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Kafka's Punishment Some of the most common themes in Joseph Kafka's literature deal with justice and punishment. "In the Penal Colony" is a narrative which takes a critical look at totalitarian punishment and its faults. As the title suggests, it is set in a penal colony, on a small island where discipline and punishment are all-important. The story is told from the perspective of an explorer who, much like the reader, is an outsider of …

…in the US we may feel separated from the kind of inhumanity of the execution machine, torture still exists in many parts of the world. Over the course of the last century, millions of people have been severely punished or executed in the name of so-called justice. The narrative addresses this most important question: what does it take to truly "be just"? In the Penal Colony - Kafka http://www.geocities.com/univbelkafka/penalcolony.htm