Today we read "Before the Law" by Kafka. I recognize Kafka from his story The Metamorphosis. This piece reminded me of The Metamorphosis, mostly because it was very symbolic and hard to understand.
The story in "Before the Law" is actually simple, so here it is:
A man goes to the Law, where he see a guard by an open gate. He asks the guard if he can go in, but the guard says "Not yet". So he sits at the gate and tries to convince/bribe the guard into letting him in. The guard tells him that his efforts aren't doing much, but still accepts the bribes so the man can say he tried. Eventually, the man is about to die of old age. He has sat at the gate the whole time and asks the guard why no one else has tried to get in the gate. The guard tells him that the gate was only for him, and will be closed now that he is dead. The man dies.
In my opinion, this story is a parable for trying to change the law. The man represents a concerned citizen, and the guard represents lawmakers. The gate is all of the things we must go through to change rules. Like in the story, lawmakers tend to treat the law as concrete and tell us it can't be changed. They may even discourage us like the gatekeeper in the story did.
"If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him."
However, they don't actually stop us from trying to change the law. The main thing that stops citizens is the same thing that stopped the man: the fact that he didn't try. He focused on the guard instead of focusing on the gate. Like citizens he wondered why no one else seemed to care or try to enter the gate. When the concerned citizens die off, like the man in the story, the gate might as well be closed.
I related this to Antigone because it discusses the difference between blindly accepting laws and striving to change them. This is a major struggle that Antigone has. But unlike the man in the story, she actively stands up to the lawmaker and refuses to back down. This is what makes her more admirable than the man in the story. She fights the man instead of remaining passive. I talked about challenging versus passively accepting in a previous blog post on "Tragedy and the Common man". You can read it below.
I think that Kafka used parable because he is, first and foremost, a story teller. While he is a fantastic thinker, he prefers to convey ideas through stories like The Metamorphosis and Before the Law, rather than tell them in a speech or essay. People are also more likely to listen to stories than to speeches. While people generally don't listen to speeches they don't want to hear, you can subliminally teach new ideas through stories.
Here's a link.
The story in "Before the Law" is actually simple, so here it is:
A man goes to the Law, where he see a guard by an open gate. He asks the guard if he can go in, but the guard says "Not yet". So he sits at the gate and tries to convince/bribe the guard into letting him in. The guard tells him that his efforts aren't doing much, but still accepts the bribes so the man can say he tried. Eventually, the man is about to die of old age. He has sat at the gate the whole time and asks the guard why no one else has tried to get in the gate. The guard tells him that the gate was only for him, and will be closed now that he is dead. The man dies.
In my opinion, this story is a parable for trying to change the law. The man represents a concerned citizen, and the guard represents lawmakers. The gate is all of the things we must go through to change rules. Like in the story, lawmakers tend to treat the law as concrete and tell us it can't be changed. They may even discourage us like the gatekeeper in the story did.
"If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him."
However, they don't actually stop us from trying to change the law. The main thing that stops citizens is the same thing that stopped the man: the fact that he didn't try. He focused on the guard instead of focusing on the gate. Like citizens he wondered why no one else seemed to care or try to enter the gate. When the concerned citizens die off, like the man in the story, the gate might as well be closed.
I related this to Antigone because it discusses the difference between blindly accepting laws and striving to change them. This is a major struggle that Antigone has. But unlike the man in the story, she actively stands up to the lawmaker and refuses to back down. This is what makes her more admirable than the man in the story. She fights the man instead of remaining passive. I talked about challenging versus passively accepting in a previous blog post on "Tragedy and the Common man". You can read it below.
I think that Kafka used parable because he is, first and foremost, a story teller. While he is a fantastic thinker, he prefers to convey ideas through stories like The Metamorphosis and Before the Law, rather than tell them in a speech or essay. People are also more likely to listen to stories than to speeches. While people generally don't listen to speeches they don't want to hear, you can subliminally teach new ideas through stories.
Here's a link.