In the Penal Colony is a short story written by Franz Kafka in 1916.

It tells
the story of a Traveller from the West who was invited to oversee an execution in
an unnamed penal colony. In a deep sandy valley where the execution is set to take
place, the Officer eagerly explains to the Traveller the gruesome process and the
elaborate torture device that will be carrying out the prisoner’s sentence. The
torture and execution device or as referred to throughout the text as “the apparatus”
was invented by the Previous Commandant whom the Officer seems to prefer over
the New Commandant and is composed of three parts: the lower part or the Bed
where the condemned person will be laid and strapped down naked on his stomach;
the upper part or the Inscriber; and the Harrow which is composed of needles and
has the job of inscribing into the condemned person’s body the law which they
have violated.

The entire process takes around twelve hours on average. When the Harrow
continues to write on the man’s back until every inch of his body has been pierced
by the needles. Then, the layer of cotton wool rolls, allowing the body to rotate
onto its side so that the Harrow can continue to write on unmarked areas while the
areas that have already been marked are stopped from bleeding by the cotton wool
in preparation for even further deepening. At the head of the Bed is warm rice
pudding which the man is permitted to eat if he should desire to do so. The
Commandant explains that no person has ever refused this although they usually
lose their appetite around the sixth hour. The turning point seems to be the sixth
hour which is when the condemned usually become quiet, having lost all desire and
the energy to keep on screaming after resigning themselves to their fate and
coming into a slow realization of the words being inscribed into his body.

but our man deciphers it with his wounds. True, it takes a lot of work. It requires
six hours to complete. But then the Harrow spits him right out and throws him into
the pit, where he splashes down into the bloody water and cotton wool. Then the
judgment is over, and we, the Soldier and I, quickly bury him.”
 d their body is dropped into a pit beside the apparatus. 
The  Officer  also  explains  that  the  criminal  sentences  in  the  penal 
colony  are  levied  without  the  accused  having  a  defense;  the  assumption  is 
that  they  are  guilty.  For  example,  the  Condemned Man was supposed to be 
a  sentinel  in  front  of  a  Captain’s  door  and  salute  him  every  hour,  but  once 
when  the  Captain  looked  outside  the  Condemned  Man  was  asleep.  ​The 
Captain  reported  the  man  and  thus  the  Officer  judged  him  guilty.  The 
Officer  says  that  it  saves  everyone  time  because  no  doubt the Condemned 
Man would have lied and things would have been protracted and wearying. 
The  Condemned  Man  was  not  told  of  his  fate,  though,  and  does  not 
know  why  he  is  currently  here,  tied up and watched over by the Soldier. ​The 
Traveller  ​is  disconcerted  as  he  watches  the  infantile  and  brutish  prisoner 
look  upon  the  apparatus  with  mild  curiosity  rather  than  fear.  He  begins  to 
think that apparatus is unjust. 
The Officer, having completed his inspection of the apparatus and the 
extolling  of its merits, has the Soldier strap the Condemned Man into it. The 
Officer  explains  that  he  is  the  last  advocate  of  the  use  of  the  apparatus. 
Both  were  the  creation  of  the Old Commandant, now deceased. The Officer 
glows  when  he  speaks  of  this  brilliant  man  and  how  back  in  his  day,  the 
torture was a popular public spectacle. Now, though, the New Commandant 
has  professed  his  dislike  of  the  procedure.  The  Officer  thinks  that  the 
Traveller  was  invited  to  see  the  apparatus  with  the  expectation  that  he 
would  disapprove  of  it,  giving  the New Commandant the outside backup he 
needs  to  rid  the  penal  colony  of  the  apparatus  and  the  archaic  justice 
system altogether. 
The  Officer  implores  the  Traveller  instead  to  speak  on  his  behalf  and 
to  defend the apparatus. He need not even come out emphatically for it, the 
Officer  explains;  he  should  just  not voice any objections. The Traveller says 
he  cannot  do  that.  The  Officer  sees  that  the  Traveller  will  not  change  his 
mind  and  orders  the  Condemned  Man  be  released.  The  latter  is  visibly 
shocked but gleeful. 
The  Officer  then  fixes  a  new  message  onto  the  Inscriber,  “Be  Just,” 
and  removes  his  clothes.  He  lies  down  on  the  Bed  and  the  Soldier  and 
Condemned  Man  strap  him  down.  The  Traveller  knows  what  will  happen 
and feels that he cannot interfere. 
The  apparatus is turned on, but very quickly it begins to break down; it 
is  not  at all as harmonious and smoothly-functioning as the Officer implied. 
Gears  begin  to  tumble  off,  and  the  needles  do  not  move  around  lightly  but 
instead  stab  the  Officer.  The  water  does  not  come  out,  so  the  blood  does 
not  wash  away.  When  the  apparatus  stops,  the  Traveller  peers  at  the 
Officer.  The  Officer’s  body  is  horribly  mutilated,  a  needle  has  gone  straight 
through  his  forehead,  and  there  is  absolutely  no  look  of  transcendence  on 
his face. 
Back  in  the  colony,  the  Traveller  visits  the  hidden  gravesite of the Old 
Commandant.  A  plaque  says  one  day  the  Old  Commandant  will  return  and 
his followers will rise up. 
The  Traveller  prepares  to  leave  the  colony.  The  Condemned Man and 
Soldier  try  to  jump  on his boat to flee as well, but the Traveller brandishes a 
heavy rope at them and leaves them on the shore. 
 
 
We're in a sandy valley (the proverbial "barren landscape") on the outskirts of a penal 
colony. Gathered near a rather unusual machine, "the apparatus," stand four characters 
with very specific names: "the officer," "the explorer," "the soldier," and "the condemned 
man." The explorer is a visitor to the colony, and has been sent by the Commandant to 
watch the execution of the condemned man, which will be performed with the 
apparatus. The officer, who's quite fond of the machine, eagerly describes it to the 
explorer. 
 
The apparatus, invented by the former Commandant of the colony, is what the colony's 
justice system uses to punish people, in a rather unique way. It "writes" a 
commandment (in very complicated, illegible script) on the body of the condemned 
man, the very one he's supposedly guilty of violating, and it does this by slowly rotating 
his body and cutting into it repeatedly with lots and lots of needles. The punishment is 
meant to "enlighten" the prisoner – as the machine works on him, he comes to learn 
what commandment he violated by feeling it on his body. The prisoner is somehow 
transformed greatly by this process.  
 
One other thing: the prisoner doesn't know what his sentence (or the commandment he 
violated) is beforehand because in this penal colony he gets no trial or opportunity to 
defend himself. In fact, if accused by someone, it's just assumed he's guilty. This 
prisoner – "the condemned man" – for instance, was reported by his captain for being 
insubordinate, and without trial or even being questioned, he was put in chains. He'll 
have "HONOR THY SUPERIORS" written on his body by the apparatus. The officer finds 
this form of punishment exquisite. 
 
Having described the apparatus to the explorer, the officer has the condemned man put 
in the machine. Meanwhile, the explorer has decided that the apparatus and the whole 
"judicial procedure" of the colony really bothers him. He wonders if there's any way he 
can put a stop to it. He's in luck. The officer tells him the popularity of the procedure has 
fallen greatly since the old Commandant's days, when it used to be the most important 
thing in the life of the colony. Now the officer is its only real defender.  
 
The new Commandant does not like the "procedure," and is hoping the explorer will 
disapprove of it, too. The explorer is apparently an important guest from a more 
"enlightened" part of the world, so if he doesn't like the procedure, the new Commandant 
will seize the opportunity to take action against the officer. The officer hopes (and 
appears to believe) that the explorer is in favor of the procedure and will use his 
influence to defend it and save the legacy of the old Commandant. 
 
The explorer feels a bit sorry for the officer, but tells him he can't defend the procedure 
in good conscience. Actually, he'll speak against the procedure. Resigned, the officer 
lets the condemned man go. There's nothing left to do but go into the apparatus 
himself. His sentence? "BE JUST!" 
 
After setting everything in order, the officer gets into the machine and turns it on, as the 
soldier and the newly freed condemned man strap him in. But something goes horribly 
wrong with the apparatus, which begins to fall apart. Instead of writing the officer's 
sentence slowly into his flesh over the course of twelve hours, it simply impales him and 
makes a bloody mess of his body. He's dead within a couple of minutes. 
 
Afterwards, the explorer goes with the other two to visits the teahouse in the colony 
where who the old Commandant lies buried. His grave is hidden, unceremoniously, 
under one of the teahouse tables, bearing an inscription that predicts he'll return to lead 
his followers to triumph. Everybody in the teahouse just laughs at it. The explorer 
prepares to leave the colony in haste, getting in a ferry to return to his steamer. The 
condemned man and the soldier try to follow him, but he keeps them from jumping into 
his boat.