Kafka's short story In the Penal Colony depicts the visit of a European traveller to a cruel penal colony. The author uses the story to explore current issues concerning torture. Her particular focus is on the interrelation between torture and empire, and on the limits of humanitarian reform. Kafka is instructive in puncturing the pretensions of humanitarianism, and in pointing up the inescapable uncertainties, absurdities, and complicities associated with it.