Alright, I appreciate the good commentary many of you added to our discussion of Virgin Suicides. I would also encourage more of you to add your contributions to these discussions. I will get better at uploading more current notes online so that you can be forewarned when I am going to call on you to discuss your posting to this blog. All apologies for the clumsiness I failed to avoid on that front yesterday.
When you read “In The Penal Colony,” you may find yourself tripped up by the prose and the lack of clarity of description. That is, it may not make any sense to you. Stay with it, however, so that you can at least ask informed questions about it (either over this blog or in class). Perhaps, its intentionally obscure language adds to the disorientation the reader feels toward the text. You may also find yourself wondering what these texts have in common, why I would have put them together for discussion: "Geez, THX is a dystopian, cautionary sci-fi film and Kafka's thing...well...it's..a...hmmmm..." Legit frustration. I assure you, though, that there is no “hidden” connection that I want to see if you can find, and there will be no big revelation in class about such. There are, though, ideas that link the two. I encourage you to look at the discussion questions on the class webpage (near the link for the reading), which should point to some such. And, I strongly encourage you to strike out on your own with ideas and questions (to which you should offer some sort of response, no matter how underdeveloped).
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Wow, first poster...alright.
ReplyDeleteI thought the theme of justice in Kafka's "In The Penal Colony" was pretty dominant throughout the entire story. The 'traveler' we learn has been invited to witness this execution via a strange torture contraption. Both THX 1138 and "In The Penal Colony" gave me this feeling of being 'along for the ride' more or less until the main characters both reached some kind of truth of their situations. It was only when Kafka's traveler began to realize what exactly the torture device was, that he began to question the crime and justice being delivered. In some ways, the traveler speaks for us when he asks such pointed questions at the Officer, who believes with undying passion that his is the way of true justice.
In THX I had a similar feeling when THX began to 'wake up'. He's more or less content to live in his drone life until LUH screws with his sedatives. Without the sedatives he begins to see the world as we, the viewers, do. We turn from observing a strange foreign society, towards lashing out against the constraints of it. Even as THX turns to religion and spirituality for answers, there is no escape from the consumerist and drone like reality of his world. Even in the opening scenes we come to realize that these humans are treated merely as resources. Their entire life structure revolves around efficiency. When THX is at work, a message goes over an intercom that his sector had less people die than another work sector. "Keep up the great work." As if the loss of a few dozen lives could ever be a positive. The Officer in Kafka's "In The Penal Colony" also has no regard for human life as he is prepared to act as judge, jury and executioner preparing to punish inadequately and inhumanely.
Punishment is also a heavy theme I thought that was reflected in both the film, THX 1138, and Kafka's story. What exactly is THX's crime? His 'trial' was also a sham. He was deemed 'uncurable', as if he was some kind of robot or machine. Just as the prisoner in Kafka's story does not even know what crime he is going to die for. THX knows the crime he has committed in his society but it is an inadequate punishment and definitely what we would call in our own society 'cruel and unusual'.
I found the reading of Kafka's In the Penal Colony to be more interesting and easier to follow than the viewing of Lucas' THX 1138. Both were strange and disturbing, but thought-producing examples of subverted utopia. I agree that punishment was central to both, but "control" over individuals appears to be more dominant. The Officer (or commandant) could administer rewards as readily as punishment. And, THX and the other "drones" could be delivered perks --relative to their perception of what a perk was. You have to wonder in both stories...did the Condemned look forward to what awaited him after the Officer impaled himself on the machine, and did THX value his freedom, even though he stood in a wasteland?
ReplyDeleteJake Hohenstreet
Though there aren’t any direct correlations plot-wise between The Penal Colony and THX-1138, there do seem to be some connections in terms of how the texts are constructed. The viewer in THX-1138 shares a similar perspective with the foreign Traveler from The Penal Colony, as both are outsiders in a strange world. Because of this outsider perspective, we are best able to observe the insanity of the processes involved, be it the inhumanity of the execution in the penal colony or the cage-like lives that the citizens live with in THX-1138. Though the Officer is too close to the perceived perfection of the apparatus in the Penal Colony, so too are the citizens involved in the running of the state in Lucas’ film. Lucas presents a completely bizarre world that feels devoid of emotion and intrinsically creepy – and apparently the early model for James Cameron’s T1000 with the weirdest cops in cinematic memory. Visually, the audience is an outsider who is allowed to voyeur into this cold and inhumane world that the citizens themselves cannot see.
ReplyDeleteIt takes an outsider to perceive the absurdity of either reality – whether it be the execution in The Penal Colony or the everyday life in THX-1138 - and to fully understand the reasons for rebelling against the system. This is a narrative decision that a variety of dystopian writers have been able to use to a very similar effect. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 illuminated the dystopian nature of the society by allowing us into the world of someone who doesn’t believe in the accepted ideology – again a cultural outsider. Only through the Savage in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are we truly able to see just how inhumane and callous the entire society had become. Robert Duvall’s character THX is also presented as someone who rebels against the accepted system by grasping for natural human emotions – in this case love. If Kafka, or the New Commandant, hadn’t chosen to use a foreigner in which to judge the execution process, there would have been no comparison for the narrative to derive satire of the entire system. Instead, the Traveler can see that the Officer is a blithering buffoon while his Soldier cannot, mainly because the Traveler has not been brought up with any previous connection to the system; at the end, the Traveler is the only impartial observer and even the Condemned Man and Soldier have completely lost their ability to reason. So too is the outside viewer in TXH-1138 instantly able to pick up on the insanity of a government that forces drugs into the blood stream of its citizens. (Even in an era when people pop Vicodin like they’re after-dinner mints and marijuana is still illegal.)
~ Dave J
I find it very interesting that "In The Penal Colony" doesn't really give any description on the race of the characters or what time period the story is set. So you can kind of use your imagination for that part of the story. Yet it uses terms like "inhuman" and "foreigner" and "European." The Traveler seemed to understand what was being said but couldn't understand the writing. The reading was very confusing and frustrating at times. I thought it was funny how they referred to the women as, well, "the women." Both stories had very flawed systems of justice. In THX he's being punished for simply being human, and in Kafka's story the condemned didn't know why he was being punished. The Traveler was free to go and come as he pleased, while THX was on the run for his freedom. I actually had a cool idea that you could think of the Traveler as maybe the type of character that THX would become once he achieved his freedom, and the Penal Colony was just one of his many discoveries in his new life. Hence, THX became a traveler himself once he escaped his dystopian society. I know how crazy that might sound, but I thought it was a cool way to look at Kafka's story.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dave in his statement that "it takes an outsider to perceive the absurdity of either reality." Both texts seem to assume that the audience's reaction to the scenario is dependent on the audience having been socialized in our modern society, in order to achieve the effect that these societies are the ultimate reversal of freedom. Basically, in order to fully understand the value of freedom, one must first realize that freedom exists. The audience, it seems, is expected to sympathize with the Condemned (and THX) as they are both convicted for what we would not even consider crimes. One similarity I picked up on is that the ultimate source of the control that these societies' rules originate from are never truly present as individuals in the stories. "Colony" names this man as the Old Commandant, who, at the time of the story, is already dead and replaced, and for the most part his extreme ways seem to have been replaced by the New Commandant's laws. This causes the reader to imagine the Officer as the last truly devoted member of a past order, at least as far as the machine goes. His prior acknowledgement that the Traveler's opinion would be negative towards the machine but still believing he could change the Traveler's opinion anyway reflect his inability to part from his role in the former society.
ReplyDeleteTHX differs from this in that the "overbearing" commander is not embodied by a single individual, but rather by the entire society itself. The closest thing to an actual authority on justice in THX would be the monk-like characters, who when THX finally meets one, we find out are just as droned out as everyone else, reporting each other simply out of a feeling of duty to society. In the case of a violation, any member of society can be considered an authority to report the crime, causing each person to either follow all the rules, or live in fear of every single person they interact with. THX even reports someone, when he has committed a violation himself. This reminded me of how human psychology is programmed to automatically use authority when given authority, as evidenced by the Nazi party and the Stanford Prison Experiment. It is the members of THX's society itself who control each other, and the robot cops are merely a symbol of that fear and power.
As I was watching THX, I tried to imagine how a member of that society would view the film. It would come off much more like an episode of COPS in which the criminal gets away at the end, and THX would be viewed as a criminal rather than as an "awakened" human. The same concept applies to "Colony" in that, if the reader were to imagine reading the story from a similar perspective as to that of the Officer, then the Traveler appears as someone who just "doesn't understand." The narration does make the machine seem somewhat gruesome, but it also makes it seem beautiful in its elaborateness in a way, without ever guiding us towards a definite statement as to either. The Officer acknowledges its gruesomeness to an outsider, but appreciates its beauty more. However, despite intentionally trying to see it from a different perspective, I couldn't help but sympathize with the Condemned. Therefore, I believe it is our own (the viewer in THX, the reader in "Colony") predispositions about what is normal that cause us to form our opinions about why these societies are abnormal.
Whew. Hope this wasn't too redundant.
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ReplyDeleteIn keeping with the idea of outsiders...
ReplyDeleteIn both stories, we are somewhat 'thrown-in' to the worlds/realities that the stories. Neither THX or Penal Colony offer much of an explanation as to where we are, time frame, etc. This seemingly coordinates with the way THX is thrown-in to his world when he 'wakes up' or the traveler to a foreign land. Both are seeing these places for the first time (the traveler literally, THX for the first time fully conscious), as are we. We have to figure out what their worlds are like from the same information THX and the traveler are given.
Both characters are thrown into a situation where they have to figure out their surroundings and what their purpose (or non-purpose) is in them.
-eric bouthiller
This is basically a shot gun spread of ideas.
ReplyDeleteTHX and PC seem to have that mystery driven storyline that reveals a little piece of the puzzle as the story progresses. The fact that no names, ages, race, or characteristics are used keeps this story in a fog or with different interpretations between each reader. THX almost has to show you the characters to keep the story interesting. The names given are basically serial numbers compared to the naming system used by the world we live in.
The role of the woman in each story almost relates to the classic Adam and Eve plot. LUH causes THX to see "outside the box" and therefore leads to his downfall (Hey! Film Noir again). In PC, the females characters are just called "the women" and are generally portrayed as just a distraction to keep whoever from doing what they are supposed to be doing.
After reading about the Officer putting himself in the apparatus, I immediately thought about the Japanese loyalty and honor, especially the samurai era and after WWII. When the emperor surrendered, many of the officials killed themselves, 1: because they couldn't face their families after surrender and 2: because they knew they would be tried for war crimes and such.
In both stories, the apparent main character escapes. THX emerges into the outer world and the Traveler catches a boat away from wherever he is.
“THX 1138” had many elements of magical realism such as fantasy world, or should I say it was logical to the people in the future, but not to us living in 2009. There are also great deals of dehumanization. The film portray a forbidden world of the future, people cannot have love relationship; people wear the same uniform; people have the same routine in life like a robot. The emotion of the characters was repressed by the society construction. Comparing to the film, Kafka’s work have more detail about the emotion and sensation, and more realistic vibe in the text. “THX 1138” is defamiliarization for the audience because of all the setting and the emotion of character.
ReplyDeleteJust testing out if this posts as my real name - I posted as "electrikyle" earlier in this thread.
ReplyDelete-Kyle King