In the Penal Colony 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Where does this tale take place? Who are the characters?

Describe the machine and its operation. What is the point of executing people in the machine? What did this particular condemned man do wrong? How was guilt determined? How were public executions in the old days? What does the Officer ask the explorer to do? How does the explorer react to this? Why do you suppose the officer inserts the commandment Be just into the designer just before he begins his own execution? 9. The executioner is about to be executed. How does the condemned man understand this? How do you? 1. Should In the Penal Colony be read allegorically? Why or why not? What in the text might lead you to think it should be? 2. What causes the apparatus to fall apart? Is it lack of maintenance? Is the officers sentence impossible? Are there other reasons that come to mind? 3. Do you look at the officer as a hero, a victim, a villain, or a joke? Or some combination of any of these? 4. Are you meant to identify more with the explorer or the officer? What makes you think so? 5. Does the explorer learn something from his experience in the penal colony? What would it be? 6. Do you find anything sympathetic or worthy in the form of justice defended by the officer? Is there something it possesses that the explorer and his modern worldview lack? Where do you think the author stand? 7. Would you read the story differently if the condemned man were a more sympathetic character? How about if he were a woman? A child?