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this is the archive of a discussion on the franz kafka discussion list. one person posted questions about the story (message 1), some else replied (message 2), and then went back and forth for a fewmore messages. this is the chronological account of their dialoge (just follow the "next" and "previous" buttons to navigate), and the messages have not been edited or altered in any way. on a similar note, though, because of this discussion, i wrote my own interpretation of "before the law". check it out if you like.
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Unfortunately, I am still confused about what being "there" is. I've formulated some questions and guesses.
1) What is the opposite of being "there?" I'm beginning to think of it as "interacting with." So, if the Law is viewed-- as rocks are recently viewed-- as just being there, then the viewer will never get anywhere in it, regardless of how many gates he passes through, since it's infinite. But, if he views the environment as being alive, a character, etc. then the increasingly deep levels of the Law will be increasingly wonderful to him, as he gains a sort of intimacy with it. So, what I'm getting at is: is animism, religion or some form of projecting or letting there be life in surrounding objects the opposite of viewing things as just being there?
2) What question is answered by the postulation that the man from the country saw the Law as merely "there." I think you mentioned it as one of his failings, as something that impeded his entrance into the Law. I don't see it in the parable and, while that's fine, I'm wondering exactly which works you're using to supplement and what indication there is in the text that the man saw the Law as merely "there". Until I get that I think I'll be worthless in discussing this issue.
3) When you say the Law's "thereness" is horrible, do you mean it in the way that the "thereness" of Tantalus's fruit was horrible: always in reach/never in reach? Or, is it more like an internal split: the simultaneous posession of undying hope and the hatred of that hope forbringing disappointment? Perhaps both? Neither?
> In this context, which I think is not being arbitrarily evoked what keeps the man from entering the
> Law (a word so full of religious reminiscences in judaism, as it is 'God's logos' in the presence of
> Christ in christianism), is the impossibility to leap: there is no continuity between the finite and the
> infinite, which is proper of the Law and the way into it. If there is communication in between, this
> communication is a leap.
I find this very interesting. My own studies focus on what Roland Barthes has called "the zero degree;" this leap of faith from finite to infinite is identical to the process of semiosis which creates the zero degree. In writing, the leap from finite to infinite could be reworded as the process by which a word ceases to hold only its characteristic definitions connotations etc, and becomes filled with something far greater and more interpretable. I can give examples of this from Kafka if you'd like. I am also interested because it seems to tie quite well into my own description of the process of moving through the Law as freedom-gaining one. In semiosic terms, the word gains meaning through this leap (though it does not leap; it's semes are placed in unusual configuration due to context), in terms of the parable, the man gains potential. Not only does he enter into the infinite, he also gains experience in jumping.
In any case, I don't think the man kept from leaping because it was impossible. I think he just didn't have the guts. I say this because the gatekeeper seems to place a suggested action right in the man's face and he never tries it. As I suggested earlier, he never tries it because he is because he is too set in his ideas and not inquisitive enough to make even the mental leap necessary to see how his conception of the Law differed from the actual case presented in the story.
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