, hoping to gain entry into the Law. He tries to bribe the gatekeeper, but the gatekeeper refuses. The man grows old and weak, but he never gives up hope. Eventually, he dies at the gate.

The allegory of Before the Law is a commentary on the human condition. It reflects the idea that people often seek access to something they cannot have, and they are willing to wait for it, even if it means sacrificing everything. The allegory also highlights the idea that people are often at the mercy of those in positions of power, who may or may not grant them access to what they desire.

In conclusion, Before the Law is a powerful allegory that explores themes of power, authority, and the human condition. The story serves as a reminder that people must be careful what they wish for, and they should not sacrifice everything in pursuit of their desires.

Major Themes and Interpretations

Law and Individual

Before the Law is a parable that explores the relationship between the individual and the law. The story portrays a man who seeks access to the law, but he is met with a gatekeeper who refuses him entry. The man spends his entire life waiting for the gatekeeper to allow him entry, but he never gains access. This theme highlights the idea that the law is often inaccessible, and the individual is powerless in the face of bureaucracy.

Authority and Power

Another major theme in Before the Law is the idea of authority and power. The gatekeeper in the story holds significant power over the man seeking entry to the law. The gatekeeper’s authority is arbitrary, and he wields it without any accountability. This theme highlights the dangers of unchecked authority and the ways in which power can be used to oppress individuals.

Absurdity and Bureaucracy

Before the Law is also a critique of bureaucracy and the absurdity of the legal system. The man’s quest for access to the law is absurd, as he spends his entire life waiting for entry, but it never comes. The story highlights the ways in which bureaucracy can be arbitrary and nonsensical, and it can lead to a sense of hopelessness and despair for individuals.

Overall, Before the Law is a powerful allegory that explores some of the most significant themes in literature, including the relationship between the individual and the law, authority and power, and the absurdity of bureaucracy. The story remains relevant today, as it highlights the dangers of unchecked authority and the ways in which bureaucracy can be used to oppress individuals.

Structural Analysis

Narrative Technique

Before the Law is an allegorical story written by Franz Kafka. The narrative technique used in the story is simple and straightforward. The story is told in the third person and follows the journey of a man from the country who seeks access to the law. The story is presented in a linear fashion, with each event leading to the next in a logical progression.

Symbolism in the Allegory

The allegory in Before the Law is rich in symbolism. The doorkeeper represents the gatekeeper of the law, who is the ultimate authority figure. The man from the country represents the common man who seeks access to the law but is denied it by the gatekeeper. The door itself represents the barrier between the common man and the law.

The symbolism in the story highlights the corruption of bureaucracy and the ways in which authority wields symbolic power over its citizens. The story also serves as a commentary on the human condition, where individuals are often denied access to the things they desire most.

Overall, the narrative technique and symbolism used in Before the Law make it a powerful and thought-provoking allegory that continues to resonate with readers today.

Philosophical Perspectives

Existentialism.

Before the Law is a quintessential example of existentialism, a philosophical movement that emphasizes individual freedom, choice, and responsibility. The protagonist of the story represents the human condition, trapped in the face of an incomprehensible and indifferent universe. The doorkeeper symbolizes the bureaucracy and social structures that perpetuate this condition, preventing the protagonist from achieving his goal of accessing the law. The story highlights the absurdity of human existence, where individuals are forced to confront the futility of their actions and the inevitability of death.

The story of Before the Law is also an example of absurdism, a philosophical movement that emphasizes the meaningless and irrational nature of the world. The protagonist’s futile attempts to access the law and the doorkeeper’s arbitrary decision-making process illustrate the absurdity of human existence. The story suggests that the search for meaning and purpose is ultimately futile, as individuals are confronted with an incomprehensible and indifferent universe. The story is a reflection of the human condition, where individuals are forced to confront the absurdity of their existence and the inevitability of their mortality.

Influence and Legacy

Impact on literature.

Before the Law has had a significant impact on literature, particularly in the genre of allegory. Kafka’s use of a gatekeeper denying access to the law has influenced numerous authors who have used similar themes in their own works. For example, J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye features a protagonist who is searching for answers but is constantly met with obstacles that prevent him from finding them.

Kafka’s work has also influenced the existentialist movement in literature. The idea of an individual struggling to find meaning in a world that seems indifferent to their existence is a common theme in existentialist literature, and Before the Law can be seen as an early example of this type of work.

Relevance in Modern Society

Despite being written over a century ago, Before the Law remains relevant in modern society. The allegory of the gatekeeper denying access to the law can be applied to many situations in which individuals are denied access to justice or equal treatment under the law.

For example, the gatekeeper can be seen as a symbol of the legal system itself, which can often be inaccessible or difficult to navigate for those without the means to hire expensive lawyers. The story can also be applied to issues of social justice, such as the denial of basic rights to marginalized groups.

Overall, Before the Law continues to be a powerful allegory that resonates with readers to this day. Its impact on literature and relevance in modern society make it a work that will continue to be studied and appreciated for generations to come.

Comparative Analysis

Similar works.

Kafka’s “Before the Law” has been compared to other literary works that explore themes of bureaucracy and the absurdity of authority. One such work is George Orwell’s “ Animal Farm ,” which satirizes the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism. Both “Before the Law” and “Animal Farm” use allegory to convey their messages, with animals and a gate representing the oppressed and the oppressor, respectively.

Another work that shares similarities with “Before the Law” is Albert Camus’ “The Stranger.” Both stories feature protagonists who are alienated from society and struggle to find meaning in their lives. Additionally, both works explore themes of existentialism and the absurdity of life.

Kafkaesque Elements in Other Media

Kafka’s influence can be seen in various forms of media, including film and television. One example is the television series “ The Prisoner ,” which features a protagonist who is trapped in a mysterious village and struggles to escape. The show’s themes of identity, surveillance, and control are reminiscent of Kafka’s work.

Another example is the film “Brazil,” directed by Terry Gilliam. The film takes place in a dystopian society where bureaucracy has taken over every aspect of life. The film’s protagonist, Sam Lowry, becomes entangled in a bureaucratic nightmare as he tries to rectify a mistake made by the government. The film’s themes of bureaucracy, control, and the absurdity of authority are all reminiscent of Kafka’s work.

In conclusion, Kafka’s “Before the Law” has inspired numerous works of literature and media that explore themes of bureaucracy, control, and the absurdity of authority. These works serve as a testament to the enduring relevance of Kafka’s work and his impact on modern culture.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Stories

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Stories

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on December 5, 2019 • ( 0 )

Franz Kafka ’s (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) stories are not about love or success. They do not leave the reader feeling comfortable. Writing was, for him, a necessity. On August 6, 1914, Kafka wrote in his diary: “My talent for portraying my dreamlike inner life has thrust all other matters into the background; my life has dwindled dreadfully, nor will it cease to dwindle. Nothing else will ever satisfy me.” The meaning of the images from his dreamlike inner life was not always clear to him at the time of writing. Sometimes he realized only several years later what he may have subconsciously meant. Toward the end of his life, he decided that psychoanalysis was a waste of time and abandoned that approach in retrospective reading. Critics may not be of the same opinion.

The Metamorphosis

The opening sentence of “The Metamorphosis” is one of the most famous in modern fiction: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” In the story’s first section, Gregor accepts his fantastic transformation matter-of-factly, perhaps wishing to bury its causes in his subconscious mind. Instead of worrying about the mystery of his metamorphosis, he worries about the nature and security of his position as traveling salesperson for a firm whose severity he detests.

In the second section, Gregor’s isolation and alienation intensify. Readers learn about his relations, past and present, with his family; they have been characterized by concealment, mistrust, and exploitation on the father’s part. Gregor’s mother is gentle, selfless, weak, and shallow; in the story’s development she becomes increasingly her husband’s appendage. His sister Grete is his favorite; however, although she ministers to his new animal needs, she fails him emotionally. In the third section, Gregor, defeated, yields up all hope of returning to the human community. His parents and sister shut him out, as his miserable existence slopes resignedly toward death.

Gregor’s metamorphosis accomplishes several of his aims: First, it frees him from his hated job with an odious employer by disabling him from working; second, it relieves him of the requirement to make an agonizing choice between his filial duty to his parents—particularly his father—and his desperate yearning to emancipate himself from such obligations and dependence. It thus enables him to “bug out” of his loathsome constraints yet do so on a level of conscious innocence, with Gregor merely a victim of an uncontrollable calamity. Moreover, Gregor’s fantasies include aggressive and retaliatory action against the oppressive firm. He accomplishes this by terrorizing the pitiless, arrogant office manager, who tells him, “I am speaking here in the name of your parents and of your chief.” On the conscious level, Gregor pursues the clerk to appease him and secure his advocacy for Gregor’s cause at the office; subconsciously, his threatening appearance and apparently hostile gestures humiliate his hated superiors.

Gregor’s change also expresses his sense of guilt at having betrayed his work and his parents, at having broken the familial circle. It is a treacherous appeasement of this guilt complex, inviting his isolation, punishment, and death. His loss of human speech prevents him from communicating his humanity. His enormous size, though an insect (he is at least two feet wide), his ugly features, and his malodorous stench invite fear and revulsion. Yet his pacific temperament and lack of claws, teeth, or wings make him far more vulnerable than when his body was human. His metamorphosis therefore gives him the worst of both worlds: He is offensive in appearance but defenseless in fact, exposed to the merciless attack of anyone—such as his furious father—ready to exploit his vulnerability.

“The Metamorphosis,” then, can be seen as a punishment fantasy with Gregor Samsa feeling triply guilty of having displaced his father as leading breadwinner for the family, for his hatred of his job, and resentment of his family’s expectations of him. He turns himself into a detestable insect, thereby both rebelling against the authority of his firm and father and punishing himself for this rebellion by seeking estrangement, rejection, and death. Insofar as Gregor’s physical manifestation constitutes a translation of the interior self to the external world, “The Metamorphosis” is a stellar achievement of expressionism.

The Judgment

Kafka wrote “Das Urteil” (“The Judgment”) in one sitting through the night of September 22-23, 1912. It was an eminently satisfying experience, the only one of his works that he said came out of him like a birth. When he sat down to write, he had intended to depict a war scene. Then, the story took its own direction, and when he finished, early in the morning, he was not sure what it meant. He knew only that it was good.

In the course of “The Judgment,” the main character, Georg Bendemann, experiences a complete reversal in his plans. At the outset, he announces his engagement to Frieda Brandenfeld. At the end, he commits suicide. The transition from good news to bad and the descent from normalcy into apparent madness are subtly accomplished. With hindsight, one can see that warning signs are held up all the way. Yet none of these signs is in itself shocking enough to alienate the reader. Only their cumulative effect is overwhelming. Kafka’s stories wield their powerful influence over the reader’s mood by always remaining plausible. While never losing the semblance of logical reportage, Kafka creates scenes of horror, which both spring from and give rise to psychological suffering. Anything resembling such scenes has come to be called “Kafkaesque.”

Kafka writes metaphorically, letting characters, actions, and objects represent emotional and psychological states. Thus, the works are understood best not as narrative advancing a plot but in terms of the protagonist’s attempts to transcend absurdity, depersonalization, and alienation. There is a strong autobiographical element in all the stories.

Most critics equate Georg Bendemann with Kafka, and Georg’s father with Kafka’s father. The issue to be dealt with, then, is why the father would violently oppose the son’s engagement to a woman from a well-to-do family. To accept that, one has to subscribe to an inverse standard. Kate Flores interprets this aspect of “The Judgment” in an anthropological way, explaining that for precivilized man it was an act of insubordination to supplant the dominant male. Certainly, “The Judgment” does contain elements of a primal struggle. Also consistent with this reading is the father’s tenacious hold on Georg’s watch chain, as if to halt the inexorable advance of time and the aging process. There is also the fact that Kafka’s father did indeed deride one of his engagements, although at a much later date than when “The Judgment” was written.

Kafka’s stories support many interpretations. It is important, when reading “The Judgment,” that one not concentrate on the apparent polarity of father and son to the exclusion of the curious figure of the friend in Russia, to whom the first third of the story is devoted. In fact, preposterous though it may seem, the most comprehensive reading results from considering all three male figures—the friend in Russia, Georg Bendemann, and his father—to be different aspects of the same person, namely Kafka. It is significant that only one name is provided.

The friend in Russia immediately becomes associated with writing, because Georg has been writing to him for years. This association is reinforced when the father, surprisingly, also claims to have been writing to the friend. After Georg has brought up the matter of an engagement on three separate occasions, the friend in Russia responds by showing some interest, but as with his emotionless reaction to the death of Georg’s mother, the friend’s interest in human affairs seems perfunctory. He has few social contacts, has let his business slide, and seems to be in a general state of ill health and decline. His life has dwindled dreadfully. This identifies him with Kafka the writer.

Georg Bendemann’s business seems to have been operating in inverse proportion to that of his friend in Russia. It is thriving, and he has recently become engaged. The thriving business and the engagement go hand in hand in “The Judgment.” Both are traditionally recognized outward signs of success. Kafka, at the time of writing “The Judgment,” was already a successful lawyer, well established in his firmand becoming interested in Felice Bauer, who seems to be represented in the story by her close namesake, Frieda Brandenfeld. Frieda makes a remark to Georg that, on the surface, is very puzzling. She tells him that since he has friends such as the one in Russia, he should never have gotten engaged. This is the warning sign that either Frieda or the friend in Russia will have to go. The application to Kafka’s life seems clear: Either Felice or the writing will have to go.

The most interesting and complex of the three male figures is the father. While appearing to oppose Georg, the older man can, in this case, actually be relied on to say what Georg wants to hear. Faced with the irreconcilable conflict between loyalty to his longtime friend in Russia and loyalty to his new fiancé, Georg finds himself inexplicably going to his father’s room, where he has not been for some time. The sunlight is blocked by a wall, the father is surrounded by ancient newspapers, and the window is shut. It is a trip into the dark and the past, which is sealed off from the outside world. The father represents the subconscious. He is also the progenitor, and he is still, despite some deceptive signs of senility, the figure of authority.

The father’s first remark, which points beyond the frame of the surface story, is his question of whether Georg really has a friend in St. Petersburg. What the father really seems to be asking is whether the friend can continue to be called a friend when he has been so neglected. Georg at this point is still inclined to decide in favor of Frieda and an outwardly successful life, so he endeavors to quell the troubling reference to his friend by carrying his father from the dark out into the light and then covering him up, thereby forcibly suppressing the question of the friend.

Contrary to Georg’s intent, this results in the father’s exploding into action. In an extraordinarily dramatic scene, he hurls off the blankets, leaps to his feet, and, standing upright on the bed and kicking, denounces Georg’s plans for marriage and accuses him of playing the false friend all these years. Georg realizes that he should be on his guard against attack but then forgets again and stands defenseless before his father.

The father’s second remark that seems rather incredible in terms of the surface story is that the friend in Russia has not been betrayed after all, because he, the father, has also been writing to him all along and representing him. Suppressed talents are only strengthened in the subconscious. The father now unquestionably has the upper hand and pronounces his judgment over Georg: He was an innocent child, but he has been a devilish human being. Presumably, it was during childhood that Georg cultivated the friend now in Russia. As an adult, getting ever more into business and thoughts of marriage, Georg has been devilish by denying his true self, the writer. The father finishes by sentencing Georg to death by drowning. To drown is to be plunged into the creative element.

Georg confirms the validity of his father’s verdict by carrying out the sentence. It is important for the reader to remember that as the father crashes on the bed exhausted, the subconscious having asserted itself, and as Georg lets himself fall from the bridge, effectively ending the business career and the engagement, it is the formerly faded and foreign true self, the writer, who remains. Thus, what seems on first reading to be a horror story of insanity and suicide is actually not a disaster at all but an exercise in self-preservation. No sooner had Kafka become romantically involved with Felice than he had worked out subconsciously how detrimental such a relationship would be to his career as a writer. With such personal material, it is no wonder the writer in Kafka felt inspired to finish “The Judgment” in one sitting. Ironically, his conscious mind was at that point still so far behind the insights of the subconscious that he dedicated the story to none other than Felice Bauer.

The subtitle of Heinz Politzer’s book on Kafka, Parable and Paradox, evokes the elusive nature of Kafka’s story lines, which are charged with opposing forces seeking synthesis. Although most of the stories are grim, the reader cannot help but be amused at the outrageous, at times burlesque turns of events. Only the bleak and disquieting desperation of the characters contradicts the humor inherent in their situations. Also, many of the stories end with the main character dead or reduced to a state of utter hopelessness. Many of the longer stories, such as “The Judgment,” are so complex that they can be confusing. Kafka’s shorter stories, consisting of only a paragraph or a page or two, sometimes leave a more lasting impression, because they each center on one main event.

Give It Up!

Politzer begins his study with a lengthy discussion of a 124-word commentary that Kafka wrote late in 1922. In the commentary, which has become known as “Give It Up!,” a traveler heading for the train station early one morning becomes disconcerted when he checks his watch against a clock tower and thinks that he must be late. In his haste, he becomes uncertain of the way and has to ask a police officer. The officer repeats the question, then tells the man to give up and turns away from him. The police officer’s reply is both hilarious and profoundly unsettling. It is hilarious because it is completely out of line with what a police officer would say. It is unsettling because it lifts the story out of the mundane into a world where not only time but also, apparently, place have lost their relevance and it is impossible to determine one’s way. The issue has become existential.

Before the Law

Kafka innately distrusted figures of authority and frequently portrayed them maliciously misleading and abusing those who came under their power. The 1922 commentary is simply a lighter variation on the theme that Kafka stated unforgettably in 1914 in his parable “Vor dem Gesetz” (“Before the Law”). This moving and perfect piece of writing was later incorporated into chapter 19 of Kafka’s novel Der Prozess (1925; T he Trial , 1937).

In the two-page parable, a man from the country seeks access to the law. He is told by the doorkeeper that he may not enter at the moment but possibly later. The man is deterred from entering without permission by the doorkeeper’s telling him that this is only the first of many doors that are guarded by increasingly powerful doorkeepers. The man spends the rest of his life there waiting for admittance and gives away everything he owns in unsuccessful attempts to bribe the doorkeeper. Finally, in his dying hour, he asks why no one else has come to that door, only to hear the doorkeeper say: “This door was intended only for you. I am now going to shut it.”

The parable is not enlightening. By the time the man finds out that he should go through the door after all, it is shut in his face. The story seems, rather, to be a comment on the human condition as Kafka experienced it in early twentieth century Europe. The rise of science and industry had displaced but could not replace religion, with the result that human beings could no longer find their way. The human institutions, the apparent absolutes represented by the law, prove to be fallible, imperfect, and unreliable. Nothing now can fill the human need for direction in life. Reality has become fragmented and disjunctive. “Before the Law” is particularly poignant because the reader cannot help but believe that, before the law, human beings are all people from the country, simple, helpless creatures who have lost their way.

The Bucket Rider

The way out of this impossible situation is brilliantly described with humor and sadness in Kafka’s three-page story “Der Kübelreiter” (“The Bucket Rider”), written during a coal shortage in the winter of 1916. The main character has no coal, and it is bitterly cold. He also has no money but goes to the coal dealer anyway, to ask for only a shovelful. To show how desperate he is, he rides there on his empty coal bucket, sailing through the air and calling down from high above the dealer’s house. The dealer is deeply moved by the voice of an old customer, but it is his wife who goes to the street to investigate. Once she finds that the bucket rider cannot pay immediately, she claims to see no one and waves him away with her apron. The bucket is too light to offer any resistance. The rider ascends “into the regions of the ice mountains” and is “lost for ever.”

This story contains the delightful, dreamlike element of the fantastic that is a source of great beauty in Kafka’s works. The moment the main character decides to ride on his bucket, which occurs at the beginning of the second paragraph, he is lifted out of everyday reality, in which he would surely have frozen to death. Kafka shows, once again, that it is useless to plead with others, especially those who have some authority. Rather than send his main character on an empty bucket back to his freezing room, Kafka has the bucket whisk him away into the ice mountains, never to return. Coal and indeed all mundane concerns cease to be a problem as the bucket rider leaves behind the human habitat. Thwarted by everyday pettiness, he has moved instead into a timeless mental space that seems infinitely more interesting. In “The Bucket Rider,” Kafka represents that space with the image of distant ice mountains. In his fifty-second aphorism, he writes a literal description of that saving space: “There is only a spiritual world; what we call the physical world is the evil in the spiritual one, and what we call evil is only a necessary moment in our endless development.” The bucket rider has transcended the evil phase.

A Country Doctor

The winter of 1916 was one of Kafka’s most prolific periods and one in which he seemed especially visually oriented and inclined toward the fantastic. His seven-page masterpiece “Ein Landarzt” (“A Country Doctor”) is one of his most involved works. It contains all Kafka’s main themes and the salient features of his style.

As in “The Bucket Rider,” the setting of “A Country Doctor” is an icy winter, and the mood is one of confused, melancholy desperation. The situation is hopeless, and the doctor sees no way out of it. Unlike “The Bucket Rider,” which has only one main event, “A Country Doctor” is a richly textured work. The most rewarding interpretive approach is that employed here in examining “The Judgment.” There are three main male characters: the country doctor, the groom, and the sick boy. They seem to represent different aspects of the same person, and the story, once again, seems to be autobiographical.

The country doctor is an older man who has been working for a long time in his profession, and he is disillusioned. The local people, while placing many demands on him, do nothing to help him. Not one of the neighbors would lend him a horse in an emergency. In keeping with the spirit of the age, the people have lost their faith in religion and look instead to science and medicine to perform the miracles, backing up the doctor’s efforts with choral chanting as if he were a medicine man. He is the only one sadly aware of the limitations of his profession but plays out the charade in a resigned fashion, eventually lying outright to the boy by minimizing the severity of his fatal wound.

Kafka was a professional as well, a lawyer who in 1916 had already worked nine years after articling. Although he was a dedicated and valued member of his firm, he regarded his work as a necessary evil, as his means of earning a living so that he could write in his spare time. He was not disillusioned with law, but neither did he harbor any cherished illusions about his distinguished profession. He believed that, as it did to the man from the country in “Before the Law,” law was wearing him out. Readers will equate the country doctor with Kafka the lawyer.

In order of appearance, the second male character in “A Country Doctor” is the groom. That he belongs to the country doctor or is part of him is evidenced by the servant girl’s remark, “You never know what you’re going to find in your own house.” Certainly, the groom represents a source not tapped in a long time—so long, in fact, that the country doctor is surprised when the man emerges from the abandoned pigsty. By association with the steaming horses, by the birthlike nature of their emergence, and by his rape of Rose, the groom stands for vitality, sensuality, and sex. He is also associated with savagery and filth.

At the time of writing “A Country Doctor,” Kafka had broken off his first engagement to Felice Bauer and had had several short-lived affairs. He was attracted to women but still believed that marriage and his work as a writer were mutually exclusive. His belief that marriage was not for him was based also on his perception of the sexual act as something terrible. Just as the groom represents a repressed aspect of the country doctor, who had all but ignored Rose, so, too, he represents the sexual fulfillment that Kafka decided again and again to sacrifice in order to continue his writing. Readers will equate the groom with Kafka the lover.

The groom and the two horses emerge from the pigsty together, then go off in different directions. While the groom was pursuing Rose, the unearthly horses transported the country doctor to the sick boy. Perhaps the boy was only to be reached by supernatural means. There is a fairy-tale quality to the ten-mile journey. It took only a moment, and the blinding snow was gone, replaced by clear moonlight. The nature of the journey is significant for the reader’s interpretation of the boy. Kafka has placed him in the spiritual world.

Whereas the country doctor is only one of many, as stressed by the indefinite article in the title, the boy is unique. His father, family, and the villagers have no understanding of the boy’s condition. Clearly, the boy is having a hard time of it in these surroundings. Even the doctor feels ill “in the narrow confines of the old man’s thoughts.” Disheartened, the boy at first wants to die. So does the doctor. Once the doctor becomes aware of the unique nature of the boy’s great wound, however, which is both attractive and repulsive, rose-colored and worm-eaten, the boy decides that he wants to live. By then, though, it is too late. The blossom in his side is destroying him.

Like the friend in Russia in “The Judgment,” the boy in “A Country Doctor” appears sickly but turns out to be of supreme importance. Kafka was not physically strong. In 1916, his tuberculosis had not yet been diagnosed, but he suffered from stomach problems. He lived with his parents, who were concerned that the long hours he spent writing were ruining his health. It is therefore fitting that those characters in his stories who represent Kafka the writer appear to be sickly. Readers will equate the boy with Kafka the writer.

Like the surface level of “The Judgment,” the surface level of “A Country Doctor” reads like a tragedy of unequaled proportions. Unable to help the boy, the country doctor finds himself also unable to get home, for the trip away from the boy is as slow as the trip to him was fast. “Exposed to the frost of this most unhappy of ages,” the doctor realizes that, as a result of this trip, he has not only sacrificed his servant girl but also lost his flourishing practice to his successor. What this translates into, though, is a triumph. Kafka the writer has subjugated Kafka the lawyer and Kafka the lover. The famous, peremptorily fatalistic last line of the story reveals its double meaning. “A false alarm on the night bell once answered—it cannot be made good, not ever.” Once Kafka accepted his gift as a writer, he could never abandon that link with the spiritual world.

Kafka’s works show, simultaneously and paradoxically, not only the existential angst inherent in the human condition but also a way out of that hopeless state. If the various characters are considered as elements of a personality seeking integration, the stories end not bleakly but on a transcendent note. Kafka’s refuge was in his writing, in the spiritual world, and in laughter.

Other major works Novels: Der Prozess, 1925 (The Trial, 1937); Das Schloss, 1926 (The Castle, 1930); Amerika, 1927 (America, 1938; better known as Amerika, 1946). Miscellaneous: Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande und andere Prosa aus dem Nachlass, 1953 (Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings, 1954; also known as Wedding Preparations in the Country, and Other Posthumous Prose Writings, 1954). Nonfiction: Brief an den Vater, wr. 1919, pb. 1952 (Letter to His Father, 1954); The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1948-1949; Tagebücher, 1910-1923, 1951; Briefe an Milena, 1952 (Letters to Milena, 1953); Briefe, 1902-1924, 1958; Briefe an Felice, 1967 (Letters to Felice, 1974); Briefe an Ottla und die Familie, 1974 (Letters to Ottla and the Family, 1982).

Bibliography Ben-Ephraim, Gavriel. “Making and Breaking Meaning: Deconstruction, Four-Level Allegory, and The Metamorphosis.” The Midwest Quarterly 35 (Summer, 1994): 450- 467. Bloom, Harold, ed. Franz Kafka. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Corngold, Stanley. Franz Kafka: The Necessity of Form. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988. Flores, Angel, ed. The Problem of “The Judgement”: Eleven Approaches to Kafka’s Story. New York: Gordian Press, 1976. Hayman, Ronald. K: A Biography of Kafka. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981. Heinemann, Richard. “Kafka’s Oath of Service: ‘Der Bau’ and the Dialectic of Bureaucratic Mind.” PMLA 111 (March, 1996): 256-270. Jofen, Jean. The Jewish Mysticism of Kafka. New York: Peter Lang, 1987. May, Charles E., ed. Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition. 8 vols. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2004. Oz, Amos. “A Log in a Freshet: On the Beginning of Kafka’s ‘A Country Doctor.’” Partisan Review 66 (Spring, 1999): 211-217. Reiner, Stach. Kafka: The Decisive Years. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. Speirs, Ronald, and Beatrice Sandberg. Franz Kafka. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

Before the Law by Franz Kafka – Translation and (brief) Analysis

This is my translation of Franz Kafka’s story “Vor dem Gesetz”, which also appears towards the end of The Trial . After the text there are some casual comments on the meaning and on reading Kafka generally.

Before the Law

Before the Law there stands a gatekeeper. And to this gatekeeper comes a man from the country and asks for entry into the Law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry. The man thinks for a moment and then asks whether he will be able to enter later on. “This much is possible,” says the gatekeeper. “But not now.” Since the door onto the Law stands open as ever and the gatekeeper stands to one side of it, the man bends forward so as to see through it into what lies within. When the gatekeeper notices it, he laughs, saying: “If you’re so allured by what’s inside, why not try going through in spite of my forbidding it? Be warned, though: I am mighty. And I am but the lowest of the gatekeepers. From each hall to the next there are gatekeepers, each one mightier than before. By the third one I cannot even bear his sight.” Such difficulties the man from the country has not counted on. Surely the Law, he thinks, ought to be accessible to all people and at all times. But as he looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, with his sharp nose and long thin black beard like a Tartar’s, he then decides he had better wait until he received permission to enter. The gatekeeper gives him a little stool and lets him set himself down on the side by the door. He sits there for days and then years. He makes many efforts to be let in and tires the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper every-so-often engages to give him little interrogations, where he asks the man about his homeland and about plenty of other things. But they are lifeless questions, however, of the sort that great men ask, and in the end he tells him once more that he still cannot let him in. The man, who had prepared a great deal for his journey, uses everything he has, whether valuable or not, in order to bribe the gatekeeper. The other man takes everything from him, but says as he does so: “I am only taking these from you so that you don’t think you haven’t tried everything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost without a moment’s pause. He forgets about the other gatekeepers, so that this one seems to him the only obstacle preventing him from entering the Law. He curses his misfortune, at first heedlessly and loudly; then, as he grows older, he just mutters to himself. He grows childish and, since from his years of study of the gatekeeper he has come to recognise the fleas in his felt collar, he asks the fleas to aid him in changing the gatekeeper’s mind too. At last his sight grows weak and he is unable to tell whether it is really getting darker, or if it is just his eyes deceiving him. He does recognise well, however, a radiance shining forth in the dark, one that escapes inextinguishably from the door into the Law. Now he has little time left to live. Before his death all the experiences of the whole time gather themselves inside his head into a single question, which he had hitherto not asked the gatekeeper. He beckons to him, for now he can no longer hold his head up straight. The gatekeeper has to bend himself deeply to lower himself down to him, since the height difference between them has greatly changed to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know?” Asks the gatekeeper, “You are insatiable.” “Look, if every man strives after the Law,” says the man. “How does it happen that in all these years nobody but myself has demanded entry?” The gatekeeper recognises that the man has already reached his end and, so as to reach him through his failing hearing, he shouts to him: “Nobody else could obtain permission here. This entrance was destined only for you. And now I am going to shut it.”

I’ve never been much of a fan of German, either as a language or as a literature, in comparison with others. I guess I’ve struggled to see the beauty in the words, and for a long time it seemed that German literature was a lesser copy of the Russian version, but without the redemptive hope of national faith. That is, simply a little grim and depressing. But Kafka has always been an favourite exception, in part because he has never fit snugly into the classification of “German literature”, being a Jew in what is now the Czech Republic, which even in the early 20 th century was not exactly the centre of German culture. Yet Bohemia produced, in some way or other, Kafka, as it did Rilke. No matter my misgivings about the wider literature, misgivings which truth be told time and experience are quickly changing anyway, it’s hard not to feel grateful for those two.

Even so, “getting” Kafka took a long time. I’ve read The Metamorphoses two or three times now, in both the original and in translation, and have struggled to enjoy it. Only recently, under the full weight of various critics’ opinions, did the work begin to open up to me. But in spite of that misfire, other parts of Kafka’s oeuvre have more easily reached and crashed against the inner shore of my soul: “In the Penal Colony”, “A Hunger Artist” , and both The Trial and The Castl e are among them.

It is perhaps foolish to have people in schools read Kafka because often they haven’t themselves lived in any serious way. It was certainly my problem when I started out. Without experience, it’s hard to appreciate the absurdity, because the stories seem simply absurd, as opposed to that Kafkaesque standard – absurd yet constantly revealed in our own lives to be entirely real. Within school and even, to be fair, university, usually we can only look at them clinically, rather than personally – that is, we can only appreciate, rather than truly enjoy them.

Kafka’s Train Ticket

My first experience of Kafka’s world being transported into my own came with receiving a penalty fare while trying to take the train home after having had dinner with a friend. I had bought a return ticket at the same station a few hours earlier, but unfortunately after going through the turnstiles I had thrown away the return ticket rather than the outbound one. When I arrived that evening the ticket office had closed, so there were only machines for buying tickets still operating. But I didn’t have a card on me, so I couldn’t buy a new ticket. I waited on the platform for the train to arrive, hoping to buy a ticket on board. Instead, what happened was that one of the railway workers came up and asked to see my ticket beforehand.

I explained what had happened and why I was unable to buy a replacement ticket, then asked to buy one as I saw that the worker had a ticket dispensing machine on her. I said that I had more than enough money in cash to buy the ticket. She told me to be quiet and asked for my ID. She then began writing me a penalty fare for trying to travel without a ticket. I tried once more to explain, and indeed I asked the worker to go and speak with her co-worker – the exact person I had bought both tickets from only a few hours previously – who I could see a few meters away.

Yet again, though, and against all that could be called reasonable – given that I had plenty of money and my receipts and an eyewitness in addition to everything else – I was told to stop being rude and to write down all of my details. I was then told that I had a month to pay the inflated price of the ticket she was giving me, or else I would be forced to go to court. Unexpected and in part inexplicable exercises of power and an illogical and cruel bureaucracy are all mainstays of Kafka’s world, but here they had been transported into my own. In a particularly sour mood, I eventually got my train back home. The penalty fare had cost about £5. The damage to my pride and dignity had cost considerably more.

There was a silver lining to this tale, though: it was the key to understanding Kafka. This, of course, turned out to be a great overestimation on my part, for as with the many doors of “Before the Law”, there are many different Kafka stories and each of them is be opened up by a different experience or several. But this was the first of many, and over time I’ve begun to enjoy Kafka more and more. What at first was simply a cold academic understanding of possible meanings is now a personal understanding of a few meanings.

“Before the Law” is probably my favourite of Kafka’s parable-like shorter stories. In part this is because it is simple linguistically and, like anyone who reads in a foreign language they are not yet the master of, I much prefer those works I feel I fully understand, even if the works themselves are perhaps on some other scale less great or complex. But the fact that it’s easy to read is not the reason it’s my favourite. No, I love it because it uses its simplicity not to leave its meaning concealed, like some abstract postmodern text, but rather to multiply its potential meanings, so that each new reading and each time it reappears in one’s mind is accompanied by a new thought, a new guess at one of its many possible truths.

Some Interpretations

I mean, in a sense you can list the things it might be about. It may well be about Gnosticism. It may also be about trying to reach God through a faith that never seems sufficient. Here in Cambridge it seems to me to be at least partially about the struggles of learning, how in spite of our best efforts we can waste away on a goal of knowledge that turns out to be entirely illusory, or at best the first door when there are many others left to come. Or maybe it is more broadly about any of those goals or ideals that become so great that we fail to live as a result of our quest to grasp them and even give away all that actually can give our life happiness and meaning instead – the equipment the man from the country has with him.

I mean those are just some ideas. As part of the translation process I had to make decisions that undoubtedly also contribute to the meanings you can locate in the text. Capitalising “Law” is a little controversial because it undoubtedly makes it harder to imagine that the story as simply being about trying to reach a lawyer for some advice. That said, I think by capitalising it I make it more clear that the Law is itself a symbol, and worth substituting if you feel like it. Another thing is the translation of “bestimmt” as “destined” when talking about the door itself. This reinforces the suggestion that perhaps the story as a whole is a way of looking at our relationship to fate. We need to accept it as personal and at the same time immutable. The man is a fool for wanting to change it by entering.

We do talk about the “laws of fate”, after all.

But there are so many meanings that going on would be foolish. What is true without a shadow of a doubt is that this is a wonderful story in the way that Walter Benjamin conceived of the term . I narrated it to a friend as we both went out for a burger and with my own retelling it took on newer meanings while still retaining the heart of Kafka’s work. “Before the Law” is special precisely because its size and interpretative potential mean that wherever it goes it can have its impact, and that repeating it is like simply adding a new flavouring to a dish. That’s the best argument for reading it and retelling it, again and again and again.

What do you think the story is about? Let me know in the comments

Photograph of Franz Kafka taken by Sigismund Jacobi is in the public domain.

4 thoughts on “Before the Law by Franz Kafka – Translation and (brief) Analysis”

Maybe it’s about personal responsibility. The door was there just for him. Maybe he didn’t need permission to enter it. Maybe the gatekeeper was there as a sort of test. He was dissuaded by being told of the other gatekeepers, whom he never even saw. They might not even exist. Maybe we’re not supposed to delegate our destiny or seek permission to pursue what is right and just.

I took a more literal thought to the title and that it was a time before there were any actual laws. The man was trying to enter to gain something that did not yet exist which was why he had to wait seemingly forever.

I was pointed to the piece by someone implying that it is about access to justice through a legal system become inaccessible to the common man. Perhaps that’s true on some level, but as the years go on it becomes clear that this cannot be all it’s about.

It seems that it is, most universally, about choosing how to live one’s life, and who will run it. There are always other people around who will maintain that it their job to tell you how to live and think. It is tempting to believe others know more than us, as is drilled into us when we are younger and they are older. But one of life’s main challenges is learning to trust one’s own self, to be the captain of one’s own fate, the master of one’s own soul. If we choose to live by others’ fears, others’ “should”s, others’ ideas about what we can and cannot have, we miss fulfilled and rewarding living pursuing authentic purposes and outcomes that only we can deliver to the world. We miss our own, private, unique destiny. and eventually the door will indeed close. Perhaps the gatekeeper has been evil, but the man’s greater failure has been that he chose to be a victim when he abdicated his opportunity to govern his own fate. Everything always boils down to our choices.

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franz kafka, before the law: translation and commentary

Translation and commentary by Samuel Zinner on Franz Kafka's parable "Before the Law" 2019 Draft paper. Updated version, May 2019.

Related Papers

Angela Esmeralda

This is a short reaction paper in the short parable, Before the Law, included in the novel, the Trial by Franz Kafka. This aims to explain [in my perspective] what are the allegories present in the story and what are their representation.

Subashish Bhattacharjee

Elena Loizidou

Abraham Rubin

Dragan Prole

Raphael Foshay

In" Tradition and the Individual Talent," TS Eliot gives a classic delineation of that central New Critical doctrine of the sovereignty of the text. Though deconstruction is ordinarily understood to be in direct opposition to such textual formalism, a close reading of Derrida's essay on Kafka's" Before the Law" reveals a subtle correspondence between a preoccupation with aesthetic form and a deconstructive response to it.

Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society

Vivian Liska

Victims of an uncanny legal system pervade Kafka’s writings. Whether the representation of the law in these works implies a sacrificial logic depends significantly on the meaning assigned to Kafka’s idea of the law. Despite the innumerable interpretations of Kafka’s law-related texts it remains uncertain whether the law in his works is to be understood primarily in juridical, social, and political terms or in metaphysical, theological, and religious ones. This uncertainty, besides eliciting myriad, sometimes contradictory, interpretations, has inspired numerous views, themselves often disparate and conflicting, about the relationship between law and sacrifice in Kafka’s works. The present article explores this relationship and how it has been regarded by some of his most important interpreters.

Monthly Review Magazine

In "Before the Law," Franz Kafka portrays a countryman who can only be forever "before the law," but never entering. "It is possible" to gain entry, says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." The man gets old and is about to die-and only now does he understand that the gate was meant for him! "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it." Kafka takes us to the interplay of surplus investment and lack in our relationship with the law, which propels a spiral of activity approximating a goal that perpetually recedes into the future. At the very least, Kafka suggests that the law into which the protagonist is seeking entry might not be what he thinks it is. Law is a self-referential bubble without concrete determinations of any kind. Jacques Derrida was right when he pointed out Kafka's message: "To be invested with its categorical authority, the law must be without history, genesis or any possible derivation." 1 This can remind us, as Evgeny Pashukanis shows, how Karl Marx held that under conditions of commodity exchange, social relations tend to take the form of juridical relations. The principle of equivalence in the "commodity form" is inseparable from the equivalence underlying "equality of all" before law in a democracy. Juridical relations are not really an abstraction from social relations, but the form of appearance of the social relations. 2 Law's categorical authority, combined with its abstraction, generates a lack-driven over-investment in the imagined future and freedom-futuristic freedom-homologous to the futuristic movements of capitalist accelerationism. 3 Progressive-left politics is ensnared by this futurism, which is bent on the erasure of the past, which is considered to be by definition regressive. Let us not forget that futurism, as it first came through the pen of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Italy in the 1910s, subsequently influenced fascism, and not least the communist avant garde of the time. Against this futurism-fascism nexus, we can find the works of those like

Kafka and the Universal (edited by Arthur Cools and Vivian Liska), De Gruyter

Eli Schonfeld

“Before the Law” (“Vor dem Gesetz”) is one of the most if not the single most commented upon of Kafka’s texts : “Helplessness seizes one face to face with this page and a half,” notes George Steiner. Has everything not already been said, been written, been thought, about this text? Like a detective, the commentator searches for the key that will once and for all resolve the enigma, unveil the mystery that hides so secretively within its depths. A mystery which we know everything depends upon. One might skeptically wonder at the discovery of yet another interpretation of “Before the Law”: “What more can be added?” he asks himself. And he may be right. Perhaps the gates of interpretation are henceforth sealed. We may have arrived too late. But before this text, do we not always already come too late? Has not the doorkeeper always already shut the door? The moment one realizes there is nothing to add to this text might be the very moment one realizes that, from the start, this text, though soliciting interpretation, in fact defies interpretation. We are indeed seized by helplessness. Equally impotent before this text, the first reading equals the last reading, because strictly speaking there is no first and no last here. Before this text, as before the law, we find ourselves equally exposed, equally empty, without resources. Before this text, we find ourselves, exactly like the story’s protagonist, the countryman, the Mann vom Lande: ignorant. And from this position the text inspires us infinitely. Ignorance serves therefore as my starting point in the interpretation of "Before the Law" proposed in the following study.

The Letter of the Law: Literature, Justice and the Other

Efterpi Mitsi

2 Before the Law

Published: March 2018
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The chapter focuses textually on the embedded parable “Vor dem Gesetz” and the surrounding scene at the Cathedral. It discusses the conception of law at the heart of the parable, its surrounding scene, and The Trial more generally. The author argues that Kafka’s conception of law is actually a collision of two mutually incompatible ways of thinking about and experiencing authority. As to the first, law is experienced as obscure in its demand, and in particular obscure in relation to the modern human expectation that such demands be rational. As to the second, law is experienced as a convergence of contingency that is “necessary” in a very special sense, i.e., that such convergence crowds out space for uniquely human possibility. These aspects are interdependent, the collision typifying Kafka’s approach to the question of what roots humans in both alienation and striving.

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The Short Story Project

This is heading animation, before the law.

Czech Republic

Franz Kafka

Original Lang .

Why this story is worth your time

This classic text by Franz Kafka, which is also included in the renowned novel, The Trial , leaves one reality and leaps into another: In “Before the Law,” in mere few sentences, the abstract notion of the law becomes a place in the actual world. “The law should always be accessible for everyone,” says the man from the country, and then finds that this is certainly not the case; there are the ones who keep the law, and therefore there are the ones who will be kept out of it – to become “illegal”. This rather short, definitely rich text offers more (its surprising ending, for instance). As Orson Welles, who adapted the English version of the text into radio, said: “It has been said that the logic of this story is the logic of a dream – of a nightmare.” And in the actual world, this may always be up ahead.

Translated by: Ian Johnston

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body.

The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

*via Franz Kafka Online

Orson Welles’ 1962 narration of “Before the Law”

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Interpreting Kafka – Before the Law

In Kafka’s Before the Law, the Law is open to interpretation and could mean different things to different people. It could mean something abstract as happiness or contentment or something concrete such as riches and wealth. It is simply an allegorical reference, denoting a place into which one wants entry.

In my interpretation, the law is similar to the society, and the struggle to gain entry into the law is the same as the struggle to understand our existence, know this society, be a part of it, be accepted, and consequently “let in the door”. When the gatekeeper tells the man at the end, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you,” this means that each person struggles in their way to enter into and be accepted by society. It is different for everyone, and hence the reference that this entrance was only assigned to this man.

The man is desperate to enter the Law and continues to try to do so. This signifies the untiring attempts of people to learn the law or the code or norms upon which this society operates. This is no easy task as society has no written down rules. Different societies have different cultures, histories, languages, and norms. And sometimes, becoming part of society and gaining acceptance as one of ‘them’ requires a constant struggle. This struggle is similar to being on trial when one is continuously probed and given opportunities to ‘prove’ oneself. This process can be likened to the questions that the gatekeeper asks the man but the interrogation is just an exercise in futility, as he is told that he can not be granted entry. Man’s quest for acceptance into society is similar to this ongoing struggle.

The gatekeeper as allegory can be interpreted in two ways. It can be fear, doubt, and confusion – our inner opposing forces which hinder us at every step of every action. Our uncertainty about whether the object of our struggle is even worth it can signify the gatekeeper who constantly challenges the man and scares him of far worse gatekeepers than him. The far worse gatekeepers which the gatekeeper scares the man about can be the consequences of actually entering society. Sometimes the quest to be accepted and be a part of something is so great, that one does not realize that that in itself is inherently wrong. For example, society can be evil, wrong, and capable of vice. And yet man yearns to be a part of it. This is where the gatekeeper can also be likened to man’s own conscious, challenging him, rejecting his attempts to enter it, creating fear and doubt in his mind, and the man has to face this conscious whenever he attempts to enter the Law, or in our interpretation, society.

This is an interesting allegorical tale that can be interpreted in various ways. The way I see it, it appears to refer to man’s undying struggle to gain acceptance into society and the ‘good life. This is often a struggle characterized by desperate attempts and irrational behavior, such as the man asking the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. In the story, the man has ‘equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper.’ The man also uses a variety of ways and means to gain entry into society and become a part of it and sometimes does not realize what he has given up to achieve this end.

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More in Absurdist Fiction, Existentialism

1899 short story, before the law.

Black and white Photo of Author Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)

Before the Law is an English Absurdist Fiction , Existentialism short story by Czech , German writer Franz Kafka . It was first published in 1899.

Before the Law by Franz Kafka

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. It is possible, says the gatekeeper, but not now. The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third. The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartars beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything. During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. What do you still want to know now? asks the gatekeeper. You are insatiable. Everyone strives after the law, says the man, so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry? The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. Im going now to close it.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a Czech-born German-speaking novelist known for his works of existential and absurdist fiction, including “The Metamorphosis” and “The Trial.” His writing often delved into themes of alienation and bureaucracy. Kafka’s unique style and exploration of the human condition have made him a major figure in world literature.

Pace Law Review

Home > LAW > PLR > Vol. 35 > Iss. 4 (2015)

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law”: A Parable

Geoffrey L. Brackett , Marist College

Despite Francis Bacon’s cautionary note, I have always been a fan of parables, and perhaps the most poignant one to speak for perils of the legal profession is Franz Kafka’s “Vor dem Gesetz” (“Before the Law”), one of the relatively few works to be published in his lifetime. It was seen first in the almanac Vom Jüngsten Tag: Ein Almanach Neuer Dichtung in December 1915 before it was included in his novel Der Prozess (The Trial), which was unpublished in his lifetime. He wrote it at one sitting on December 13, 1914, and in fewer than 650 words, Kafka illustrates the menace of the law to those for whom it is a mystery and the indifferent cruelty possible from those who have access to it. He does this while subtly referencing, through metaphor, the social, political, and educational barriers that have always separated those who have access to the law and those whose ignorance of it can cost them everything. And he does it with a sheen of absurdist humor that reflects the existentialist artistic response against the alienation of the modern world that was unfolding around him.

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Diaries by Franz Kafka review – caught in the act

His uncensored journals disclose a messier, more sexual, complex figure – and reveal much about the process of writing

I n the late summer of 1917, following the first signs of the tuberculosis that would kill him within a decade, Franz Kafka went to stay with his sister in the Bohemian countryside. During this unexpectedly calm period in an otherwise perennially besieged life, he wrote a series of aphorisms. One of them runs: “The true path is along a rope, not a rope suspended way up in the air, but rather only just over the ground. It seems more like a tripwire than a tightrope.”

He might have been describing the path to the true Kafka, which writers, biographers and academics have been attempting to chart ever since he died. Even Reiner Stach, author of the definitive Kafka biography, chose to end that nearly 2,000-page work on a note of uncertainty, quoting the Prague writer Johannes Urzidil, who said Kafka’s intimates could theorise about what his work meant, but none could say how he came to write it.

Ambiguity, mystery and radical interpretability are inextricable parts of works such as The Trial, The Castle, and The Metamorphosis. Is the cloth salesman Gregor Samsa literally a cockroach, or is his transformation symbolic? The brilliance of the story is to allow both things to be simultaneously true. Kafka’s German is famously plain and clear, yet works to enshroud his outlandish scenarios with a paradoxical mystery. “The limpidity of his style,” Vladimir Nabokov noted in his Cornell lecture on The Metamorphosis, “stresses the dark richness of his fantasy.”

Might this limpidity mean the answers to at least some of the riddles he poses can be found in the diaries he kept between 1909 and 1923? They have been available in English since the 1940s, but only in a version edited – or, more accurately, bowdlerised – by Max Brod, who defied Kafka’s wish that he burn his writings and instead shaped them to present their author, falsely, as a religious thinker. A restored edition of the diaries appeared in Germany in 1990, and is now available to English-speaking readers via a translation by Ross Benjamin.

Benjamin’s aim is to catch Kafka in the act of writing, and to present the diaries not as a cohesive whole, as Brod’s version does, but as “Schrift, writing as a fluid, ongoing, goalless activity.” To this end we get spelling mistakes, scraps of abandoned stories, entries that break off in mid-sentence, and, due to Kafka’s habit of rotating between notebooks rather than writing in one until it was finished, an achronological experience in which we might read the back half of a story 200 pages before its beginning, or pinball from 1912 to 1914 and back again.

Brod’s version smoothed such irregularities away, as well as prudishly cutting anything sexual. The Kafka whose posthumous reputation Brod did so much to control, until death loosened his grip in 1968, was not a brothel visitor, nor someone who would describe a male Swedish tourist’s legs as so taut “that one could really only run one’s tongue along them”.

More important, in terms of changing the uniquely intimate experience the diaries offer, was Brod’s decision to excise the fiction. One of the book’s greatest pleasures is to read a dull list about who Kafka wrote letters to the day before, then turn the page and discover the first draft of The Judgment, the story that marked a revolution in his work. With it, Reiner Stach writes, “Suddenly … the Kafka cosmos was at hand.” A hopeless figure prey to random punishment or hostile authority, a horror established on the borders of comedy, a plot with one foot in reality and the other in dreams; the seams Kafka would mine for the next 11 years are all here, and we feel, and share, his excitement in the next entry: “This story ‘The Judgment’ I wrote at one stretch on the night of the 22 to the 23 from 10 o’clock in the evening until 6 o’clock in the morning. My legs had grown so stiff from sitting that I could hardly pull them out from under the desk.”

This new edition restores the variegated richness – and, at times, the tedium – of the diaries: an account of a trip to the theatre might be followed by a story draft, a gnomic half-sentence, the description of a prostitute, time spent watching a ski-jumping competition, relationship problems, dreams of a writing career in Berlin, a list of mistakes made by Napoleon in the Russian campaign, thoughts on the size of a fellow train traveller’s trouser bulge. The muddled presentation of all these elements, contextualised by thorough notes, gives the sense of Kafka not just as “the representative genius of the modern age”, as Benjamin describes him, but also a youngish man finding his way, hungry for experience and inspiration, venting his frustrations and following his interests. Here Kafka seems both genius and ingenue, and the contradiction brings him closer to us.

He is a man often distressed about his writing. “Wrote nothing,” runs the entry for 1 June 1912. “Wrote almost nothing,” follows that the next day. On 7 June, “Awful. Wrote nothing today.” The following month, things haven’t improved: “Have written nothing for so long”; “Wrote nothing”; “Nothing, nothing”; “Useless day”. Such are the complaints of many writers, and, like others before and since, Kafka decides at one point his desk is the problem (“Now I have taken a closer look at my desk and realised that nothing good can be done on it”).

But there are entries that reveal more profound dissatisfactions. Here we see the person Edmund Wilson called “the denationalised, discouraged, disaffected, disabled Kafka”, self-critical to the point of paralysis. “So forsaken by myself, by everything,” he writes in March 1912, and in 1914 the extraordinary question and answer, “What do I have in common with Jews? I have scarcely anything in common with myself.” Echoes of this sentiment are found throughout his correspondence with Felice Bauer, the woman to whom he was twice torturously engaged, and to his sister Ottla, to whom he once wrote, “I write not as I speak, I speak not as I think, I think not as I ought to think, and so it goes into the deepest darkness.” This might seem like performative self-pity were it not the case that most of Kafka’s works, from The Metamorphosis to A Hunger Artist to The Burrow, the short story he was writing when he died, repeatedly reflect this sense of profound loneliness and isolation.

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“I am nothing but literature,” Kafka claimed in an entry written on 21 August 1913. Looking at his stories and novels, his diaries and letters, and even the notes with which he communicated in his last days, when the effects of tuberculosis made speaking too painful, the idea his essential self resided more in his writing than his body doesn’t seem entirely hyperbolic. In this light the diaries, in which fiction, confession, dreams, wry humour, and despair combine in a messy, hypnotic network, feel like the closest thing to a path, so like a tripwire, that leads to the threshold of Kafka’s abiding mystery.

Diaries by Franz Kafka is published by Penguin Classics (£24). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

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A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka's 'Before the Law'
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'Before the Law' is a short story or parable by the German-language Bohemian (now Czech) author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It was published in 1915 and later included in Kafka's (posthumously published) novel The Trial, where its meaning is discussed by the protagonist Josef K. and a priest he meets…
Before the Law by Franz Kafka
Before the Law. Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. "It is possible," says the gatekeeper, "but not now.".
Before The Law (Allegory Explained)
Before the Law is a parable written by Franz Kafka that tells the story of a man who seeks entrance to the law, but is denied access by a gatekeeper. The story has been analyzed and interpreted in various ways, with many scholars considering it an allegory for the corruption of bureaucracy and the ways in which authority wields symbolic power over its citizens.
Before the Law
"Before the Law" (German: "Vor dem Gesetz") is a parable contained in the novel The Trial (German: Der Prozess), by Franz Kafka. "Before the Law" was published twice in Kafka's lifetime, first in the 1915 New Year's edition of the independent Jewish weekly Selbstwehr, then in 1919 as part of the collection Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor). The Trial, however, was not published until 1925, after ...
Franz Kafka
About. A man seeks admittance to the law, but a doorkeeper frustrates his efforts over the course of a lifetime. The story, which spans the entire lifetime of "the man" post-childhood, has the ...
Before the Law by Franz Kafka
Kafka's 'Before the Law'. 'Before the Law' was written by Franz Kafka and originally published in a Jewish weekly magazine titled Selbstwehr in 1915. Considered to be a parable, or a short story ...
Analysis of Franz Kafka's Stories
Before the Law. Kafka innately distrusted figures of authority and frequently portrayed them maliciously misleading and abusing those who came under their power. The 1922 commentary is simply a lighter variation on the theme that Kafka stated unforgettably in 1914 in his parable "Vor dem Gesetz" ("Before the Law").
Before the Law by Franz Kafka
Before the Law there stands a gatekeeper. And to this gatekeeper comes a man from the country and asks for entry into the Law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry. The man thinks for a moment and then asks whether he will be able to enter later on. "This much is possible," says the gatekeeper. "But not now.".
franz kafka, before the law: translation and commentary
Saroj Giri. In "Before the Law," Franz Kafka portrays a countryman who can only be forever "before the law," but never entering. "It is possible" to gain entry, says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." The man gets old and is about to die-and only now does he understand that the gate was meant for him!
Before the Law
The parable "Before the Law" ("Vor dem Gesetz") is the centerpiece of the chapter of The Trial ( Der Process/Der Proceß/Der Prozeß) to which Kafka's literary executor, Max Brod, assigned the title "In the Cathedral" ("Im Dom"). 1 The parable has some right to be considered the focal point of the novel, although claiming that ...
Derrida on Kafka's 'Before the Law'
Jacques Derrida gives to his 1982 essay on Kafka's "Before the Law" the same title as the story itself. He does so in order to signal and to explore the relationship taken up in the parable between title and text, door and law, doorkeeper and man from the. country, and by allegorical extension, text and reader, text and writer.
Before The Law, Franz Kafka
B efore the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. "It is possible," says the gatekeeper, "but not now.".
PDF Section 2: Before the Law
1 George Steiner, "A Note on Kafka's 'Trial,'" in No Passion Spent: Essays 1978-1995, Yale Univer - sity Press, New Haven and London 1996, 239-252, 251. ... first two sentences of Kafka's "Before the Law." The protagonist of the story has no proper name: he is simply a Mann vom Landea countryman, or, more liter,-
PDF Kafka's Parable 'Before the Law': Reflections towards a Positive
Rainer Maria Rilke prefaced his Notebook of Malte Launds Brigge with. this warning. Our attempt at a positive interpretation of Kafka's parable is in effect an attempt to interpret it in accordance with Rilke's words by reading it "against the stream." We proceed from the premise that Josef K, the main character in.
Interpreting Kafka
This paper, "Interpreting Kafka - Before the Law", was written and voluntary submitted to our free essay database by a straight-A student. Please ensure you properly reference the paper if you're using it to write your assignment. Before publication, the StudyCorgi editorial team proofread and checked the paper to make sure it meets the ...
"Before the Law" by Franz Kafka
Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. It is possible, says the gatekeeper, but not now.
What is the theme of Franz Kafka's "Before the Law"?
Quick answer: Franz Kafka's famous parable "Before the Law" serves as an allegory for the corruption of bureaucracy and the ways in which authority wields symbolic power over its citizens. More ...
The Deconstruction and Reification of Law in Franz Kafka's 'Before the
This article explores the philosophical nature of law as depicted by Kafka in his two most famous writings on the subject, "Before the Law," and "The Trial." The substantive portions of this article deal with postmodern and neo-Marxist accounts of Kafka's law, which are both rejected in favor of a synthesis of ideology culminating in law as the ...
Accepting or Transgressing the Failure: Derrida and Agamben on Kafka's
Footnote 39 Kafka's Before the Law is the normal and yet terrifying situation of a man who cannot reach the law. The law has transcended him. The law is supreme, and its presence is always elusive. ... 85 Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History", in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, (Schocken Books, 1969), 257, Thesis 8:.
courses.cit.cornell.edu
Before The Law. It is the center piece of Kafka's unfinished novel The Trial.We'll watch some of Orson Welles' film adaptation featuring Anthony Perkins as Joseph K. Welles recites a condensed version of the parable Before The Law which alone makes the film worth seeing. Consult my revised essay "Kafka's Parable Before The Law" originally published in The Germanic Review, May, 1964 copied below.
Overcoming Obstacles in Kafka's 'Before the Law'
1940. In Franz Kafka's exploration, "Before the Law," a profound message resonates about the pivotal role of obstacles in shaping one's destiny. The narrative intricately weaves a tale highlighting the dual nature of challenges - serving either as stepping stones towards growth and success or as insurmountable barriers leading to failure.
"Franz Kafka's "Before the Law": A Parable" by Geoffrey L. Brackett
Despite Francis Bacon's cautionary note, I have always been a fan of parables, and perhaps the most poignant one to speak for perils of the legal profession is Franz Kafka's "Vor dem Gesetz" ("Before the Law"), one of the relatively few works to be published in his lifetime. It was seen first in the almanac Vom Jüngsten Tag: Ein Almanach Neuer Dichtung in December 1915 before it ...
Franz Kafka "Before the Law" Essay Example
Franz Kafka "Before the Law". Individual Project 1. When I originally read this short story, I initially got the impression that it was about Heaven and trying to get into Heaven by the choices made in life. However, it didn't make much sense to me when the doorkeeper explained that beyond his gate, there were further, and much angrier ...
PDF Before the Law
Before the Law by Franz Kafka Translation by Ian Johnston. Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. "It is possible,"
Diaries by Franz Kafka review
To this end we get spelling mistakes, scraps of abandoned stories, entries that break off in mid-sentence, and, due to Kafka's habit of rotating between notebooks rather than writing in one ...

A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’

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Before The Law (Allegory Explained)

Origins of ‘Before The Law’

Franz Kafka’s Biography

Historical Context

Synopsis of the Allegory

Major Themes and Interpretations

Law and Individual

Authority and Power

Absurdity and Bureaucracy

Structural Analysis

Narrative Technique

Symbolism in the Allegory

Philosophical Perspectives

Influence and Legacy

Relevance in Modern Society

Comparative Analysis

Kafkaesque Elements in Other Media

Literary Theory and Criticism

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Stories

The Metamorphosis

The Judgment

Give It Up!

Before the Law

The Bucket Rider

A Country Doctor

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