Continuing the trend of Kafka-related posts, I ascribe to the belief that the door keeper is somehow related to the man. Whether he placed there by a higher power or created by the man’s own mind, his purpose is directly related solely to the man.
That being established, I interpreted the title to be temporal initially, but recognized the spatial aspect to it later. This gave the passage a sort of double meaning as I read it. The man stood physically before the Law, but he could not enter because of the authority – an aspect which can only be gained through power or a legal system. He also stood at point in time when he was without the law – “before the law” – because was not physically in it.
For me, this raises many questions. How is it that the country man seems to have a sense of moral right and wrong at least to the extent of understanding he cannot enter because of the authority of the guard? If it is temporal, what is existence before the law compared to it after? Why is the law so desired?
Regardless of interpretation, these questions have not been easy to answer – mainly because they deal with issues not directly addressed by the passage. However, though that makes them all seem tangential, they are actually qualifiers which could aid in the understanding of whether the realm described in the passage are part of actuality or a perceived reality in the mind of the country man.
Further along this line, it becomes a question of the significance of perceived reality and implications of a personally crafted law and doorkeeper versus that of an actual doorkeeper protecting the actual law. The interpretations are too numerous to list in their entirety, but the main ideas seem to be the importance of a self-made limitation on our own value systems versus our interactions and importance placed on the actual value systems that exist within our “world.”
I am sorry this is a bit abstract, but let me know what you think if you feel you have a good answer to any of the ideas I brought up.
I understand what you mean about the double meaning but I'm struggling to try to answer your questions. You raise a good point.
ReplyDeleteI want to say that the country man would have a moral code because I'm assuming he would live in an area with some sort of government, but that is only true given my assumptions. Maybe the traveler has an understanding of morals and authority based on how he was raised with his parents? We do learn how to respect authority thorugh our parents anyway.
With the question of existence, I don't quite understand the relevance. Are you trying to communicate the idea that existence would not exist without law?
You definitely raise a lot of interesting questions, but some of them need further exploring. You mention that the country man does not pass the guard because of his moral sense of rights and wrongs. I'm not sure that it's morally wrong for him to undermine the guard's authority and enter the gate. I'm not even sure that it's a matter of morality at all. Unless you're drawing a parallel between morality and the creation/discovery/entry into the Law?
ReplyDeleteFor me, it seemed as if the country man did not enter the gate because the guard used power (or his physical dominance) to assert his authority. He also used intimidation, which caused the country man's own fear to limit his entrance.
I don't think that the point that it is "the law" should be a huge point of contention. This was the path for only this one man. Perhaps this was what he personally valued the most. That is everyone's "law" is what they value and what they live by. That being said, if the "law" is what we value the most than it would be worth waiting for.
ReplyDeleteOn the guard I think it is impossible to say whether or not he is a figment of the man's imagination. However, the authority and power of the gatekeeper is intrenched within the man's mind, perhaps because he is connected with the law in the man's mind.
To me, the doorkeeper is part of the man's imagination. And if we interpret it that way, then the struggle to enter the door is all within his head. In his mind, he believes that entering into the law is difficult, and this is what the doorkeeper stood for. This being that the man is a slave to his own mind. He thinks that something is difficult; therefore, he blockades himself in front of the law and will not enter into it. Still, I understand that he wants the law. But does he want it enough to challenge it? If you ask me, I would say no. But while he sits in the chair, he is just hoping that the law would change so that he can enter into the gate. It is a commentary, to me, that the guy is not doing anything about it.
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