Before the Law

Before the Law

Pedro L. O'Farrill

AIU Online

This short story "Before the Law" by Franz Kafka can be looked at in two different perspectives. It can be seen in the laws of the land view or it can be seen by other as a religious view. As I read this story it was a little confusing, but as I read it again I had two different views of this short story.

My first main idea of this story is that it was talking about law. Laws made for people to obey. When someone is accused of a crime they are summonses before the law to face the charges against them or to declare their innocence and their freedom. The accuser is the outsider at this gate of law. The doorkeeper can be seen as the officer that can give him entrance to the prison or out of prison. The doorkeepers are known as the guardians such as the judges, the state, and the police and they also must follow the laws as the countryman or accuser.

The Law becomes a place which the man from countryside wants to enter but is prevented from entering by the door keeper. The doorkeeper does not prevent the man directly. The law supposed to be open for all mankind but it is guarded by series of doors and doorkeepers which in reality is the different laws that are more powerful than the first law written. The doorkeeper's last word to the man at the gate was: "No one but could have been admitted here, since this entrance was meant for you only. Now I am going to shut it", (Kafka, 1919, pg. 350).

These men spend his entire life waiting to get an answer that was already there. It could be that there was no law. The countryman's waiting all his life until he die. So he didn't learn anything or what the law was. He didn't understand the Law because he is too busy waiting for the Law. He was more concerned with the doorkeeper then learning about the Law and how to get access to it. If he understood that there were obstacles to