Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
In the Penal Colony
In the Penal Colony (original title In der Strafkolonie) is a short story by Franz Kafka set in some unnamed penal colony.
The story is about the last execution by an elaborate torture machine designed to engrave moralizing slogans into the flesh of the condemned to educate him in his prolonged agony. The inventor is so dismayed about the lack of public recognition for this educational device that in the end he thrusts himself into the machine and is impaled on the engraving shaft.
As in other of Kafka's writings, the narrator is detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events
that one would normally expect to be registered with horror.
The story has been made into an opera by Philip Glass.
03-10-2013 05:06:04
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details