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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 14 page paper evaluates the Kafka story The Penal Colony. Foucault's ideas about society ad prison are reviewed. The story is analyzed and a four page research log is included. Bibliography lists 12 sources.
Page Count:
14 pages (~225 words per page)
File: RT13_SA651Kfk.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
creating criminals as opposed to merely treating people who have been engaged in transgressions. It looks at people negatively as opposed to merely treating people as people but punishing them
when warranted. In examining Kafkas The Penal Colony, a story that was written to demonstrate a variety of things, there is a sense that a Foucaultian view is taken. Indeed,
The Penal Colony does illustrate Foucaults conception of law. Foucault is an important theorist in this domain. May states: "It is important to note that Foucault is as relevant now
as he has always been1." Foucaults ideas are clearly important to the interpretation of this story, but it is also the case that Kafkas work stands on its own, as
an illustration of what is wrong with society. Professor Marguilies claims that the prison of Guantanoma Bay is Kafka-esque2. Others have said the same thing. They claim that the prisons
are reminiscent of Kafka stories because the prisoners are detained for an unknown length of time and cannot secure legal counsel3. Yet, Some have discussed both of the theorists as
being quite similar. For example, Leonard lumps the two in by describing the "nightmares of Kafka and Foucault4." Clearly, one can interpret the Kafka story in respect to Foucaults ideas.
II. Foucaults Conception of Law First, it is important to note that Foucault was involved mostly in three primary concepts which are discourse, power and knowledge5.
Habermas (1996) writes: "Built into the very status of citizenship in welfare-state democracies is the tension between a formal extension of private and civic autonomy on one hand, and a
normalization in Foucaults sense, the fosters the passive enjoyment of paternalistically dispensed rights, on the other6. " Indeed, the Foucaultian perspective is one that does embrace normalization. Here, it
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