Before the Law by Franz Kafka

Analysis by Uday Vir Garg My understanding and analysis of Franz Kafkas Before the Law, is based largely on Jacques Derridas analysis of the same. Derrida constantly questions the existence of the knowledge of the existence of a non-knowledge about the law, framing it as ironically as the country mans decision not to decide how to approach the law, but waiting for the gate to be opened instead. The coexistence of the law as a safeguard of the citizens rights, and a safeguard of the law denying any real access to it brings into question the very origin of this law, and the law moral, political or natural - that shapes this law. While the law, for the most part, remains concealed, it produces itself ambiguously from time to time, reassuring the man of its authority. The gatekeeper even gives the countryman a stool to sit on while hes waiting, legitimising the laws existence and authority, but not articulating it. The gatekeepers denial of access to the law without resolving its impossibility is the ironic centre of the mans position before the law and that of that gatekeeper as well. The gatekeepers position before the law, as he faces the man who wishes to have access to the law, is also questionable as he too is separated from the law by other gatekeepers, clarifying the fact that the countryman will only get access to the place where the law is safeguarded and not to the law itself. The ambiguity of the end of Kafkas writing to leave it to the readers interpretation also runs parallel to the non-resolution of the law and the non-knowledge of its origin and kind and the unknown of what lies behind the gates that guard the law. It is just as dubious as the fact that a legitimate law is neither promised nor denied, but still manages to be legitimate. The ambivalent undertones throughout the story reflect Kafkas and probably a general inability to comprehend the behaviour and the philosophy of the law, and what it seems to project its identity as. Despite its silence, it manages to make a statement, and its void of discontinuity is filled by the duality of its invisible existence.