From the events that transpire, however, it seems that Kafka doesn't agree with the officer's belief in words as the ultimate source of power. All the officer's stream of description isn't enough to fully convey what he wants to about the machine. His powers of persuasion don't extend to overturn the basic human decency of the explorer. And even more importantly, his vaunted words, and his belief in his precious machine aren't enough, in the end, to grant him the beauty and serenity of true enlightenment he claims that others have had. For Kafka, the officer, the one who relies the most on the use of words, dies bereft of the hope and beauty that come with true understanding. Kafka seems to imply that revelations cannot come from speech, from crude and man-made words. This is reinforced by the fact that it is the prisoners who are gagged and unable to speak who achieve the understanding that eludes the officer. Unlike Plato, Kafka doesn't believe in the power of the written word to arrive at truth, but neither does he offer an alternative. The story leaves us uncertain, knowing only the dangers of abandoning truth for speech.
Monday, October 4, 2010
The Power and Weakness of Language
The most prominent example of use of words and images as well as imagery in The Penal Colony comes through the words of the unnamed officer. Unlike the taciturn explorer and the almost entirely uncomprehending soldier and prisoner, he uses an excess of words, describing in exhaustive detail the torture that the machine inflicts, and yet still insisting that there is even more to tell, if he only had more time. Kafka then juxtaposes this unending stream of words and descriptions with the character's deep-seated belief in the power of words. He believes that words can be used as weapons, as a powerful and unstoppable force of persuasion, even concocting an elaborate plan to save his way of life by having the explorer shout his approval of the machine from a balcony (Kafka 159).
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In one of the previous lectures, Professor Daub mentioned that Kafka supported the use of words rather than images because technological images give us data but don't explain it, causing the true meaning to get lost. However, I agree with you, Pablo, that in this story Kafka appears to be illustrating the devastating effect words can have. The officer certainly does believe in the power of words to affect change in others, especially since the whole apparatus is designed to write certain words of justice upon the condemned. However, although the officer is a firm believer in inundating everyone around him with words, he doesn't seem to receive them very well. His idea of a trial is completely one-sided, because if he heard both sides, things would just get too confusing (Kafka 146). This type of view makes it very difficult to arrive at the truth. Additionally, Kafka demonstrates how words seem to be inherently limited using the language barrier. Even though words are constantly being spoken, the prisoner never knows what's really happening throughout the entire story. First, he has no concept of what the apparatus does, or why he's being sentenced, and then when he's freed, he doesn't understand why or how this came about.
ReplyDeleteKafka’s literary style can sometimes be described as dark, somewhat grotesque and formed by surreal complexities. The penal colony is a great example of this literary style, where Kafka sets up this menacing, and complex setting, where as Pablo stated, the words and images and symbols of the book are manifested through the officer’s diction. Underlying the prominent image of justice, the uncanny power of words I believe is of equal importance, as it establishes the idea that language cannot truly offer a real understanding of images such as justice. Kafka writes, “the prisoner, for instance, will have written on his body: honor thy superiors!” (144) in order to convey that even though the words will be engraved to the body, these words will not offer true justice, in reality they will have committed a true injustice. Kafka’s complex nature of thought, sometimes make us wonder whether or not language provides a true, or misleading understanding of the reality that surrounds images.
ReplyDeleteLike Kafka’s Austria, the officer relies too much on words and the keeping of tradition. His devotion to words, ultimately, leads to his demise because he realizes that his beliefs and his words cannot stand up to the truth. The truth, as viewed by the audience, the explorer, the new Commandant, and the residents of the Penal Colony, is that the Harrow is evil. Neither the narrator nor any of the characters ever make an argument as to why the machine is evil; the fundamental truth of its wickedness needs no arguing. Try as he might, the officer is unable to convince the explorer that using the machine to torture and kill criminals is just. No amount of words can counteract the power of the truth.
ReplyDeleteThese points may be easy to make after professor Daub's lecture, but they're very relevant to the issues you mention, Pablo. As I see it, Kafka's writing plays with the power of words or lack thereof. He does not necessarily label words as an obstacle towards reaching true insights. What he creates, on the other hand, is an illustration of the way words are able to blur our vision if we are not aware of their power. That leaves it up to us to sort the words and images in Kafka's writing and to eventually decipher what happens behind the haze of descriptions and narratives.
ReplyDeleteThat concept is brilliantly illustrated in Cesar's quotation on the inscription on the body. The words are readable, and in some way the perfect example of teaching a criminal a lesson. Still, the tragic irony remains that the commandant becomes so caught up in the machinery that he loses sight of what actually happens. The distinction between justice and punishment, moral and immoral, seems both crystal clear and horribly derailed. The real tragedy, however, which is what makes much of Kafka's writing so intriguing, is that nobody, perhaps not even the reader, notices that something is wrong.
It was interesting to me that Kafka made words so hard to decipher. When the Officer pulled out the "guiding plans" drawn up by the old Commandant, the explorer could not make out the words written there. He stated that it looked like "a labyrinth of lines crossing and recrossing each other" (148), almost like an image. This could indicate that Kafka views words as not concrete, hard to make sense of, or not useful in true understanding of an idea or entity. The words were supposed to be guiding plans explaining the machine, and yet the explorer could not read them and achieved understanding instead through watching the machine at work. Also, the fact that the officer could read the words and the explorer could not may be implying that words can be viewed and interpreted differently depending on the person. Overall, Kafka seems to be saying that truth does not come from words but from observation and personal judgment made from those observations.
ReplyDeleteThrough the short story itself, Kafka illustrates the distancing effect of both words and logical images. Despite its grotesque nature, no one questioned whether Kafka's work was appropriately assigned to a college class, and we are able to analyze it without much personal attachment. However, I doubt the same would be true if the class had been required to personally witness the scene. This scenario is very similar to Professor Bobonich's "maimed baby" example. Although the description of the apparatus and of the execution is detailed and eerily logical, there is a difference between the image the words are able to conjure and an experience of actual perception. It is this sense of perception, and, through perception, revelation, that the prisoners who have been executed experience. Although it is not explicitly stated, perhaps these prisoners, like the guard, had a language barrier, which would make it even less likely that they could make sense of the machine with words and images before physically perceiving it. The officer, who experiences the machine more through the words and images left to him by the Commandant than through physical perception, is unable to attain true knowledge, as is the explorer, who relies upon the officer's words.
ReplyDeleteI see the failing of the officer's words in what Plato sees as the failing of rhetoric: without truth, the written or spoken word can fail. The officer exudes with his obsession over the machine and his understanding of its function, but the explorer and the reader share a different truth, that the machine is inhumane. Because the officer and the explorer have such contrasting backgrounds with regards to torture and execution, the speech fails. We also place the soldier and condemned man between the officer and us in terms of this truth. However, Kafka checks this notion when the explorer supports the officer's decision to enter the machine. Perhaps we hold different truths than the explorer as well, and without reconciling that difference, we must stand aside with the soldier and condemned man as observers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with wordnimage (which is Dustin, I think...) that one of the themes of the story is how words can fail without truth behind them. All through the story, we see examples of the failure of communication: the prisoner who does not understand the language the others speak, the unreadable inscription, the climactic break-down of the machine... The one element in the story that seems to suggest that words do have an inherent power is when the officer tells of watching a condemned men reach a moment of enlightenment, when the "truth" is carved into his skin and he finally understands the inscription by "deciphering it with his wounds"(150). But, as Professor Daub cautioned us today, we should look at this skeptically. It is a fantastical and oddly supernatural element in an otherwise pretty practical story, and I'm not sure we are meant to believe it at all. We have only the officer's word for it, and the rest of the story leads us to take all words with a grain of salt.
ReplyDeleteKafka's style is deliberately ambiguous and throughout his short story he demonstrates this fact by his representation of words and images. His use of words to describe the event are rather inexpressive compared to the gravity of what an execution would feel like. However, at the same time his notion of images is used to express the same sentiment- that reality is lost through both these mediums. This is represented, as mentioned before, by the headstrong officer whose overabundance of words causes him to lose sight of justice. It is also represented for images when the officer presents the explorer with the map to the machine, but it is not discernible what it is. The meaning is lost and, what's more, there was even confusion as to whether it was an image or words. Kakfa, perhaps, is suggesting that there is less separating them than we think.
ReplyDeleteKafka's characters, especially the officer, use over-complication through words and images as an effective means to sterilize reality. The officer spends pages and pages trying to explain the machine to the explorer and his word choice is elaborate and puzzling. This serves to confuse the reader and the other characters in the book, causing his words to in effect lose their meaning all together. He describes a machine used to inflict death on human beings, and yet he shows no sadness, sympathy, or respect to human life. His complicated words become meaningless and lose any trace of truth. The picture he shows to the explorer is an example of how an overcomplicated image can distort and disinfect reality. The image is so busy that the true meaning behind it is unrecognizable. The machine itself is another example of overcomplication. Only a small number of people can actually operate it, and it has numerous parts. This complicated machine removes human involvement from the execution, further sterilizing its actual purpose. This overcomplication and excess used in words and images causes the real meaning of the situations they are describing, death and tragedy, to be lost.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Kafka relys on words to convey his message and I think that he strongly uses images to tell his story. How many of you felt that while reading the story they felt like they are in the scene?
ReplyDeleteI felt like I am watching a horror movie !
We can see as well that there is a confusion between words and images in Kafka's mind, particularly in the "Be Just" portray. "Be Just" could not be read because it is behind a very confusing image. Does that indicate that images are stronger than words? I believe that it indicates Kafka's preference to images, just like the word "Be Just" behind the image, Kafka uses words to support his imagery and convey his ideas.
Over all, the portray indicates that we cannot separate words from images because behind every image there are some words, in turn, words as well present images.
I agree with Fatema in that it truly feels like you are in the scenes being described. Unlike the readings of Phaedrus, Kafka seems to project more efficiently to my mindset, allowing myself to engage in the reading and understand more clearly. The words used illustrate vivid images in my mind and this is the main reason behind why I think words and images cannot be separated. In my case every image you see has a word attached to it. If you picked up a red marker you wouldn't just think of the image of the color or the shade of it. You would think "red".
ReplyDeleteI think it may be interesting to think about the officer's justification for the Harrow's usefulness and necessity--namely, that he never articulates one. He keeps speaking about the mechanism of carving out patterns on the victim's body--something that takes him a very long time to actually arrive to, since he keeps explaining about the jiggling bed without overtly discussing the needles until later on. The officer also repeats that the Harrow is there to enact justice, a point that culminates when he shows the explorer the illegible design. The officer doesn't, however, describe a) why people would actually deserve that gruesome of a treatment, nor b) why this method of punishment actually constitutes justice at all. That reinforces many observations made above about how language can mask meaning by distracting from important matters [morality vs the mechanism of the Harrow].
ReplyDeleteI believe that the officer's omission of moral values in his speech does not necessarily show that Kafka believes that rhetoric or words inadequately describe fundamental truths; rather, the officer's words are a) spoken words that b) serve to illustrate the device in lurid fashion, not to discuss morality. What Kafka is actually demonstrating is not a deficiency in word's ability to describe things--if one was interested in the technical details of the Harrow, the officer does an excellent job. Rather, Kafka shows that physical images and descriptions are insufficient to describe the truth in any absolute sense, because what is true involves moral and qualitative distinctions that can be described in words, but can be distracted by images and description.