Previous

“In the Penal Colony” may be seen as a Biblical allegory. Like the world of the Old Testament, filled with rules people had to follow, the world of the penal colony is brutal and barbaric. The first books of the Bible depict judgment on the failings of humans along with punishing plagues, floods, and deaths, determined by God in the Old Testament. The penal colony’s ruthless rules and punishments are likewise structured by the former Commandant who serves as a kind of god-figure. The Officer treasures the writings he’s kept from the Commandant as a holy relic. Like in the Bible’s Book of Daniel, the Commandant’s writing is unreadable and indecipherable to all but one man. In the Bible, that man was the prophet Daniel who decoded the words as judgment and punishment for the king, Belshazzar. In the penal colony, it is the Officer who claims to decode the Commandant’s writings and follows his instructions for judgment and punishment. 

The Officer may be seen as a twisted Christ-figure within the story. When the Officer puts himself in the apparatus, he acts out a self-directed crucifixion. He knows that his time of power has ended, and he chooses the words “be just” to be written on his body in an acknowledgment that he has not been just and that the system he’s clung to for so long must change. Like the story of Jesus dying for the sins of humanity, the Officer’s actions are symbolic of sacrifice and an expectation of redemption. Like the hours Jesus spent on the cross, the Officer believes that he will achieve enlightenment and rapture after six hours on the apparatus. However, that experience is denied to him since he is stabbed in the head by the machine within minutes, showing that he is a false prophet and definitely no one’s savior. 

Previous section Symbols

Take a Study Break