English Project - In the Penal Colony.
This project is a comparison to In the Penal Colony by Frank Kafka. I have here several excerpts from newspaper and magazine articles which are generally about terrorism and torture. The device that was used in In the Penal Colony was a pointless device. There was no lesson to be learned and no benefit from it to anyone. It served no purpose. Likewise terrorism is a form of pointless torture. There is no point made, no benefit, and no lesson that could possibly be learned through acts of terror. This comparison shows that modern terrorism and torture is just as pointless as the sentence writer in the story. .
Torture, like terrorism, is an act of barbarism.
ALLEN S. KELLER, M.D.
New York, March 10, 2003.
The writer is director, Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture.
One of the most outstanding examples of terror is of course September 11th. The horror of the attacks on September 11th was the fact that so many lives, so much money, so much hard work and effort, so many emotions, so much creativity, so much of everything was destroyed. It was an act of pure destruction. There was no logical reason that could make the events of September 11th excusable or acceptable. It was a useless, pointless, message less waste. There was no lesson learned and no good done. This (though not quite on the same scale) is comparable to the killing machine devised by the general in In the Penal Colony. The person who was sentenced to be sentenced was to have their crime written on their body continuously for hours upon hours until they died. It is an unconscionable form of torture. .
The torture machine was an intricately designed killing device. It was made of three parts. "The bottom part is called the bed, the top part the scriber, and this middle part, suspended between them, is known as the harrow." It's movement was also intricately planned.
