After reading Sartre's essay on existentialism, I feel that within the context of "Before the Law", the book of the Law is a metaphor for essence, while the country man represents existence. Before approaching the gate, there is practically nothing said about the man. Even when the gatekeeper asks questions about his life in the country, practically no information is given. In this sense, the man has no essence, and finding the Law (the ultimate goal seen in both the short story and the game) is meant to remedy this.
I saw that the purpose of "Before the Law" is to question whether existence precedes essence, or vice versa. The game especially toys with this idea with the two endings. In the scenario where the country man chooses to wait for him to be allowed to proceed through the gate, it is revealed that the gate before him was meant specifically for him. This suggests that essence indeed precedes existence. In the alternate scenario, the man proceeds through the gate only to find that the book of the Law is empty, suggesting that there was no "essence", and that the man had to fill in the book/his essence for himself.
On a deeper level, perhaps the man's essence was to find the empty book all along, and that the two endings were meant to create the illusion of choice. Or maybe I'm reading too much into this. Am I in the Matrix?
