In the Penal Colony

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In the Penal Colony | Critical Overview

Although Kafka wrote "In the Penal Colony" in 1914, and it was published in German in 1919, there was no English translation until 1948. Accordingly, little criticism in English appeared before the 1950s. Austin Warren, in "An Exegetical Note on 'In the Penal Colony'," published in the Southern Review was one of the first critics to identify the allegory in the story as dealing with religion in the modern world. He theorized that the penal colony represents the whole earth where all people await judgment. In times past there was a systematic theology which meant that everyone knew...

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