Analysis Of Nietzsche's In The Penal Colony

Kafka’s story "In the Penal Colony" - as a symbolic historical meditation on the origins of punishment, can be demonstrated by comparing certain aspects of this story to Nietzsche’s essay "On the Genealogy of Morals" - which offers a historical account of the origins of punishment and justice. Nietzsche’s essay discusses how humans transform from pre-civilized, e.g., humans in their primal state with little regard for social-obligations; to civilized, e.g., those who comply and conform to the laws of a civilized society, and how this transformation relates to punishment. Nietzsche hypothesizes, that although history shows a transformation from pre-civilized into “the kind of human being that civilization produces” (BCIT, 2000), that punishments, such as the fictional machine used in the Penal Colony, have little to no positive contribution in this transformation. The institution of punishment, such as the penal colony in Kafka’s fictional story, would never be capable of reforming from pre-civilized to civilized; in part because such punishment is unjust. Both Kafka and Nietzsche literate that there can be no correlation between (unjust) punishment, and the reformation of the pre-civilized into civilized. Nietzsche postulates that man was transformed over time from his natural primal state into a member of civilized society by means of enlightening ones’ consciousness to better fulfill civilized social obligations, and thereby denying pre-civilized “natural man’s” inherent tendencies. Regarding this transformation as related to The Penal Colony, although the fictional machine from the penal colony was said to transform those undergoing its torture; this enlightenment was inevitably and immediately followed by death. Therefore, although the machine enables the condemned to “see” after the “sixth hour,” it doesn’t allow them the opportunity to repent and/or become a contributing member of civilization. Nietzsche believed that punishment plays no role in transforming natural-humans into a civilized human and that punishment is unjust; “[p]unishment predates and cannot be explained by appealing to concepts of justice” (BCIT, 2000). The very nature of the machine proves to be primitive and unjust; representing a symbol of self-destructive human ingenuity through the marriage of innovation and technological progress, while fundamentally executing the primitive-divine law. Once put into motion the machine fatally punishes, with no regard to humanity and/or justice. Even though the machine succeeds in transforming the condemned, it is not a justifiable form of punishment. Transformation is the …show more content…
By Nietzsche’s own definitions, “[t]he primitive state was a ‘fearful tyranny’ that needed to use the most extravagant of punishments” (BCIT, 2000). The fictional penal colony would no doubt fit this description of a tyrannical, primate, uncivilized state; and the machine - the extravagant punishment. The civilized Englishman sent to pass judgment on this old system quickly condemns “the injustice of the procedure” (Kafka, 1996) as inhumane. His condemnation of the penal colony and the machine demonstrates the superiority of a civilized man with values of democracy and liberalism. Nietzsche believed that “The transformation of the “natural man” into a member of a civil society depends on the natural man developing a memory for promises and social obligations, and not on [the] institutions of punishment” (BCIT, 2000). Therefore, the penal colony would have little hope of becoming civilized by means of the machine and their system of absolute power and punishment. Rather, the machines' destruction seems to represent an unavoidable roadblock in adopting a more civilized, rational, and humanitarian