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Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the literary titans of the 20th century. What drew me is his creepy sense of humor as he focuses on isolated characters that experience the bizarre. In the Penal Colony is one of those books. I had trouble with this book because it is a difficult story and I wondered what morbid ideas made Kafka write it. Its underlining meanings are either to arcane or incoherently presented to make them assessable to the most sophisticated reader, but I am going to take a stab at it. The plot is interesting of a condemned man awaiting the execution for a crime unware even of the fact that he has been condemned. After being strapped in, justice is done by an elaborate torture and execution device that carves with needles the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin. After doing this for twelve hours he dies. Simply mind blowing justice and the lack of it. That is the point of the whole story the lack of justice. "Guilt is never to be doubted."(p.7) In other words none are innocent, all are assumed to merit punishment and actual facts of a case do not matter. The story raises questions about capital punishment, what is justice anyway, what does it mean to be guilty, and is there any value in suffering. The metaphor the condemned is assumed guilty-no trail no defense raises a lot of questions. The story leaves the reader with much to ponder and a rich source of nightmare material. I highly recommend reading this story one that will send a chill up your spine.