Kafka’s parable “Before the Law” can be read as metonymic, metaphoric,
and symbolic. In this, the writing is a fiction or an allegory for
something ineffable, this experience of “Law,” expressly the
“Law” that exists only for the individual to understand. The
doorkeeper says, “No one but you could have been admitted here,
since this entrance was meant for you alone.” The doorkeeper
indicates that the door is a gateway to an entrance that the “country
man” ultimately possesses: his entrance meant for himself alone.