In der Strafkolonie

In der Strafkolonie, a short story written by F. Kafka in 1914, and published in 1919. A traveller (Der Reisende), visiting a penal colony, is shown the extraordinarily ingenious machine used for protracted and harrowing execution. It is the invention of a former commandant. The officer who shows off the machine deliberately places himself upon it and is killed by it. The story has been variously interpreted as existentially determined torment, as a symbol of the emptiness of modern humanitarianism, and as a denunciation of Christianity; other interpretations have also been offered.