BEFORE THE LAW - TRANSLATED BY WILLA AND EDWIN MUIR Term Paper

BEFORE THE LAW - TRANSLATED BY WILLA AND EDWIN MUIR - Term Paper Example The gatekeeper never helps the man from the country in a way ultimately beneficial to the man. Even though he knows, the gatekeeper never tells the man from the country that the gate was made just for the man and allows the man to grow old and infirm before revealing the gatekeeper will shut the door on him. The gatekeeper tells the man from the country that it is possible the man may gain entry one day, but it is never revealed how this might occur. It is never stated that the fleas actually speak to the gatekeeper on the man’s behalf. The more powerful gatekeepers inside do not interact with anyone. Therefore, the common theme that runs throughout this story is the lack of mutually beneficial cooperation among the characters regardless of the scenario. I remember a class in psychology I took at the University of Illinois. A student teacher chose a woman and I to participate in an experiment. The woman and I could not converse among ourselves before or during the experiment. I went first. I was to bid either 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. The woman was to follow my bid with 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. We did this 5 times and our responses were marked down side by side. If either her bid or my bid was higher than the other person’s bid, the higher bidder got that amount in dollars. Thus, for example, if I bid 5 and she bid 2, I got $3.00. After I bid first 5 times we repeated the experiment with her going first 5 times. The actual result was that as first bidder, I bid 5 each time for 5 times and she bid 5 each time as well. So I got nothing. When she bid first, she bid 5 and I followed with a bid of 5 each time. It was the same result and she got nothing. Finished, we wondered what this was all about. The student teacher pointed out that if the woman and I had silently cooperated with each other we could have both prospered. Whenever I bid 5, if she bid 0 each of the 5 times I would have gotten $25.