Kafka’s Before the Law

Kafka’s “Before the Law” is an allegory of human life. Every person, like a man seeking the Law at the gate, tries to grasp the meaning of their existence. Irrational fears, doubts and confusion are those guards that do not let most people in. Those inner gatekeepers prevent them from finding the purpose and order they strive for. The doorkeeper cannot be bribed, as no wealth can change who a person really is. Besides, according to the gatekeeper’s words, there are things that nobody, even those who are powerful, are allowed to know. To enter the gate means to disclose the power that rules the human life; it is a natural human desire. The man has conquered the whole world, but still cannot sort out the feelings and understand either the people around or himself. Like the man from the country, people spend their lives just within a hair’s breadth of uncovering the secret, but they do not take the plunge to cross the threshold. They raise the walls around and suppress themselves. The man from the country is too busy waiting for the Law to reach understanding of it. Law, justice and meaning of life are locked in. Everybody stays in the realm of injustice, darkness and confusion. Those who search for God never comprehend him; those who pursue a fantasy never achieve anything. But the final words of the doorkeeper, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you” prove that everybody can get the possibility to access the Law or the essence of life itself. Probably, the countryman even got the access to the Law while waiting. Thus, it can be even deduced that the only Law is the absence of Law, being merely waiting for the death to come; though it is a very depressing conclusion.