ABSTRACT
In the story by Kafka, a military officer tries to convince an explorer, appointed as a Judge by the Government, regarding the benefits of a perfect machine which has been created by the late commander of a penal colony. In Inhibition, symptoms and anxiety, Freud describes five types of resistance: three belong to the Ego, one to the Id, and one to the Superego. The somatic disease, as it satisfies the need for illness or suffering, soothes the feeling of guilt and pacifies the Superego. Sami-Ali called the superegoic agency "physical superego" when it acts as a set of normative rules and modes of conduct which are expressed in the body, as, for example, in the education of a person, when the demands to conform to a certain moral principle coincide with physical restrictions. The condemned man whose punishment is to be witnessed by the explorer is to have the sentence "honour your superior" written on him.
