Blog 1-topic #1 Kungyao Wang

Blog post 1-Topic#1

Kungyao Wang

In “Before the Law”, Franz Kafka describes a countryman who tries to get access to the gate of law.  However, the gatekeeper blocks the countryman out and never let him pass through the gate. To analyze this short story, our group chooses Marxist Criticism literary theory. In contrast, another group chooses reader-response theory which is more convincing to me.

To analyze this story in Marxist approach, we consider countryman as lower class people and the gatekeeper as people who have power. “I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper.” This sentence shows that this gatekeeper has only a little power, but he is able to block the countryman to have access to the law. The last sentence of the story “here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it” tells us that the social class that you are in decides your fate. No matter how much effort you put in, the fact that lower class people don’t have access to the law won’t change.

I prefer reader response theories because many “gaps” in this story need readers own assumptions, and I change my assumptions about those “gaps” while I am reading this short story. First, the author never describes what is the “law” that behind the gate and why the countryman tries to gain entry into the gate. “The law” can be its literary meaning and the countryman is trying to gain access to the law, or “The law” can be a place like heaven. My first assumption is that “the law” is heaven and the countryman was not qualify to get in. However, when I read to “the man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper.”, I think the countryman was trying to bribe the gatekeeper in order to have access to the law. Base on my personal experience, in my country, poor people have to bribe the men in power in order to use the law to protect themselves. From here, I change my assumption to the countryman don’t have access to the law because he is in a lower class. “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.”, this is another “gap” that the author didn’t explain. Why the gatekeeper receives countryman’s gifts but he doesn't let the countryman into the gate? Is it because of his integrity or the gifts were not valuable enough?

My assumptions change from psychological approaches to Marxist approaches base on my personal experiences. So, I think reader response theory is more accurate to use to analyze this short story.