doesn't want to go in, or at least we don't hear anything about it. On
the other hand, there are those who say he must have already been inside
the law as he has been taken on into its service and that could only
have been done inside. That can be countered by supposing he could have
been given the job of doorkeeper by somebody calling out from inside,
and that he can't have gone very far inside as he couldn't bear the
sight of the third doorkeeper. Nor, through all those years, does the
story say the doorkeeper told the man anything about the inside, other
than his comment about the other doorkeepers. He could have been
forbidden to do so, but he hasn't said anything about that either. All
this seems to show he doesn't know anything about what the inside looks
like or what it means, and that that's why he's being deceived. But he's
also being deceived by the man from the country as he's this man's
subordinate and doesn't know it. There's a lot to indicate that he
treats the man as his subordinate, I expect you remember, but those who
hold this view would say it's very clear that he really is his
subordinate. Above all, the free man is superior to the man who has to
serve another. Now, the man really is free, he can go wherever he wants,
the only thing forbidden to him is entry into the law and, what's more,
there's only one man forbidding him to do so--the doorkeeper. If he
takes the stool and sits down beside the door and stays there all his
life he does this of his own free will, there's nothing in the story to
say he was forced to do it. On the other hand, the doorkeeper is kept to
his post by his employment, he's not allowed to go away from it and it
seems he's not allowed to go inside either, not even if he wanted to.
Also, although he's in the service of the law he's only there for this
one entrance, therefore he's there only in the service of this one man
who the door's intended for. This is another way in which he's his
subordinate. We can take it that he's been performing this somewhat
empty service for many years, through the whole of a man's life, as it
says that a man will come, that means someone old enough to be a man.
That means the doorkeeper will have to wait a long time before his
function is fulfilled, he will have to wait for as long as the man
liked, who came to the door of his own free will. Even the end of the
doorkeeper's service is determined by when the man's life ends, so the
doorkeeper remains his subordinate right to the end. And it's pointed
out repeatedly that the doorkeeper seems to know nothing of any of
this, although this is not seen as anything remarkable, as those who
hold this view see the doorkeeper as deluded in a way that's far worse,
a way that's to do with his service. At the end, speaking about the
entrance he says, 'Now I'll go and close it,' although at the beginning
of the story it says the door to the law is open as it always is, but if
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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