Page 30 - EXPOTIME!Sept2017

Museums in Eastern Europe Museums in Eastern Europe

futile struggle for recognition and respect. The whole the officer’s back, but malfunctions. It kills the self-con-
ground of his being is undermined by those who will not demned officer. 11
acknowledge his task or his right to be in the village. K.
seeks companionship (shacking up for a time with a Metamorphosis: “When Gregor Samsa awoke one morn-
woman who has a connection to the Castle authority) ing from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed
but cannot stand the company of his assistants, to whom in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his
he can be unkind." 10 hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted
his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly
In the Penal Colony: “In the Penal Colony"is an impor- divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the
tant short story by Franz Kafka written in October 1914. bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to
It was first published in 1919. In the story, an anthropol- slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pit-
ogist visits a penal colony, where an officer demon- ifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved help-
strates to him the harrow, an instrument used in capital lessly before his eyes.” 12
punishment. The machine was conceived and developed
by the former Commandant. The harrow is a deadly, ex- This is the most famous paragraph in Kafka‘s work and the
traordinarily elegant tattooing instrument: the con- begin of his best-known story “The Metamorphosis"(1915).
demned man lies face-down on a bed, while a complex Gregor Samsa had to discover that he has inexplicably
system of needles writes the broken commandment on metamorphosed into a giant dung beetle. Gregor strug-
his back. The needles pierce deeper and deeper until gles to coordinate the new facets of his insect body.
the prisoner dies. In the process of dying, however, the Gregor is a traveling salesman who lives with his parents
condemned man finally "understands"the nature of jus- and younger sister inside a modest apartment, for which
tice and his punishment. The officer begins to demon- Gregor’s salary is needed to pay the bills. Gregor has nev-
strate the harrow on a prisoner condemned to die be- er been satisfied by his work, but he is burdened not only
cause he was sleeping on duty. It soon becomes clear with the reposibility of rent and household bills, but also
that the explorer does not approve of the death-machine with the difficult task of paying his parents’ debts, accu-
and that he feels morally bound to express this disap- mulated through a collapse of his father’s business. 13
proval to the new Commander, who is already known to The Trial: Written in 1914 and published posthumously
have serious questions about using the harrow as a in 1925, “The Trial"is one of the most important novels
method of punishment. Suddenly, the officer removes of the 20th cent. The Trial tells the story of a man ar-
the condemned man from the torture bed and takes his rested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible author-
place. Before doing so, he adjusts the machine to in- ity, with the nature of his crime not revealed to him or
scribe “BE JUST."The harrow begins its grisly work on to the reader. This dissuasive tale can also be read as a

This artistic video is shown in the Kafka museum. Enjoy!

30
EXPOTIME!, issue August/September 2017