Blog 4

The man in the story seems to be portrayed as both the subject and the self. In the beginning as we read he is obviously just a subject of the law unable to get access to "Law": abiding the rules, biding his time, and ultimately wasting his life. The "Gatekeeper" keeps him subject by acting as the first string of the "Law". By the end of the story, however, we see that all along the self was evident due to the fact the the door the "countryman" was trying to enter was specifically designed for him and there was no other like it; making it undeniably unique and catering to the self of the "countryman". Plus, the entire effort that he made was very very self-satisfying.

The "countryman" is acting as a representation of a subject of the law...he is literally given the opportunity to break it by the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper does warn him that there are more and more gatekeepers as he gets closer and even more powerful than he. This warning makes the countryman concede immediately. He responded to what the gatekeeper (of the law) warned. Yet! He is unique in that he notices that no one else has even attempted to be admitted into the law and he notes that upon dying. As a reader, I found that unique because I wasn't presented with any evidence of other people trying to do what he was doing and consequently giving his life up for. But no matter how unique he is, he is not "untouched" by the law. It turns out that he cannot escape it nor receive privilege no matter how daring he is.

As it turns out, we see that this man has given up his worldly possessions and most importantly his time. This is evidence of his determination. He spends years waiting and doesn't give up even though it's a fruitless endeavor and he most likely didn't change the mind of the gatekeeper. What this says about his "unique" and "untouched" self is that the countryman is still autonomous and curious. He is simply teasing a gator, poking a stick at it but keeping a nice distance away. This shows that he still thinks for himself and comes up with his own ideas, nevertheless nonconstructive. We saw that his waiting was all on his own accord and no one was forcing him to do anything. His endeavor was untouched and self-motivating, thus making him unique in that we, like I previously mentioned, were shown no evidence of others trying to attempt to infiltrate the law.

Since the story ended so badly it seems as though Kafka definitely intended his protagonist to be deluded...but it's not a necessarily dangerous delusion because the countryman is a human with unlimited access into that realm of curiosity! We have all participated in an effort like this, I'm sure, only to find out that we were in fact totally deluded. Most of us don't give up our lives (in such a manner as the countryman) for such a futile effort though! It makes each of us comparable to one another but our ambitions of curiosity probably differ greatly from each other which does show uniqueness.

Curiosity is quite a risk, as we read with the countryman, but it reflects our sacred inquisitive selves and should be deemed a "necessary category" because what we're all curious about individually varies greatly and would lead to people doing very different things to fulfill our inquiring minds. Like I said, that reflects an exclusive and different self for each of us despite how similar we might be in most aspects of self.