What does “law” mean to you? For a woman attacked on the street, the law is protection. For our kids growing up in America, the law is a group of men and women they aspire to be like when they grow up. Unless you're a teenager, of course... then the law is usually seen as annoying and unwanted. While these are great interpretations of what the “law” is to others, in Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” it rather represents the distance between fear and freedom. Life or death. In this story, a man comes from the countryside to an open gate. On the other side of this gate lies what man calls law. Yet there is a guardian there who watches over it. The gatekeeper tells the man that one day he will be able to enter through the gate, but at this time he cannot gain him access. The man then spends the rest of his life in front of this gate waiting to be able to enter. While there, he continually asks the gatekeeper for consent to let him pass, and yet he is not permitted. Many years later, when the man is old and has become blind, all he can see is the illumination coming from the gate. Nothing else, just push back the darkness. Just as he is about to die he asks the gatekeeper why no one else had come to the gate in all his years of waiting... the gatekeeper then responds by telling him that this was his gate to enter and his alone. He then closes the gate forever and the man apparently dies without ever gaining access to the "law". Why is man so weak? When he first approached the gate appeared to be wide open. Understandably there is a gatekeeper who says: “If it tempts you so much, try it despite my prohibition. But be careful: I am powerful. And I'm just the humblest caretaker... middle of paper... I don't know that we can get lost along the way. And, while obedience may have its place, we must understand that it is okay to have our own thoughts and questions, not everything we are told is the “WAY.” The gate itself was not the obstacle in the story as the man thought, nor was the gatekeeper. Rather, the door was there as a symbol and the gatekeeper was there as evidence. Remember, free will and courage are important qualities to maintain in yourself and without them it could be the difference between being a prisoner or being free. The difference between living a wonderful life or slowly moving towards death. Works Cited Kafka, Franz. “Before the Law”. Literature: a world of writing. 1st ed. Boston: Longman, 2011. 26. PrintMilgram, Stanley. “The Dangers of Obedience.” Writing and reading across the curriculum, short edition. 3rd ed. New York: Longman, 2009. 213. Print