Before the Law

Before the Law

As humans start to live together and civilizations evolve, certain rules are formed. Although some of these rules are written created by humans, some are said to fall down from the sky which are translated by prophets and some are not formally written down anywhere but they are excepted among the society, they all consist of the concept of justice. As individuals who are part of a society, while we are forced to believe that our options are only limited by our imagination, the truth is that for every aspect of our lives, both written and verbal rules limit us to such an extend that, an illusion of freedom has to be created to keep people from panicking as they realize they are in a cage. It can be argued that human's tendency to trade to survive has let us to his condition as we accept limitations on condition that justice is served on behalf of us by the law. The somewhat abstract concept of the trade between freedom and justice is reflected by Kafta in his parable "Before the law" in a more concrete way by an image of a gateway.  

One of the ways "Before the law" can be interpreted is that although he fears the law, he is also convinced that it is supposed to apply to everyone. He is tricked by the idea that justice should be honored and his entrance can only be permitted at the right time set by the law. From another perspective the relationship between the countryman and the doorman reflects the human condition against the divine forces. As opposed to the countryman who is incapable of understanding the situation, the doorman seems to be fully aware of what is going on. In addition to that, their physical conditions are also changing independently from each other; as the countryman gets old and eventually dies, the doorman is immortal and he doesn't even get old. 

Considering how little control we have in many aspects of our lives, some of the events that we go through unwillingly sure seem like trials where we are tested by higher powers who are capable of being just to us. At the end of the parable the doorman says "No one else could ever be admitted here, since the gate was made only for you" referring to an idea that this whole world that we read is the world from the countryman's point of view and he has his individual trials, limitation, assumptions and fears like everybody else.