Til.tracey percifield.unit1ip
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This document provides a summary and analysis of Franz Kafka's short story "Before the Law." It begins by noting that Kafka uses parables in the story to illustrate his writing in an ambiguous way that leaves readers searching for meaning. It then summarizes the plot of the story, where a man spends years asking a doorkeeper for permission to enter the law but is continually denied. In the end, as the man is dying, the doorkeeper says he is closing the door for good. The document analyzes potential interpretations of the story as an allegory for life, death, and man's relationship to God or divine law. It concludes by noting Kafka himself did not fully understand the meaning of the story
Til.tracey percifield.unit1ip
- 1. Running head: BEFORE THE LAW 1 Before the Law Tracey Percifield American Intercontinental University
- 2. Running head: BEFORE THE LAW 2 Abstract In the very short story, Before the Law by Frank Kafka he uses parables to tell and illustrate his writing. Although, when he wrote it he, himself new not what it fully meant and lives his readers guessing and searching for answers to their questions regarding his story.
- 3. Running head: BEFORE THE LAW 3 Before the Law In Frank Kafkas story, Before the Law he writes the story using parables and leaving his readers to decipher the meaning and interpolation of it.In the story he does not use proper character names but refers to them as the man and the doorkeeper. As the man from the country goes unto and before the door wanting admittance into the Law and ask the gatekeeper for admittance beyond the door. The gatekeeper however, tells him no each time when the man asks permission for passage. The man over the years keeps asking and bribing eventually giving away all his belongings and each time the gatekeeper accepts his gifts still denying him access and permission to enter. As the man sits and waits patiently year after year and getting older and weak the man toward the end of his living life asks the question, Why after all these years that I have been sitting here and how is it no one else comes to ask permission to enter through the door into the law? The gatekeeper answering his question and telling him the door was only for your admittance only and now Im going to shut it now (Kafka, n.d.). Using parables in the story you left with understanding the word Law and in most translations you would associate it with God Laws or the Laws of the Bible and the doorway being the gate or door to heaven since your referring as Laws are pertaining to God or the Bible. The symbolism of the phrase, Im closing it now refers to the mans life is over and death has passing. If you interpret as that being true account of the parables used then one can assume that it is all about the mans life in intervals leading up to the mans death and the reflection of his life and the choices he has made. The man stands before the gatekeeper and wants the permission to go unto the Law or into Heaven but has to reflect about his whole life and what he has done and why and reflect on his action to the choices he made throughout it before he can go beyond
- 4. Running head: BEFORE THE LAW 4 that door and at the end the door being shut reflects on the mans death and his passing making his life complete. It wasnt until later while Kafka was visiting his girlfriend that the true meaning of his story revealed the meaning to him regarding the story he wrote but it is in the reading of the story The Godot and the story The Trial to better understand the story Before the Law and the using of the parables become clearer to understanding of the story at hand. The stories are about the man or him and the uncontrollable circumstances or out of his hand but that of the Law of the land and about war and the circumstances that surround it all from Kafkas view point (Brainstorm, n.d.).
- 5. Running head: BEFORE THE LAW 5 REFERENCES Frank Kafka. (n.d.).Before the law.(Compact Edition ed., Vol. 6, p. 350). New York: Pearson. Brainstorm. (n.d.). Before the law by frank kafka. Retrieved from http://brainstorm- services.com/wcu-2004/Before the Law-NOTES.pdf