Thoughts On An Imperial Message

On the first look, this parable seems to be referring to the mechanics of a huge empire. The regular people are referred to as “insignificant shadows.” They get so little attention and have so little impact that Kafka does not even use something materially present in this definiton but a shadow, merely a darker spot that never draws the eye to it. In this machine, it is impossible to reach out to every individual, to speak to them and hear them speak back and let each voice be heard because there are too many obstacles and steps in between. The powerful man who is trying to reach out to the undistinguished citizen extinguishes his time and strength on overcoming these hurdles without success, while the citizen remains at the same far away spot dreaming about being reached out to. This is mainly an issue of communication. The parable might also be referring to the issue of understading. It is hard for the powerful and rich to understand the ordinary and poor when their worlds are as remote and distanced from each other as mentioned in the parable: separated by great halls and chambers, shiny staircases, courtyards and outer palaces. The emperor is so secluded from his subjects, it has become much harder for him to acknowledge them and to recognize and address their problems.

We can also interpret the parable to have an epistemological theme. In this sense, the humble subject would be any human and the message would be ‘the absolute truth.’ Every human ‘dreams to himself’ about hearing this message. In other words, every man cares about the truth as it helps them find meaning in life and it is also one of the most important questions for humankind. Similarly in the parable, this message is clearly incredibly important: The dying wish of the most powerful man in the empire is for this message to be delivered and he even double checks whether the messenger understood it correctly. But the message never reaches the subject in the parable – the man never really obtains ‘the absolute truth’ – because of all the obstacles in the way. The material obstacles (chambers, gates, palaces) between the subject and the message, in the context of absolute truth, might be interpreted as man’s unreliable perception of reality. So the parable tells us that the man will never know anything for certain because cannot trust the knowledge he gains through his senses, his mind or anything else.