Blog Post 1–Kafka's "Before the Law"

Franz Kafka’s story “Before the Law” presents a clear imbalance of power between the man  attempting to gain access to the law and the gatekeeper that guards the entrance. Due to this, a Marxist approach when analyzing the story seems to be the most fitting, as Gardner states in “Literary Criticism and Literary Theory”: “[in Marxist criticism] Literary characters could be divided into powerful oppressors and their powerless victims…” (Gardner 169). Based on Gardner’s explanation, the gatekeeper can be seen as the powerful oppressor and the man plays the role of his powerless victim. However, another critical approach that can be taken when analyzing Kafka’s story is the psychoanalytical approach, since it looks at “the internal mental states, the desires, and the motivations of literary characters” (Gardner 174). When looking at Kafka’s story from a psychoanalytical perspective, the gatekeeper can be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the obstacles the man has to overcome in life in order to achieve his goals. 

My group focused on the Marxist approach when analyzing “Before the Law”. One of the most compelling aspects for using this approach was the clear difference in power between the man and the gatekeeper, which can be seen in the man’s impression of the gatekeeper and in his decision to wait to be granted access: “…he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat…he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside” (Kafka). As a group, we looked at the gatekeeper’s possession of a fur coat as a sign of a higher socio-economic status and at the fact that his appearance intimidates the man into submission.

We also noticed an economic element to their interactions, as the man tries to use his material possessions to buy access to the law: “…[he] spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper” (Kafka). Here, the narrator emphasizes the power imbalance between the two characters as the man’s ability to gain access seems entirely dependent on the gatekeeper’s will. This imbalance is highlighted by the fact that the gatekeeper accepts the man’s payments, yet refuses to grant him access, which suggests an abuse of his power. 

However, we were confused by the gatekeeper’s final statement to the dying man, in which he claims that the “entrance was assigned only to you” (Kafka). The gatekeeper’s statement makes more sense when analyzing the text from a psychoanalytical viewpoint, as the gatekeeper could be a symbol for the challenges the man was meant to face in his life in order to achieve his goals. If we look at the gatekeeper as a symbol of self-imposed limitations, representing the man’s insecurities and what he believes he is capable of achieving, then the gatekeeper’s claim that the entrance he was guarding was assigned to the man specifically makes much more sense. 

Furthermore, when the man first arrives at the gate to the law, even though the gatekeeper tells the man that he cannot let him enter, the narrator explicitly states that the gate is not closed: “At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside” (Kafka). From this statement, the reader learns that, not only is the gate not closed, but that it is always open, which gives the impression that it is actually accessible to the man. The narrator also points out that the gatekeeper stands to one side of the open gate, rather than blocking it, and throughout the story the gatekeeper only verbally prevents the man from entering going through the gate; there are no mentions of the gatekeeper physically interfering with the man’s attempts to enter the gate. This reinforces the idea that the gatekeeper is symbolic of the man’s self-imposed limitations, as the gatekeeper’s lack of physical interference, combined with the fact that he remains the same even as the man ages, suggests that he is in the man’s head rather than a living person. 

Although both the Marxist and psychoanalytical approaches seem applicable to the text, the psychoanalytical criticism seems to help in achieving a better understanding of the story as a whole. Since certain elements, such as the gatekeeper’s lack of physical interference with the man’s attempts to enter the gate and the fact the he doesn’t age along with the man, are not so easily explained by using a Marxist approach when analyzing the text.