The Metamorphisis and Other Stories Book

"Before the Law stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. 'It is possible,' says the doorkeeper, 'but not at the moment.' Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: 'If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each one more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him.' These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter."


I tried to get ideas from the other reviews of this work here at goodreads but no one seemed to have ventured to suggest what this "Law" is. But I think Kafka had given hints. The story continues:


"The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finished with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: 'I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything.'"


Interesting that the man would give bribes and the doorkeeper would always accept them. Time then inexorably proceeded with speed--


"During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas on his fur coat, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind."


These were what the man did. But notice what he didn't, or failed, to do up to the time he approached his own end--


"At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishable from the gateway of the Law."


Now what "radiance" is this? And what "darkness"? The finale comes as follows:


"Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low towards him, much to the man's disadvantage. 'What do you want to know now?' asks the doorkeeper; 'you are insatiable.' 'Everyone strives to reach the Law,' says the man, 'so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?' The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ears: 'No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.'"


The end. So what does it mean? Let me give it a shot.

Kafka was obsessed with the human condition and the eternal questions about existence (see my other review of his longer work, "The Trial"). The "Law" here can't simply be justice or a desired enforcement of rights. The law (whether it be human, natural or divine) GOVERNS. The man here, as any other man, sought that which governs human existence, that which explains or gives meaning to it, the ultimate whys and wherefores of everything and which everyone, at one time of his/her life, would find the need to wonder about and which the man here--like any other man--thought should "be accessible at all times and to everyone."


He was tantalized by this. It is POSSIBLE to be admitted to the Law and the door is ALWAYS open. But there are obstacles, both imagined (the other doorkeepers) and real (the doorkeeper before him) and he lacks the courage to ignore all these obstacles and just go inside and find out what is there. There was fear of what he might find out when he goes in without "permission."


He wanted it easy. To be PERMITTED inside. To be spoon-fed and be lulled into contentment about the big issues of life. So he asked and asked in an unceasing prayer, bribing his way through offerings and sacrifices to a mute idol who just stood there without objection to what was laid before its feet. In his youth there was exuberance in the man's petitions; in his old age, only childishness, then darkness. Yet in his darkness he finally becomes aware of the glory--though futile--of man's unending quest for meaning, unique to each person, a quest unto death. "Insatiable," said the doorkeeper to the man who ended his personal journey by dying, in darkness as hope ended, and as the door to the Law's gateway is closed.