Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from In the Penal Colony.
Justice and Judgment Quotes
No," said the explorer, wiping his forehead, "then he can't know whether his defense was effective?" "He has had no chance of putting up a defense," said the officer. (12)
Suffering Quotes
"He doesn't know the sentence that has been passed on him?" "No," said the officer again, pausing a moment as if to let the explorer elaborate his question, and then said: "there would be no point...
Religion Quotes
[The officer:] "Have you ever heard of our former Commandant? No? Well, it isn't saying too much if I tell you that the organization of the penal colony is his work. We who were his friends knew ev...
Foreignness and 'The Other' Quotes
The explorer thought to himself: It's always a ticklish matter to intervene decisively in other people's affairs. He was neither a member of the penal colony nor a citizen of the state to which it...
Tradition and Custom Quotes
"These uniforms are too heavy for the tropics, surely," said the explorer, instead of making some inquiry about the apparatus, as the officer had expected. "Of course," said the officer, washing hi...
Primitiveness Quotes
In any case, the condemned man looked so like a submissive dog that one might have thought he could be left to run free on the surrounding hills and would only need to be whistled for when the exec...