In the Penal Colony
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"In the Penal Colony" (original title In der Strafkolonie) is a short story in German by Franz Kafka. It is set in an unnamed penal colony.
The story is about the last use of an elaborate lethal-torture machine designed to engrave on the body of a condemned man whatever rule he had broken. The officer in charge of the machine's upkeep is dismayed by the current lack of recognition for this extraordinary device. He explains its mechanisms and use in obsessive detail to a visiting explorer and urges him to help him promote it, to no avail. In the end, the officer thrusts himself into the machine and dies. 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 was loosely translated to film in 1999 (as Zoetrope [1]) and was made into an opera by Philip Glass in 2000. [2]
Relevant Links
Template:Wikisource A public-domain English translation of the story This should be listed under the novella section.