Die Transparenz der Folter: Franz Kafkas In der Strafkolonie aus Sicht der Postkolonialismus-Forschung

Franz Kafka was strongly affected by questions of and writings about colonialism. Against this background this paper in the Ger-man language analyzes the way in which as an author he negoti-ates colonial matters in his novella In the Penal Colony. This text reverses the typical visual interaction in the contact zone of the colony between the colonial context and the visitor to the colony. Also the text sharpens the destabilizing impact of mimicry as the subaltern convict temporarily presents an inversion or carnival of power targeting not the colonial master but the traveler responsi-ble for interpretation and ultimately the reader. This role is fur-ther underpinned by the motif of cannibalism. The subaltern is also a vehicle for the text to not only depict but also uncannily expose as constructed the way in which the other is mobilized to provide the colonial apparatus with identity. Most of all however on several levels the text epistemologically questions the fundamental fantasy of the colonial order of unequi-vocal meaning as the contrapuntal reading of In the Penal Co-lony - according to Edward Said - reveals. Kafkas text depicts the futile dream of a unitary power system primarily by means of the angst-ridden officer seeking to provide a spectacle of pretended transparency around the con¬struction plans for the machine the death sentence the machines mechanics and the execution with¬out allowing for any interpreta¬tion. All these textual strategies converge in the goal of exposing the untenable nature of the doomed colonial order depicted even though Kafka as a person was far from criticizing Habsburgs colonial empire.