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A Study Of The Relationships Between Technique And Theme In The Shorter Works Of Kafka

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A Study Of The Relationships Between Technique And Theme In The Shorter Works Of Kafka

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Content T h is d isse r ta tio n h as been 62— 3722
m icr o film ed e x a c tly as r e c e iv e d
COLLINS, H ildegard P la tz e r , 1928—
A STUDY O F THE RELATIONSHIPS BETW EEN
TECHNIQUE AND THEME IN THE SHORTER
WORKS O F KAFKA.
U n iv ersity of Southern C aliforn ia, P h .D ., 1962
Language and L itera tu re, m odern
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, M ichigan
Copyright by
HILDLGA.RD PLATZER COLLINS
1962
A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TECHNIQUE
AND THEME IN THE SHORTER WORKS OF KAFKA
by
Hildegard Platzer Collins
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(German)
January 1962
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS A NGELES 7, CALIFORNIA
This dissertation, written by
Hildegard _ P la t zer _ Colli ns______________
under the direction of h^T...Dissertation C om
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date.
DI SSERTATION COM MITT EE
Chairman
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION ................................ 1
II. THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF TECHNIQUE .............. 8
III. A GENERAL PHILOSOPHY OF ART............... . 41
IV. THE SITUATIONAL THEME........................ 69
V. THE DOUBLE-FIGURE AS DEVICE.....................102
VI. THE ANIMAL AS PROTAGONIST.......................115
VII. INSTITUTIONS AND TRADITIONS ................ 211
VIII. GUILT, SUFFERING AND DEATH: KAFKA'S
ULTIMATE QUESTIONS ........................ 244
BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................298
ii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Franz Kafka has been, and remains, a red flag to
critics of modem literature. Everyone writes about him,
and no one is satisfied with what others have had to say.
Certainly, in the thirty-seven years since his death, the
critical literature dealing with his work has been exten
sive and continuous. One reason for this is that Kafka,
probably more than any other writer of the modem era, has
presented the critic with peculiar problems. First of all,
his writings have become available only slowly, as Max Brod
has progressed in his life-long task of editing the manu
scripts. The second problem, intrinsically related to the
first, is that Kafka is one of those reasonably rare
writers who does not work with public symbols. His meaning
is based upon unique symbolic situations, the full under
standing of which becomes possible only when one considers
his work as a totality. This has meant that, with the
periodic appearance of additional Kafka material, reassess
ments have become possible and even necessary. Fortu
nately, the most important of Kafka's writings, from a
critical standpoint, now seem to be available. While still
1
more definitive editions will undoubtedly appear in the
future, it seems likely from editorial notes that most of
the unpublished material has to do with personal observa
tions and judgments relating to individuals. This material
will serve to round out the volumes of letters and diaries
but will probably add little of importance to that fund of
information upon which the critic must draw in order to
determine the particular meanings of Kafka's veiled art.
It would seem, then, that by this time there should be a
fairly large area of agreement as to what Kafka's achieve
ment as a writer has been. To anyone familiar with the
critical literature, however, it is apparent that such
agreement does not exist. From a casual point of view, it
might even seem strange that Kafka’s work should be the
magnet for criticism that it is. Obviously such attention
is not due to either the quantity or the variety of Kafka's
writings; he left only three novels— all incomplete— to
gether with a fairly large number of short stories most of
which, however, are fragmentary. Further, one of the few
things upon which Kafka critics show some measure of agree
ment, his writings reflect a fairly limited area of con
cern. The actual reason, of course, for the avalanche of
critical Interpretation is simply that among modem writers
of major reputation, Kafka— while not the most complex--
is the most elusive in his meaning. Coupled with this
3
ambiguity is an implied inevitability of relationships that
leads the reader to accept an incredibly tight structure of
meaning--without providing a corresponding definition of
meaning.
Because of his ambiguity, it almost seems as though
Kafka has written symbolical structures that are universal
in the fullest sense; something like a pair of elastic
stockings, they fit any limb upon which they are drawn.
Max Brod, in his various prefaces and postscripts, as well
as in the biography and his book on Kafka's beliefs, has
had wide Influence in advancing the conception of Kafka as
a cabalistic Jew searching for divine grace. Charles
Neider^ sees an incredible point-by-point illustration of
Freudian dream psychology. M. Bense* and a host of other
critics consider Kafka a pure existentialist. The problem
inherent in such absolute interpretations is that of mutual
contradiction; however, in this case, the contradiction is
imposed by the critics rather than by Kafka. In effect,
the arbitrary interpretation suggests that the only time
shape of the elastic stocking is that revealed as it is
worn by the particular critic. As some few Interpreters
^Charles Neider, The Frozen Sea (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1948).
2Max Bense, Die Theorie Kafkas (Cologne/Berlin:
Klepenheuer und Witsch, l9$2).
4
o
of Kafka have noted, such works as Per Prosess and Das
Schloss have a comprehensive potentiality that cannot: be
contained by narrow Interpretation. In other words, the
stocking actually is elastic. On the other hand, this Is
not to say that it is shapeless, that it can be extended
infinitely, for that is equal to saying that it is meaning
less.
What one has to do with Kafka's work, then, Is to
determine the nature of the elasticity, the fabric o£ which
it is made. Kafka himself gives the reader very lit lie
help. He avoids almost completely in the stories any pre
cise statement of meaning and rather than use a series of
meaningful metaphors--a condition vital, for example, to
the pure Freudian--he has made the entire work a vast meta
phor. This means that everything contributes to the over
all image, nothing is important solely for itself, nothing
is irrelevant. Every incident, every sentence functions as
a strand in the over-all form which is meaning. And Kafka
accomplishes this so completely that even the style Is
intrinsic to that total meaning. The critic's first
function, therefore, is to abandon all attempts to "solve"
Kafka'8 work by a single "key" (to use the word suggested
by more than one critic). It is, I believe, a mistake
3R. Pascal, "Franz Kafka," The German Hovel (Man
chester, England: University of Manchester Press, 1957)
is a brief but perceptive relativistic view of Kafka.
5
to think that Kafka wrote riddles as such, and this is the
basis of supposition for all "key" critics. An understand
ing of the novels and the completed short stories is pos
sible only when one moves into Kafka's world and begins to
regard the elements of the works in the same way that the
author did, when a situation or device has the same
potentially universal value for us that it did for him.
In other words, we must share his view rather than impose
ours, if we expect to derive a full meaning. As was previ
ously mentioned, anything will fit into the stocking, and
a great many things will fit into it quite well. However,
the most perfect fit is that of the author himself, not
however as a particular individual concerned about his
relationship to his father or his Jewish heritage but as an
artist perceiving the human condition. The private refer
ence of an artist becomes public when his readers perceive
and share the significance of it. It is perfectly possible
and in a qualified sense even justifiable to read Per
Prosesb as an allegory of the injustice of the law as an
institution. However, in doing so one must remain in con
siderable doubt because a great many things remain unde
fined. What, for example is the meaning of the relation
ship of K. and Fr&ulein Btirstner, or even of K. and the
Court just before his execution? Is K. guilty or not?
Taken by itself without an understanding of Kafka's
artistic understanding of his materials, Per Frozess does
not give us an answer to any of those questions. However,
if we prepare a foundation by acquainting ourselves with
the nature of these various elements, as Kafka almost in-*
variably uses them time and time again, we are no longer
faced with lack of definition at the level of the elements
employed. The over-all meaning still remains elastic, one
might add; the details crystallize without disturbing the
universal quality of the whole.
Essentially, the view expressed above determines
the direction of this study. By making use of the diaries,
letters, notebooks, aphorisms, sketches and other creative
fragments, as well as the more complete writings of Kafka,
I propose to define the elements of his technique as they
function to produce meaning. Fortunately, Kafka used rela
tively few devices and thematic situations but used these
few a great many times. For this reason, comparison and
analysis across the entire range of the writings is quite
feasible. The first part of the study will be a discussion
of the general characteristics of the style and the par
ticular kinds of detail that Kafka employed. Kafka's
general conception of literature as art and his own inten
tions as an artist, references to which exist not only in
the diaries but by direct or Indirect reference in the
fragments and letters as well, are considered, in addition
to specific details, Kafka used certain basic thematic
situations as symbolic devices; the central section of the
study is devoted to an analysis of these devices. This
discussion provides the foundation of understanding neces
sary for the development of the last section, in which
Kafka's major questions--those concerned with human rela
tionships, generic guilt, universal determinism, and the
possibility of reconciliation--are considered.
CHAPTER II
THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF TECHNIQUE
Per Prozess Is the most nearly complete of Kafka*s
three novels; while chapters are missing, the work has an
ending and a progressive character that satisfies most
readers. It is, as much as any of his works, a product of
Kafka's maturity, and the style is typical. Surprisingly,
that style appears to be an extremely simple one. Compared
with, say, Rilke, Kafka forms sentences that seem perfectly
plain and almost sparse in their directness. When appro*
priate, as in discussions of the law, sentences may be
stretched to considerable length, but they are never com*
plicated. Each phrase is simply stated; each description
is decisively drawn; everything is clear-*except, of
course, the meaning. The individual phrases are almost
free of metaphors, and he seems to avoid equivalent terms
always. In his Taeebttcher. Kafka wrote at one point in his
life that metaphors were one of many things that made him
despair about writing,* and his works reflect this atti
tude. Where most literary artists have a distrust of
precise words to express meaning, preferring to create
^-Franz Kafka, Taaebttcher 1910-1923 (New York:
Schocken Books, 1949), p. 550.
8
9
the nature of their particular reality, Kafka seems to go
even further and carefully avoid all referents of meaning.
To describe one object in teema of another-*-probably the
most common technique in literary art--would be to explain
meaning indirectly and so place an additional limitation
upon it. In part, then, it is the very preciseness and
simplicity of Kafka's phrasing that accounts for ambiguity.
One is reminded of the limited, literal responses of a
child who refuses to answer in generalizations. Each situ
ation must be broken into a great number of questions, each
trivial in its way, and the total of literal, limited
responses finally assessed by the observer for ultimate
meaning. It is the same process as that by which we under
go experience of any fundamental sort.
For all the surface simplicity, Kafka at the same
time suggests by an unusual emphasis here and there that
more is implied than has been stated. A phrase is followed
by another that qualifies and adds to it slightly. This
phrase is followed by another and still another. However,
somewhere in the middle of what looks, to the casual
glance, like a redundant heaping up of phrases, a shift
occurs. Imperceptibly a phrase with the possibility of
contradiction occurs. Succeeding phrases grow out from it,
and the final effect is that of completely questioning the
original premise. In brief, we get, sometimes within
10
a single sentence, an assertion both established and simul
taneously contradicted. The reader has unwittingly been
drawn through a logical labyrinth which follows the thread
of an argument both forward and backward. Each of the
apparently trivial elements is an important link and must
be regarded as such. The reader is literally forced into
sharp concentration; as the sentences combine, one begins
to realize that much more is involved than the phrase would
suggest in isolation. The paralleling of otherwise con
ventional statements distorts the normal focus of observa
tion. One need not be consciously aware of it, but one
recognizes that Kafka is enlarging the function of language
as communication. The common use of language, direct ex
pression, is not enough for meaning as Kafka perceives it;
the mind of the reader cannot be allowed to remain simply
a passive observer of meaning as it normally is. Rather,
words become catalysts and the mind of the reader is drawn
into the situation actively. If Kafka had followed the
conventional technique of using descriptive terms to repre
sent specific meaning, it would be much easier for the
average reader (one of the distinctions, perhaps, between
a simple and a complex work of art is that the first dis
plays meaning for the observer, the second engages the
observer in it). When a reader immediately associates each
phrase, he knows what the artist means--or, more exactly,
11
he believes he knows. However, precisely the meaning that
Kafka has revealed "“and created--is, in part, the ambigu
ous nature of the human experience; a thing that is proved
is not a true thing necessarily, since proof of its con
tradiction is equally possible. If the reader were to know
or feel that he knew a specific meaning, the actual meaning
would be denied; this aspect of truth— ambiguity— would
have escaped the reader. In brief, the technique and the
meaning are here fused. For this reason, too, while the
incidents in such a story as Per Prozess are simple and
there are many minute descriptions of attitude and reason
ing, there are very few words that sum them up. Within the
novel itself, meaningful conclusions at particular points
are almost impossible. One must look at the whole, finally.
There is ample evidence in Kafka*s Tagebttcher that
thia stylistic character is not a chance element. In
December, 1914, while Kafka was working on the manuscript
of Per Prozess, he wrote:
Anfang jeder Novella zun&chst l&cherllch. . . .
Allerdlngs vergisst man hiebei, dass die Novelle,
falls sie berechtlgt 1st, ihre fertige Organization
in sich trftgt, auch venn sie sich noch nicht ganz
entfaltet hat. . . .2
The work is an organic structure, literally discovered
by the writer (and reader) as it is created. Yet it is
^Tagebttcher, p. 450.
12
achieved by an infinite play of variations also, the dis
covery of which finally represents the total experience.
Like his reader who is not allowed to take anything for
granted, Kafka himself shifted away from the too-ready
answer. An entry written some three years earlier
(October 30, 1911), while not specifically descriptive of
writing, suggests this strong compulsion of Kafka to evade
an immediate result by introducing modifying elements:
Es 1st meine alte Gewohnheit, reine Eindrticke,
ob sie schmerzlich oder freudig slnd, wenn sie
nur ihre httchste Reinheit erreicht haben, nicht sich
wohltfltig in mein ganzes Wesen verlaufen zu lassen,
sondem sie durch neue, unvorhergesehene, schwache
Eindrticke zu trtlben und zu v e r j a g e n . 3
Taken by itself, such a reference is not particularly in
dicative, despite the identification of the impulse as an
old habit. However, it is a point that recurs more than
once; two years later, for example, we see Kafka writing:
". . . diese bestimmte Angst 1st l&cherlich. Das sind
Konstruktionen, die selbst in der Vorstellung, in der
allein sie herrschen, nur fast bis zur lebendigen Ober-
flftche koninen, aber immer mit einem Ruck Uberschwemmt
werden mtissen."4
There seems to be little difficulty in relating
these attitudes towards the style which Kafka uses in
^TagebUcher. p. 129.
4Ibid., p. 331.
13
his novels, his constant evasion of precise meaning at any
point. One has only to recall any scene from Der Prozess
to see It In operation. The elaborate discussions of pos
sibility by the lawyer Huld or the artist Titorelll are
only the more obvious examples. This, Kafka seems to say,
Is the nature of life, and his own life apparently verified
this belief to him. His own uncertainties, such as his
Inability to go through with marriage despite being engaged
three times, his lack of confidence In almost every Import
ant situation that he encountered; this aspect of Kafka has
been adequately discussed In relation to his fear of his
father,^ and his consciousness of his alienation as a Jew.**
Brod goes so far as to give major Importance to a long
passage In Kafka's Tagebflcher, In which the author tells
at considerable length about his lack of decisiveness with
his tailor when he was a child. However, equally signifi
cant In all probability and far less often noted are cer
tain Influences that are less emotive. Too often critics
tend to think of him not as a person but as a neurosis.
^See Heinz Polltzer, "Letter to his Father," Franz
Kafka Today, eds. A. Flores and H. Swanders (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), pp. 221-238.
^Reference to being a Jew and the Importance of
it to him occur all through the Brod biography, of course,
but more significant references will be found in Kafka's
Brlefe an Milena, ed. Willi Haas (New York: Schocken Books,
1951) : -------------
14
In the first place, Kafka was a professional man.
Since he held a doctor's degree in law, he had been forced
to devote many hours in his late adolescence and early man
hood to the reading of lawbooks which were essentially con
cerned with the different interpretations possible in any
single case, and the error potential in immediately passing
judgment upon any situation. That Kafka did not practice
law later does not negate the probable influence of this
training upon him. Furthermore, while Kafka's religious
training, as he clearly states in "Brief an den Vater" and
in Tagebflcher. was perfunctory, and he himself seems to
have become interested in his Jewish heritage only compara
tively late in his life, the nature of that heritage could
not have been unknown to him. The Eastern Jew, in fact,
always fascinated him as a generic type; and the religious
training which the orthodox Jew, particularly those from
the East, received, was essentially a study of "the Law"—
the scriptures and countless commentaries upon them. While
he never attended synagogue schools, he regarded them with
the interest that exclusion so often generates. While "the
Law" that forms so large and shadowy a concept in his work
is neither that of civil law nor that of the Hebrew faith,
both of these highly complex systesm were sufficiently
personal to him that the influence of their nature cannot
be ignored.
15
Kafka himself on occasion referred to his profes
sional training as something that conditioned his thinking
while writing. Heinz Politzer^ has accurately pointed out
that the "Brief an den Vater" is a major piece of creative
writing, rather than a simple item of biography. Kafka,
in mentioning the manuscript to Milena, makes a comment
that appears to be in jest but actually is quite accurate:
"Und verstehe beim Lesen alle advokatorischen Kniffe, es
ist ein Advokatenbrief."8 It is a lawyer's letter, of
course, in that both accusation and answer are considered
from every possible side, neutralized, and even reversed.
But this in itself is not surprising since it is sympto
matic of not only this "biographical” letter, but every
thing that Kafka wrote. Speaking to Janouch, Kafka sug
gested that his training as a lawyer was significant beyond,
even, its influence upon his technique; he indicated that
it gave him a degree of access to some of his most import
ant subject matter: ”'Un meine SchwSche zu entschuldigen,
mache ich die Unwelt stKrker, als sie in Wirklichkeit ist.
Das ist natttrlich ein Betrug. Ich bin eben Jurist. Darum
kann ich vom BBsen nicht loskommen. Finally, of course,
^Politzer, "Letter to His Father," Franz Kafka
Today, p. 236.
8Briefe an Milena, p. 80.
9Gustav Janouch, Gesprlche mit Kafka (Frankfurt am
Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1951), p. 23.
16
the constant reference to law, lawyers and to courts so
frequently occurs In Kafka*s work that one cannot dismiss
It with the biographical fact that he did not actively
practice the profession. The nature of such concerns will
be discussed separately, but the Influence of the law on
Kafka as a writer Is fundamental.
Brod has comnented on Kafka*s ambiguity by refer
ring to It as a debate technique. He, too, relates It to
the form of the Talmud,^ although he qualifies this by
pointing out that Kafka did not become familiar with the
Talmud itself until quite late. Nonetheless, the tradition
was so strong a part of Jewish orthodoxy, as was the ambi
guity of the position of the Jew in the European community,
that one runs little danger of exaggerating in linking it
with Kafka's professional training as a mode of thought.
If his father was a surrogate for God, Franz Kafka himself
was symbolic of man, an imperfect creature whose imper
fection remained ambiguous in an incomprehensible universe.
He was, always, mankind confronted by the Law, and his
defense was the telling of stories that would disarm the
unknown by exploring it. One remembers, too, the Jewish
religious prohibition against painting, and the correspond
ing highly developed tradition of story telling. The latter
10Max Brod, Franz Kafka (New York: Schocken Books,
1954), p. 62.
17
£orm is a progressive one, as opposed to the static quality
of those arts that deal with the "graven image." Kafka
once linked his telling of stories to his Jewish back
ground, emphasizing the non-static quality in just that
way.
"Wir Juden sind eigentlich keine Maler.
Uir ktinnen die Dinge nicht statisch darstellen.
Wir sehen sie immer im Fluss, in der Bewegung,
als Wandlung. Wir sind Erz&hler."11
Not even an idea could be accepted as fixed; inevitably, it
twisted and changed even as it seemed to assume a definite
form.
In addition to Kafka's law training and general
Jewish heritage, one certainly should give at least passing
notice to his particular development as a writer. Anyone
who has read the early entries in the Tagebtlcher has un
doubtedly been struck by the way in which he taught himself
the writing craft. The fragments of stories found there
are multiple, but there are only a few different stories;
as 1 shall establish later, the material used by Kafka con
sisted of certain basic situational themes. From the
beginning Kafka clearly learned his art by writing variant
versions of a few initial situations, developing as many
different possibilities as he could (the entries in 1910
that begin with a reference to the harm done him by his
^Janouch, p. 90.
18
education are an effective example of this practice). As
suggested by the earlier quote, he apparently regarded any
situation as an object with a disguised form that had to be
looked at from every possible point of view; he acted as
though writing were a means of analyzing the elements of
experience and a definite decision could be made only after
every test had been applied. The effect of this early
habit is clearly visible in his mature work.
The Tagebtlcher entries for these early years reveal
other influences of a less immediate but perhaps equally
relevant kind. One of the fullest descriptions that Kafka
records of a casual acquaintance is of a certain "Dr. K."
with whom the young writer apparently spent the evening of
October 12, 1911, deep in conversation. The description is
interesting for its direct relationship to the theme of Der
Prozess. in that Kafka's friend is mentioned as having
proved logically that the law must always be in conflict
with itself. However, the description also suggests con
siderable influence on Kafka's style at a time when he had
not yet written any of the three novels. Dr. K., we are
told, was extremely talkative; this characteristic so im
pressed Kafka that he analyzed his acquaintance's mode of
conversation quite closely. The most significant thing is
the participation that is forced upon the listener:
. . . von jeder Geschichte ergeben sich Zusammen-
hKnge, und zwar mehrere, er Uberblickt alle, well er
19
sie erlebt hat, muss in der Eile und aus Rtlcksicht auf
mich viele verschweigen, elnlge zerstttre ich ihm auch
durch Fragen, bringe ihn aber dadurch auf andere, zeige
ihm dadurch, dass er auch weit in mein eigenes Denken
hinein herrscht. . . . *2
This analysis suggests two things: first, that if we com
bine the speaker and the listener as Kafka refers to them
here, we arrive at the precise mode of development used by
Kafka in a work such as Der Prozess; second, that the
presentation of a story is realized as being most effective
when the listener (reader) becomes an intimate part of it
and completes the meaning by his participation. At the end
of the description of Dr. K., Kafka makes this more ex
plicit when he summarizes in the following words:
Er erztthlt Ubrlgens sehr gut, in seinem Erz&hlen
mischt sich das genaue Ausgebreitetsein der Schrift-
s£tze mit der lebhaften Rede, wie man sie Ofters bei
[as Dr. K. ]. . . . Gerichtliche Ausdrtlcke geben der
Rede Halt. Paragraphen werden genannt, deren hohe Zahl
sie in die Feme zu verweisen scheint. Jede Geschichte
wird von Anfang an entwickelt, Rede und Gegenrede wlrd
vorgebracht und durch persttnliche Zwischenbemerkungen
fttrmllch geschtlttelt, Nebens&chliches an das niemand
denken wtirde, wird zuerst erw&hnt, dann nebensttchlich
genannt und beiseite geschoben ("ein Mann, wie er
helsst, ist Nebensache"--), der Zuhttrer wird persttnlich
herangezogen, ausgefragt, w&hrend die Geschichte
nebenan sich verdlchtet, manchmal wird der Zuhttrer
sogar vor elner Geschichte, die ihn gar nicht in-
teressieren kann, natUrllch nutzlos ausgefragt, vim
irgendeine provisorische Beziehung herzustellen,
eingeschobene Bemerkungen des Zuhttrers werden nicht
sofort, was Urgerlich wKre (Kubln), sondem zwar bald,
aber doch erst im Laufe der Erz&hlung an richtiger
Stelle eingelegt, was als sachliche Schmeichelei den
^^Tagebtlcher, p. 95.
20
Zuhttrer in die Geschichte hineinzieht, weil es ibm ein
ganz besonders Recht gibt, hier Zuhttrer zu sein.13
So careful a view and so appreciative an understanding
would be enough to justify this entry as of importance in
the development of Kafka's style, even if we did not have
the evidence of very early stories in which the style is
quite different. Certainly one can say that while Der
Prozess has much in common with the technique of story
telling which Kafka analyzes here, a very early story such
as his Beschreibung eines Kampfes (c. 1903), which has
roughly a typical Kafka theme, does not reveal anything
like the same technique. In the same connection, it is
worth noting that in the published TagebUcher (covering
1910-1923), almost all of whac might be called references
to style or technique appear in the first few of these
years. There can be little doubt that Kafka was con
sciously developing his art at the very time when he
analyzed the "style" of Dr. K. so minutely. Just a month
later (November, 1911), in contrast, he recorded somewhat
less appreciatively the story-telling of another friend,
"N.," who also used repetition to an extreme degree. In
this later Instance, Kafka derived small pleasure from the
experience because "... zleht sie in ihrer alten Form,
fast ohne ErgUnzung, aber auch fast ohne Weglassung wieder
^ TagebUcher. pp. 96-97.
21
hervor. ..." The repetition remains solely repetition
because, as Kafka adds, it is ". . . eine Mitteilung, die
nichts anderos sein will und daher mit ihrer Beendigung
auch abgetan ist."^ Repetition that enriches a concept is
art; repetition that restates it is no more than simple
communication at best. As these entries clearly reveal,
Kafka had become quite conscious of the value of the single
idea explored from every side and equally aware of the
necessity for adding to the understanding with each return
to the idea.
Further careful reading of the Tagebttcher yields us
at least a measure of evidence as to what Kafka saw as the
way in which style was to convey meaning. Just a month
after he wrote the remarks last cited above, in December of
1911, Kafka drafted a fairly long evaluation of the nature
of a national literature, one of the few times he recorded
such objective literary judgments. His conclusions on the
subject are of no great Importance for our purpose, but
some of his incidental points are suggestive. One cooment,
not developed beyond the bare statement, reads: "Die von
keiner Begabung durchbrochene Literatur zeigt deshalb auch
keine Lticken, durch die sich Gleichgttltige drttcken
15
kOnnten. The paradox expressed here is perhaps
^Tagebttcher, p. 138.
15Ibid., p. 207.
22
clarified somewhat a few pages later (in the same discus*
sion) when, in speaking of mediocre literature, Kafka
declares: "Was iimerhalb grosser Literaturen unten sich
abspielt und einen nicht unentbehrlichen Keller des
Gebludes bildet, geschieht hier im vollen Licht. . . ."16
Admittedly, one has to interpret, but the idea expressed
here seems to be that the mediocre work deals with an im
mediate relevance, that which is made up of obvious associ
ations. The great work of art may use this as a foundation
or dispense with it, but the obvious value does not repre
sent its true value, its ultimate meaning. Finally, then,
the "Glelchgtlltigen” which only a great talent can handle
has a unique relevance--this is the nature of the paradox--
but one must have the genius needed to reveal it. It is
this hidden relevance, the paradox, that great talent con
cerns Itself with. When one recalls the great mass of what
on the obvious level of relationship seems to be irrelevant
in Kafka's work, it becomes difficult not to conclude that
he followed this principle himself.
It is entirely possible, of course, for one to view
the development that has been projected here as an imposed
one. However, several things, and the time elements in
particular, speak for its truth: Only two days after
^Tagebttcher, p. 209.
23
writing his observations on national literature (Decem
ber 27, 1911), Kafka pointedly disavowed the truly irrele
vant, the purely capricious, in the following words:
"Zwischen tats&chliches Geftihl und vergleichende Beschrei-
bung ist wie ein Brett eine zusammenhanglose Voraussetzung
17
eingelegt." The vital necessity of a meaning is cer
tainly asserted here, particularly since this utterance
represents a comment added after a draft of his own
creative effort, a fragment of a story that he had called
a weak effort in the preceding sentence. Moreover, the
actual correlation between meaning and the apparently
irrelevant--Kafka*s vehicle for the abstract--was firmly
established in his own mind just three days later (Decem
ber 30, 1911) when Kafka wrote the following lines. So far
as technique is concerned, they are among the most reveal
ing in his journals.
Das Grobe, auffallend Charakteristische in seinem
ganzen Unfange, kann ich gar nlcht nachahmen, Ahnliche
Versuche sind mir immer misslungen, sie sind gegen
meine Natur. Zur Nachahmung von Details des Groben
habe ich dagegen einen entschiedenen Trleb, die Mani-
pulationen gewisser Menschen mit Spazierstttcken, ihre
Haltung der HHnde, ihre Bewegung der Finger nachzuahmen
dr&ngt es mich und ich kann es ohne Mllhe. Aber gerade
dieses MUhelose, dieser Durst nach Nachahmung entfernt
mich vom Schauspieler, well diese MUheloslgkeit ihr
Gegensplel darin hat, dass niemand merkt, dass ich
nachahme. Nur meine eigene zufrledene oder Of ter
widerwillige Anerkennung zeigt mir das Gelingen an.
Welt Uber diese Musserliche Nachahmung aber geht noch
^Tagebticher, p. 217.
24
die innerliche, die oft so schlagend und stark 1st,
dass in meinem Innern gar kein Platz bleibt, diese
Nachahmung zu beobachten und zu konstatieren. sondern
dass ich sie erst in der Erinnerung vorflnde. Hier ist
aber auch die Nachahmung so vollkonraen und ersetzt mit
einem Sprung und Fall mich selbst, dass sie auf der
Btthne, unter der Voraussetzung, dass sie tlberhaupt
augenscheinlich gemacht werden kttnnte, unertrlglich
wttre [italics added].18
Kafka was led into these observations through a consider
ation of what constituted a good or a bad actor, but as so
often happened with him, he shifted from a related situ
ation to a more compelling subject--himself as artist* The
quotation just given represents self-realization of a sort
valuable for the task that Kafka was beginning. For a
month or two preceding this entry, Kafka obviously had been
pondering the direction of his art. Whether the search was
a conscious one or not, he was certainly settling upon the
technique which he would refine into his greater works.
This conclusion seems still more valid when we recall that
prior to this date he had produced little of importance
although he was already in his twenty-ninth year and had
been writing for almost a decade. In the year that would
begin just twenty-four hours later, 1912, he would start
his first novel (Amerika) and write his first major short
story (“Das Urteil").
This entry of December 30, 1911 is personal enough
and suggestive enough to merit a prolonged look. Kafka
18TagebUcher, p. 219.
25
left many fragmentary specimens of his fiction in the
Tagebttcher, but he rarely commented consciously on his
critical theories of writing* One is forced, therefore, to
play detective. However, the clues are relatively obvious
and they are located very close to the scene. Kafka's
external concern with art, particularly up to about the age
of thirty, was largely centered on the drama, and the in
fluence of the stage on him was a considerable one as we
have seen. In speaking of drama, he spoke of art as he
himself was to pursue it in fiction; while he wrote only
one play, the atmosphere of the stage animates his works.
The very difference between his art and that of the tradi
tional stage play is realized in the above quotation, as is
the link between them. When he says that he cannot imitate
at all, that he has always failed when he attempted it, he
is speaking of the external representation of life.*^ This
point is clearly established when he opposes to it what he
calls inner imitation. External imitation is the obvious
pattern of action in any situation; it is the pattern that
the actor attempts to master just as it is the material of
a completely realistic literature. Yet, certain elements
^Kafka's one play, Der GruftwKchter proves his
point. The necessity of external action forces him to
shift focus for the last third of the play from the central
character to "the opposition". This presentation of what
in every other Kafka work remains undefined turns the play
into a melodrama with surrealistic overtones.
26
of external action*--what Kafka identifies as the way a per
son may manipulate his walking stick or the way in which
he moves his fingers— these things fascinated Kafka. He
felt a compulsion to imitate them, and he felt that he cap
tured such details truthfully. Not the external pattern,
the logical action, but the detail represents the effective
key. The external insignificance of such trivial elements
disguises the truth of the art involved; one is not im
mediately aware of what is being conveyed. However, Kafka
himself is well aware of it, which warns us quite dis
tinctly that no element in his own writing can safely be
regarded as capricious. The real truth of the artistic
presentation, however, is labeled as inner imitation.
Kafka's description of the nature of this abstract quality
is probably the most significant comment possible upon his
work: ”... die innerliche. die oft so schlagend und stark
1st, dass in meinem Iimem gar kain Platz bleibt. diese
Nachahmung zu beobachten und zu konstatieren, sondem dass
ich sie erst in der Brinnerung vorfinde."
One's first reaction in reading this passage is to
associate it with automatic writing. There is even some
value in so doing, but at the same time it must be accom
panied by a recognition that while the character of the
imitation may not be perceived as it is created, it does
have an intrinsic logic, a truth so deep-seated that it
27
far exceeds that of the logically patterned external imita
tion. That is, in writing the work Kafka is guided by what
he considers a valid intuition rather than a conscious
design so far as ultimate meaning is concerned. The mean
ing is there, and he himself perceived it once the created
work was complete. By rare good fortune, we even have
proof of this characteristic in operation in Kafka1s work,
and it is impressive proof for it is associated with one of
the most ambiguous passages in Der Prozess, the parable of
the doorkeeper told by the priest in the cathedral chapter.
In a TagebUcher entry written early in 1915, when he was
working on Der Prozess. Kafka describes the reading of his
manuscript to F.B., the young woman to whom he was engaged.
She had been listening without great interest.
Eine laue Bitte, eln Manuskript mitnehmen und
abschreiben zu dUrfen. Bei der TtlrhUtergeschlchte
grBssere Aufmerksamkeit und gute Beobachtung. Mir ging
die Bedeutung der Ceschichte erst auf. auch sie
erfasste sie~richtig, dann allerdingsfuhren wir mit
f
roben Bemerkungenln sie hinein, ich machte den Anfang
italics added. The passage ends here].20
In one sense, this confession is one of the most candid
ever made by an artist, even in writing to himself. Yet
Kafka seems not to regard it as an admission of fault but
rather as entirely fitting; his lack of comment upon this
post-discovery of meaning tells us that the occasion was
^TagebUcher, p. 460
28
not unique. In fact, his only reason for mentioning it
seems to be to record the state of his relationship with
his fiancee. One wishes, certainly, that he had been less
involved with F.B. and had taken time to write out pre
cisely what he discovered the significance of the parable
to be. In any event, the incident serves as an effective
illustration of what Kafka meant when he said that inner
imitation could not be observed as it took place, that it
21
first confronted him in his memory.
The particular force of those external details that
Kafka used as the material for meaning remains ambiguous to
us still, and he would probably say properly so. In
general, however, one may say that they are made up of the
involuntary, secondary physical characteristics that define
a person most truly because they are least conscious. His
fascination with physical mannerisms is much greater than
is his interest in what a person alleges to believe. Time
after time, Kafka painstakingly recorded such physical
impressions of people who were talking to him, lecturers
to whom he was listening or actors performing on the stage,
while only cm occasion does he bother to note what the per
son has had to say. One example is an account of a reading
by his friend Lbwy. After mentioning the titles from which
21
Compare Kafka's commentary on Kierkegaard in the
next chapter of this study.
29
Lttwy was reading, Kafka says:
Eln dem Schauspleier nattlrliches, wiederkehrendes
Aufreissen der Augen, die nun ein Weilchen so stehen-
gelassen werden, von den hochgezogenen Augenbrauen
umrahmt. VollstHndige Wahrheit der ganzen Vorlesung;
die schwache, von der Schulter aus veranlasste Hebung
des rechten Ames, das RUcken am Zwicker, der aus-
geborgt scheint, so schlecht passt er auf die Nase;
die Haltung des Beines unter dem Tisch, das so aus-
gestreckt 1st, dass besonders die schwachen Verbin-
dungsknochen zwischen Ober-und Unterschenkel in
Tltlgkeit sind; die Krttmnung des RUckens, der schwach
und elend aussleht, da sich der Beobachter einem
einheitlichen, einfttrmigen RUcken gegenliber im Urteil
nicht betrtigen l&sst, wie dies belm Anschauen des
Gesichtes . . . geschehen kann.22
Outside of the fact that one normally would not observe
such physical details so closely, Kafka*s Impressions here
become significant at two points. First of all, he sum
marizes the description in advance as truth of reading, a
phrase that generally might be expected to relate to con
cepts or at most to delivery, rather than to LBwy's body.
Second, he sees real truth manifested in the curvature of
a back, which he says cannot deceive as a face does. What
is suggested, and no interpretation is involved when we say
this, is a fusion of simple physical qualities and the
inner truth of a thing, a possibility that we find echoed
time after time in his novels. What, for instance, is the
meaning of the police official's constantly rearranging
things on the night stand while interrogating Josef K.,
^TagebUcher, pp. 105-106.
30
in Chapter I of Der Prozess? No logical conclusion is ever
given, and perhaps it means nothing, yet--as Kafka con
ceives the nature of the irrelevant— there is a "truth", to
use his own word, in such involuntary characteristics. By
their very inconsequence, deliberately focused upon, atten
tion to such things forces one to re-evaluate them, to see
them as potentially meaningful. There results a need to
discover meaning, perhaps to discover how the seemingly
irrelevant explains life.
The nature of Kafka's ambiguity frequently involves
what seem to be contradictions. His protagonists are con
stantly in the position of finding themselves about to
accept a situation only to have it twist away from them and
take on a directly opposite character. Josef K. will dis
cover that there is every likelihood that a positive action
will occur, then a moment later a negative one is seen as
equally likely. K., in Das Schloss. is told by Btlrgel that
granting of his petition is all but impossible, then, as
Btlrgel talks on, It becomes clear that he is saying that
under the current circumstances he is helpless not to grant
K.1s petition. Still later, we learn that Btlrgel is in
no position to grant anything, yet even this is not con
clusive since the person saying it really knows no more
than K. does. In part this use of contradiction as the
foundation of experience is what makes Kafka's novels
31
seem Incapable of finding an ending; they are simply
stopped. It is almost inevitable that they were not com'’
pleted, since nothing can be finally proven. KafkaTs use
of contradiction is almost obsessive. Privately, he was
repelled by them. "Sicher ist mein Widerwille gegen Anti-
thesen," he wrote in 1911; and in using them in his novels
as a basic condition of life, he so expressed one of the
few precise criticisms that we can trace. He goes on to
say of antitheses:
Sie kommen zwar unerwartet, aber Uberraschen nicht,
denn sie sind immer ganz nah vorhanden gewesen; wenn
sie unbewusst waren, so waren sie es nur am ttussersten
Rande. Sie erzeugen zwar Grtindlichkeit, FUlle, LUcken-
losigkeit, aber nur so wie eine Flgur im Lebensrad [an
optical toy giving the illusion of a figure in move
ment]; unsera kleinen Einfall haben wir im Kreis herum-
gejagt. So verschieden sie sein ktlnnen, so nuancenlos
sind sie, wie von Wasser aufgeschwemmt wachsen sie
einem unter der Hand, mlt der anf&nglichen Aussicht ins
Grenzenlose und mit einer endlichen mittlera, immer
gleichen Grttsse. Sie rollen sich ein, sind nicht
auszudehnen, geben elnen Anhaltspunkt, sind Lbcher im
Holz, sind stehender Sturmlauf, ziehn, wie ich gezeigt
habe, Antithesen auf sich herab. Mttchten sie nur alle
auf sich herabziehn und ftlr immer.
This passage, so clearly descriptive of most of
Kafka's writings, is in part verification of the sense of
the absurdity of life that Camus sees.^ Life, which seems
to promise infinity, comes to the same blank wall at the
^ Tagebttcher, pp. 168-169.
^Albert Camus, "Hope and Absurdity," The Kafka
Problem, ed. A. Flores (New York: New Directions. 1946).
pp. 251-261.
32
end, no matter what one does. Because everything has its
own contradiction within itself, it ultimately reduces life
to the false movement of an optical illusion; our progress
towards meaning is nothing but a trick. This aspect of
Kafka*8 belief, expressed in both his stories and his
private notes, is one more item in the verification of his
work as mental biography. It has been developed at con
siderable length by the Kafka critics and for the most part
justifiably so— yet it is not a final answer to him. The
very conception of antitheses, or contradiction, pessi
mistic as it is from one point of view, necessarily has two
points of view; it eliminates final conclusions and Kafka
himself did not accept pessimism as a final answer. The
end of Der Prozess is death and finally there is no ques
tion of Josef K. *s guilt, but all is not seen as beyond
redemption. As was noted earlier, Kafka*s books do not
end, they stop. As Josef K. is executed, he is still
pondering whether something has not been overlooked; a
moment before the knife falls, a vague figure with out
stretched arms is seen in the distance. Max Brod (in the
Nachwort) says that the unwritten end of Das Schloss was to
Include a partial acceptance of K. in the village, and the
last chapter of Amerika indicates a possibly hopeful future
despite Kafka*s Tagebdcher comment that the "innocent'*
33
25
Rossman would die. Precise clarification of the point
requires a thorough evaluation of the novels, but It Is not
unreasonable to say that Kafka's conception of antitheses
rendering life absurd did not result In a denial of pos
sible value. In fact the points noted above In connection
with the endings of the three novels are firmly supported
by Kafka's comments on the subject In his journals. As
late as 1922, he wrote: "Das Negative allein kann, wenn es
noch so stark 1st, nicht gentigen, wie Ich In melnen
unglttckllchsten Zelten glaube."2^ The nature of guilt does
not simply end In an execution; more truly that nature Is
struggle— this Is the core of the contradiction. In a way,
the title of Kafka's earliest extant work, Beschrelbung
elnes Kampfes, Is prophetic of the entire body of his
writings. "Bln Ich verurtellt, so bln Ich nicht nur
verurtellt zum Ende, sondern auch verurteilt, mich bis Ins
Ende hlneln zu wehren."2^ One cannot finally destroy hope.
Even Inevitability Is a contradiction, and there Is as much
truth In one side of the antithesis as the other. As long
as life remains, said Kafka, hope is an Inextinguishable
part of It; hope is a part of what defines life. As Kafka
2^See Tagebdcher. p. 481.
26Ibld., p. 568.
2^Ibid., p. 508.
34
advised himself in 1913:
Nicht verzwelfeln, auch dartiber nicht, dass du
nicht verzweifelst. Wenn schon alles zu Ende scheint,
konxnen doch noch neue Krlfte angertlckt, das bedeutet
eben, dass du lebst. Konmen sie nicht, dann 1st hier
alles zu Ende, aber endgtiltig.?8
Hope is the affirmative side of the struggle that is life,
and the contradiction therefore paradoxically suggests a
value for life. Such is the importance of the contradic
tion in life; such is the use of the endless contradiction
employed by Kafka in the development of his novels. Not
hopelessness but struggle, not defeat but defeat fought
with hope. Again, the elements of Kafka's technique can be
seen as an important part of meaning.
Probably the most commonly cited general character
istic of Kafka's style is what is referred to by one or
another alternate form of the phrase "realistic detail in
a fantastic setting." Much of what this present study has
developed so far has revolved around that conception, and
much of what has been said was Intended to clarify it.
Almost every critic of Kafka has noted this characteristic
of style, and the common explanation of psychological
critics is that the fantastic texture makes Kafka's works
into elaborate dream allegories. This interpretive basis
has the danger of all things partially true. First of all,
^Tagebticher. p. 309.
35
it lead8 to the fixed formulas of Freudian symbology.
Critics such as Charles Neider see a single psychological
key as access to a total and even final meaning, despite
the wealth of evidence to the contrary in both the novels
and the Tagebttcher. Neider for example, conmitted to
Freud, reaches such conclusions as the following:
Titoralli.
TitoreHi is the archetype of the anal character.
As a painter, he is coprophllfcl riels closely con"
nectea with the court. As a father imago he offers K.
castration threats.
He says of Leni that she "belongs to the unconscious and is
a personification of the female libido, of heterosexual
object choice, therefore the appeal to the aural sense is
proper to her."29 These quotations, while selected at ran
dom, are representative of the limitation of the Freudian
view. To the slight degree that they are accurate, they
simply rephrase what Kafka has already expressed far more
significantly in his art. In other words, the Freudian
symbol is basically an equivalent term. Its danger is that
it is part of an inflexible formula and so tends to force
interpretation into a pattern that may or may not have
validity. In the case of Kafka, the very ambiguity with
which he invests all circumstances is an essential charac
teristic of, and therefore a meaning of, experience.
29Neider, pp. 176-177
36
While sex is very much present (not only symbolically but
openly) in Kafka's stories, it is a single aspect, not the
in
total meaning that Neider and others seem to find it.
There is one thing that we can say with assurance about
Kafka's meaning, however unsatisfactory that one thing may
be. Kafka is involved with presenting the dilemma of man's
existence in the universe. One need read very little of
his works to discover that he takes a much larger view of
human existence than that implied by the Freudians.
Perhaps the chief problem with such interpretation,
finally, is that it actually reverts to an analysis of the
author's private nature. In doing so it accepts a fixed
value of elements in the work much too readily; one simply
accepts a possibility as fact and proceeds to prove it.
The result is psycho-analysis of the author by means of his
fiction, and it is one that might reasonably be questioned
as a literary concern.
Nonetheless, the reverse procedure, an understand
ing of the author's personality in order to throw additional
light on the work, is frequently a valid one. Kafka had a
life-long Interest in dreams, and his private notes detail
that Interest all during his adult life. (The frequency
30
For an even more extreme interpretation of
Kafka's work as sex psychology, see Paul Goodman, Kafka's
Praver (New York: The Vangusrd Press, 1947).
37
of such references undoubtedly has looked like verification
to the Freudian critics, but it must be remembered that
Kafka himself never pretended to see in them the sort of
symbolism developed by Freud.) This fascination with
dreams led him to record the actual dreams as they occurred
and to ponder the quality of the dream experience as a
meaningful technique in art. In other words, while his
dreams interested him personally, it was the dreamlike
nature of his inner thoughts that was converted to art.
By 1914, when he began writing Der Prozess. he had com
mitted himself to this technique:
Von der Literatur aus gesehen 1st mein Schicksal
sehr einfach. Der Sinn ftir die Darstellung meines
traumhaften innem Lebens hat alles andere ins Neben-
sMchliche gerUckt und es 1st in einer schrecklichen
Weise verkUmnert und hbrt nicht auf zu verktimmern.
Nichts anderes kann mich Jemals zufriedenstellen.31
On reading this passage, one's initial impulse is
to jump too far and conclude that the inner life may be
considered synonymous with a dream. Such a conclusion even
seems strengthened when we encounter passages telling us
". . . dass mein Denken oder besser mein Bewusstseinsinhalt
ganz nebelhaft 1st. . . Yet the inner life is only
dream-like we must remember, and however nebulous the con
tent of Kafka's thought might have been, his works do not
^ Tagebtlcher, p. 420
32Ibid.. p. 460.
38
have the Inevitability necessary to a true psychological
dream literature. One has only to remember his continual
concern with his craft, the multiple variations of treat-
ment that he tried on a single situation. When one re
calls, also, Kafka's precise observations of actors, story
tellers, and other acquaintances who displayed character
istics reflected in his own technique, it becomes clear
that his works were very consciously developed in a tech
nical sense. One of the entries in the Tagebllcher that has
been often quoted in critical appraisals of Kafka is the
one where he carefully notes the acrostic element in the
use of name8 in his writings.^3 Any reader who believes
that Josef K. in Per Prozess and K. in Das Schloss were
named because of some unconscious compulsion on the part of
Kafka seriously underestimates his self-awareness. Al
though Kafka seems to have frequently realized exact mean
ing only after writing a story, as in the case of the
doorkeeper parable mentioned earlier, the details of the
technique were far from being capricious. One is reminded
of Thomas Mann's admission that he had discovered meaning
in Der Zauberberg after writing lt.^ It is difficult
^ T a g e b t i c h a r . pp. 296-297. In the same entry,
Kafka carefully analyzes the relationships in "Das Urtell"
and comments on other meanings in the story.
^Thomas Mann, "The Making of The Magic Mountain."
The Magic Mountain (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1955), p. 727.
39
to imagine a modern German author more conscious of his
craft than Mann, and his evidence serves to make more
plausible the related case of Kafka. It seems strange that
the technique, which creates meaning, should be deliber
ately conceived while the full understanding of meaning
lags behind, but there is no real reason why it should not
be true. Accepting such a possibility is much more reason
able than believing that Kafka wrote aimlessly when we know
that quite the reverse is the case. Max Brod, in his
biography of Kafka, maintains firmly that Kafka was not un
sure of himself as a writer, that the final request that
his manuscripts be destroyed was due not to a belief that
he had written badly, but that the works were incompletely
written. Brod’s view seems to be supported by the Tage-
btlcher, in general. Such concerns are those of a careful
craftsman who believes in his art. Also Kafka quite spe
cifically stated that literature was necessarily a reflec
tion of experience, a meaningful art. Only thirty months
before he died, in December, 1922, he wrote:
Die UnselbstMndigkeit des Schreibens, die Abhftngig-
keit von dem DlenstmMdchen, das elnheizt, von der
Katze, die sich am Ofen wKrmt, selbst vom armen alten
Menschen, der sich w&rmt. Alles dies sind selb-
stMndlge, eigengesetzliche Verrichtungen, nur das
Schrelben 1st hilflos, wohnt nicht in sich selbst.
^5Tagebttcher, p. 551.
40
If Kafka believed that a cat warming itself by a
fire represented an independent activity ruled by its own
laws, and that writing was a dependent activity, ruled by
meaningful qualities of experience, then it is clear that
his technique preceded his subject--that is, that the
images, impressions, atmosphere, and physical structure
employed in creating a work were the means of discovering
meaning. Once this particular relationship of style and
statement is accepted, the paradox disappears; we no longer
have difficulty in understanding, for example, how he could
determine the significance of the doorkeeper parable only
after writing it. Such a relationship also gives us a clue
as to the proper reading of his work. Meaning accumulates
for us in precisely the same way, not capriciously but by
the inner nature which he considered it his function to
capture--the inner imitation that was to be found in ex
ternal details.
CHAPTER III
A GENERAL PHILOSOPHY OF ART
Unlike such writers as Proust or Thomas Mann, Kafka
did not leave us a body of work devoted to a theoretical
consideration of literature as art. He wrote very little
criticism of any kind; Brod has extracted only three criti
cal articles for inclusion in the published work. Of the
three, only one--a review of a novel by Felix Stemheim
(Die Geschichte des 1ungen Oswald. 1910)--was printed.
Together with the other two--the first a brief paragraph
that is less a review than a notice of a new collection of
Klelst's anecdotes; the second, a few pages of epitaph on
the failure of the literary magazine Hyperion (1910-1911)--
it cannot be regarded as anything more than residual ma
terial. Kafka says nothing, really, about his literary
beliefs, and the most noticeable characteristic of each of
the three pieces is that he manages to convey an ambiguity
of judgment almost equal to the treatment employed in his
own stories. (In fact, a first reading suggests a favor
able attitude towards each of the three subjects; a second,
a condemnatory judgment; a third, both, simultaneously.)
The only approach to a view that might have been personally
41
42
significant occurs in the article on Hyperion, where Kafka
seems to question the validity of periodical publication
for a writer such as himself. The artist whose material is
personal, he suggests, is damaged by external influences
and must find nourishment for the art within himself:
Diejenigen, welche ihre Natur von der Gemeinschaft
femh<, kbnnen nicht ohne Verlust regelmttssig in
elner Zeitschrift auftreten, wo sie sich zwiscnen den
andem Arbelten in elne Art btthnenmllssigen Lichts
gestellt ftthlen mtissen und fremder aussehn, als sie
sind; sie brauchen auch keine Verteidigung, denn das
Uhverst&ndnis kann sie nicht treffen, well sie dunkel
sind, und die Liebe findet sie ttberall; sie brauchen
auch keine Kr&ftigung, denn, wenn sie wahrhaftig
bleiben wolien, khnnen sie nur von sich selbst zehren,
so dass man ihnen nicht helfen kann, ohne ihnen vorher
zu schaden.l
While such a reference refers more to the artist
than to art, it presumes a source of the most personal
kind. Such a view is echoed more than once by Kafka, as
will be shown subsequently. By implication, also, it sug
gests a reason why Kafka avoided theoretical discussions of
art, since he considered his kind of art to be as unique as
the individual himself, which made futile any generaliza
tions about it.
Nonetheless, a man who wrote as constantly as Kafka
did could not avoid, unwittingly or otherwise, the formula
tion of certain general conceptions about the nature of
^Franz Kafka, Erzthlungen und kleine Prosa (Zwelte
Ausgabe; New York: Schocken Books, 1946), p. 283.
43
such work. A number of these conceptions have already been
cited from the Tagebttcher. as they relate to the kind of
detail towards which Kafka was attracted. Others exist in
the Oktavhefte, in stories and fragments, and in the con
versations recorded by Brod and Gustav Janotxch. While it
remains impossible to assert that Kafka was a developed
theorist in any sense, the placing together of such
isolated comments does reveal a fundamental attitude that
ranges from the function of language to the nature of
allegory.
In the notebooks, Kafka maintained a form of cre
ative diary in which he jotted down chance impressions,
possible treatments of basic situations with which he
worked, and a great many aphorisms. Among these Betrach-
tungen, in the one numbered 37 (by Kafka himself), we find
the following:
Die Sprache kann ftir alles ausserhalb der sinn-
lichen Welt nur andeutungsweise, aber niemals auch nur
annlhemd vergleichsweise gebraucht werden, da sie,
entsprechend der sinnlichen Welt, nur vom Besitz und
seinen Beziehungen handelt.2
If language by its very nature has absolute limits, it fol
lows that the person who works with language is confined by
those limits. If the nature of language is that of cor
respondence with material Identities, then the writer
^Franz Kafka, Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande
(New York: Schocken Books, 1953), p. 4$.
44
can achieve the greatest function from language by employ
ing It for the use of physical detail. The use of abstract
language becomes a virtual contradiction for the fiber of
the language literally disintegrates when words are so
used. However, allusion to things outside the phenomenal
world is possible, though in a most imperfect sense. Such
a reference, apparently, is achieved by a suggestive use of
language In its proper sphere; that is, by the description
of physical phenomena in such a way that it is not allowed
to remain merely physical detail. In a sense, the full
accomplishment of the writer's purpose is defeated by his
most basic tool, and it is only by following the nature of
that instrument that he can achieve even an imperfect form
of his purpose. Whether Kafka's view of language is accu
rate is beside the point. He was, in his youth and even
later, quite interested in philology and even explored it
briefly as an alternate possibility for a profession before
settling on the law (figuratively, of course, he pursued
both professions). That he should have pondered the
capabilities of language as it related to his life quest
In art is only natural. His decision that language neces
sarily related to the phenomenal world must have been in
fluenced in part by his unusual distrust of reality, which
in the stories leads to the examination of each detail as
though it were a box with an unknown object hidden inside.
45
However, the opposite is equally probable. Having decided
consciously that the limits of language were those of the
phenomenal world, he would have felt that the artist of
words must work with the material for which his tools were
designed.
While Kafka worked at his art with all the thorough'
ness of a craftsman, he does not fall into that group of
writers who consider the art itself as a craft. The re
shaping of a faulty piece of writing was, rather, a search
for hidden meaning which had not been discovered the first
time. In this sense, he is closer to those artists who
maintain a more or less complete faith in inspiration; al
though in his case, perhaps, inspiration was more of a
compelling demon within himself. He speaks of it, on one
occasion, as "das innere Gebot". This internal compulsion
is not a thought, as such; it is scarcely even an idea.
Yet, it is no less powerful because of its obscure nature.
Kafka speaks of it as a demand by the unintelligible that
it be communicated, even though, or more accurately, for
the very reason that, It is not intelligible. If the inner
commandment were intelligible, it would be communicable,
but then it would be unnecessary to communicate it. The
very fact that it is not intelligible is what makes it
demand that it be communicated. The conflict represented
by this paradox, Kafka once suggested, is that of
46
attempting to perfect oneself by finding eternity.-* The
result of this search is inevitably sadness; the quest of
the artist, he seems to say, is compelling, and yet it
results in the eternal destruction of unformulated ideal
possibility. This compulsion of the incoherent is de
scribed in a fragmentary dialogue in the Oktavhefte:
Warum vergleichst du das innere Gebot mit einem
Traum? Scheint es wie dieser sinnlos, ohne Zusammen-
hang, unvermeidlich, einmalig, grundlos beglllckend
oder Ungstigend, nicht zur Gttnze mitteilbar und zur
Mitteilung dr&ngend?
Alles das;--sinnlos, denn nur wenn ich ihr nicht folge,
kann ich hier bestehn; ohne Zusammenhang, ich weiss
nicht, wer es gebietet und worauf er abzielt; unver
meidlich, es trifft mich unvorbereitet und mit der
S
leichen ttberraschung wie das Tr&umen den Schlafenden,
er doch, da er sich schlafen legte, auf Trttume
gefasst sein musste. Es ist einmalig oder scheint
wenigstens so, denn ich kann es nicht befolgen, es
vermischt sich nicht mit dem Uirklichen und beh<
dadurch seine unbertlhrte Einmaligkeit; es begldckt und
lingstigt grundlos, allerdings viel seltener das erste
als das zweite; es ist nicht mitteilbar, weil es nicht
fassbar,ist und es drflngt zur Mitteilung aus demselben
Grunde.
Kafka clearly suggests here a view of art that is perma
nently vital; that is, the function of the art is to ver
balize that which cannot be put into words. Such a view
assumes art as a living thing, never solidified and
finished, not even in the particular work of art. Rather,
a particular work is simply a momentary glimpse of an un
defined identity. (One might, with justice, recall here
• * Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, pp. 111-112.
4Ibid.
47
the menagerie of "monsters" that Kafka created, such as
"Odradek," the beast of the synagogue, the stork-like
creature, or the beast with the female breasts lying on top
of the stove. More significant, though less obvious
examples, are the ambiguous human characters in every one
of the stories.) The illustration of a real incident,
terminating in a clearly established meaning, has no place
in such a conception of art, and we need not wonder that
Kafka never wrote such a story.
Kafkafs relating of the undefined to the eternal,
as mentioned earlier, can be read without too much diffi
culty as a parallel to the universal element in art. Kafka
regarded exactness of definition as an exercise in the par
ticular; and, as one might expect, he felt that a work
which ended in an Individual case was a failure as art.
While he believed that one should search for ultimate mean
ings in the particular detail, the artist could not settle
for the particularity. To accept a circumstance--or a
person--as defined and real is to ignore the great ambigu
ous mass that lies behind the detail. In a letter to Franz
Werfel in which he discusses Werfel's play Schweiger. Kafka
makes this point the focus of what turns out to be rather
severe criticism. By writing the play as "an individual
case," Werfel has "degraded" the central character and
"isolated" him. Actually, Kafka's criticism rests upon
48
what he believes to be Werfel's attempt to present the play
as a circumstance of everyday life. For present purposes,
a sample of his attack is sufficient:
Vor aHem ftthle ich eine Verschleierung darin, dass
"Schweiger" zu einem allerdings tragischen Einzelfall
degradiert ist; die GegenwHrtigkeit des ganzen Sttlckes
verbietet das. . . . Warum also das St&dtchen, warum
Osterreich, warum der kleine darin versunkene Einzel
fall?
Aber Sie machen ihn noch vereinzelter. Es ist, als
kttnnten Sie ihn gar nicht genug vereinzelt machen.
Sie erfinden die Geschichte von dem Kindermord. Das
halte ich fUr eine EntwUrdigung der Leiden einer
Generation. Wer hier nicht mehr zu sagen hat als die
Psychoanalyse, dlirfte sich nicht e i n m i s c h e n . 5
(There follows one of Kafka's not infrequent negative
judgments upon psychoanalysis, an antipathy which was ap
parently grounded upon the very attempt at definition which
that science presumes.)
Attempts to associate Kafka's writing intimately
with Prague and the Austrian bureaucracy has been rather
common, and I have no intention of challenging them here.
However, Kafka is an articulate witness in his own right
in denying that a particular series of geographical or en
vironmental circumstances are the ultimate concern of his
writings. While others may recognize actual places or
attitudes, these things exist only on the doorstep, so to
speak, of his art, and he clearly intended them to be of
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. pp. 277-278.
49
no greater importance than that.8 His distaste for the
particular circumstance treated even approximately for Its
own sake is a basic part of his conception of literature,
just as is his belief that the external detail is the pcint
of access to the vast, concealed ambiguity of ultimate
reality. Apparent reality tells us nothing, the physical
detail that meets the eye is a deliberate mask over truth.
"Nichts kann Sie so t&uschen wie eine Fhotographie," Kafka
once said to his young disciple Gustav Janouch,^ speaking
of physical details that exist for their own sake in the
sense that one cannot probe beyond the fact of their
literal occurrence. At about the same time he spoke of the
intimate relationship between form and content by describ
ing form as "'das Tor und der Weg zum Inhalt. Wirkt er,
Q
dann Offnet sich auch der verborgene Hintergrund.The
real purpose of art is that of penetrating the mask of
external reality to reach truth. Reality itself, Kafka
perceived, was not truth; every error that occurs is a fact
but that does not make it any less false. To quote again
from Janouch'8 record of Kafka's conversation: '"Die
8 The author of this study, for one, was amused to
read Max Brod's note that "Der Kttbelreiter" has as its
background the Prague coal famine of the winter of 1916-
1917. Franz Kafka, Beschrelbung eines Kampfes (New York:
Schocken Books, 1946YI p. 314.
^Janouch, p. 91.
8Ibid., p. 92.
50
Wahrheit ist doch eine Angelegenheit des Herzens. Dem
kann man nur mit der Kunst beikommen.And--M,Wirkliche
Realitftt ist immer unrealistisch.
If truth is not reality, but somehow reached by
passing through it, then the relationship between the two
becomes central for the artist. Kafka*s thoughts about
art revolve constantly around this relationship. He seems
to have believed that the task confronting the artist was
that of catching external reality off guard, of lifting
the edge of the mask. It is, obviously, a dangerous task
for it involves an alienating of the artist from the normal
social beliefs and traditions. It is apparent that these
tacit acceptances of illusion by the society are a way
of safeguarding itself from the danger that truth must
represent. To question the mask is to become an anarchist
of rationality. Yet, the artist has no choice; the inner
commandment is the whispering voice of the unintelligible
truth behind reality, urging him towards his task. In
aphorism 63, in the collection that Brod entitled
Betrachtungen. Kafka gives a figurative definition of art
in almost exactly those words: "Unsere Kunst ist ein von
der Wahrheit Geblendet~Sein: Das Licht auf dem zurilck-
welchenden Fratzengesicht ist wahr, sonst nichts."10
^Janouch, p. 91.
10Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 46.
51
The face in the photograph is the illusory one of
the mask; the grimacing face is that beneath, retreating
before the artist's prying fingers. The light that makes
visible the truth, however, comes from a fire that is
hidden by the mask, and the artist is in danger of being
consumed by it. His skill, then, must somehow be balanced
by the ability to avoid falling into the bright flames.
If he wishes to live among men, as one of their society, he
must somehow divide himself, come to grips with life as
well as art. That Kafka failed so completely to do exactly
that is only proof of the effort which he made. In his
Notebooks, he wrote:
Der Standpunkt der Kunst und des Lebens ist auch
im Kilns tier selbst ein verschiedener.
Die Kunst fliegt um die Wahrheit, aber mit der ent-
schiedenen Absicht, sich nicht zu verbrennen. Ihre
Ffthigkeit besteht darin, in der dunklen Leere einen
Ort zu finden, wo der Strahl des Lichts, ohne dass dies
vorher zu erkennen gewesen w&re, kr&ftig aufgefangen
werden kann.H
Even as he wrote the above observation, however,
Kafka seems to have realized the impossibility of it for
himself. On the same page (of the published edition),
occurs the following:
Vor dem Betreten des Allerheiligsten musst du die
Schuhe ausziehen, aber nicht nur die Schuhe, sondem
alles, Reisekleid und GepMck, und darunter die
Nacktheit und alles, was unter der Nacktheit 1st, und
alles, was sich unter dieser verbirgt, und dann den
Kern und den Kern des Kerns, dann das tlbrlge und dann
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 104.
52
den Rest und dann noch den Schein des unverg&nglichen
Feuers. Erst das Feuer selbst wird vora Allerheiligsten
aufgesogen und l&sst sich von ihm aufsaugen, keines von
beiden kann dem widerstehen. .„
Nicht Selbstabschtittelung, sondem Selbstaufzehrung.
Only the fire of one's own essential truth can penetrate
the ultimate truth behind the deceptive wrappings. It is
a brutal and terrifying vision, both of the truth and of
the artist's relationship to the truth. Yet, Kafka's works
are proof of his unfaltering adherence to it. Even the
relationship with his father would seem to be no more than
one stone of the doorstep that led to the vision.
This total commitment by the artist is, in one way,
far from unique; regarded alone it would be nothing more
than the soaringly romantic ideal of himself with which
perhaps the majority of artists begin. The difference here
is that the artist is no na£ve adventurer, but a victim
assaulted and carried off by some compelling part of his
own being. Kafka goes further; he not only sees the artist
as totally committed to the search of his art; he sees the
material— the art*-as involving the total personality.
Art, he once told Janouch, is much more than a matter of
style, much more than the brilliant rendering in words of
personal emotions and impressions. That, he said, is a
matter of the feelings which things arouse in the self,
19
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. pp. 104-105.
53
therefore it is a blindness to the objects themselves:
'"Das ist Lyrik. Sie streicheln die Welt, anstatt sie zu
13
erfassen.But, he added, it was not art. The lyric
impulse is preliminary to coming to grips with the con
suming flame of truth. The artist who does not go beyond
the lyric has not laid aside the confining garments of the
emotional ego, things are distorted because they only exist
in the personal emotional response. The fire of one's
essential life merging with the fire of truth--the essence
of all life--bum8 away everything of the individual per
sonality. It is for this reason that Kafka labels all true
art as fundamentally tragic:
'Das 1st noch nicht Kunst,' sagte Kafka bestlmmt.
'Dieses Aussem der Eindrtlcke und Geftlhle ist eigent-
lich ein Mngstliches Abtasten der Welt. Die Augen
sind noch traumbeschattet. Das wird aber mit der Zeit
schon verschwinden, und die tastend ausgestreckte Hand
wird viellelcht zurtlckzucken, als hMtte sie ins Feuer
gegriffen. Viellelcht warden Sie aufschreien, zu-
samnenhanglos stammeln oder die ZKhne zusananenbeissen
und die Augen welt, ganz welt aufmachen. Aber— das
sind alles nur Worte. Die Kunst ist lamer eine
Angelegenheit der ganzen Persttnlichkeit. Darum ist
sie im Grunde tragisch.'1^
One must lose everything to gain everything. Such a view
makes it easy to see why Kafka has appeared to the reli
gious cabalist8 to be one of their own.
The sense of dedication which is involved in the
Janouch, p. 30
1AIbid.
54
above quotations was not simply accepted by Kafka, of
course. Every thing, even a belief, necessarily contained
elements of its own contradiction for him. In the Oktav-
hefte, for example, we find at times comments revealing his
suspicion that art is simply one more trick of the indi
vidual will, an escape from truth disguised as an assault
upon it: "Selbstvergessenheit und Selbstaufhebung der
Kunst: Was Flucht ist, wird vergeblich Spaziergang oder gar
Angriff."^ Such references are reasonably Infrequent,
however, and their occurrence seems to be due only to
Kafka's Instinctive distrust of all apparent answers. In
the last years, particularly, he became increasingly at
ease with his art.^6 In fact, of course, the view of art
that is contained in the various comments assembled here
did provide Kafka with a defense against contradiction so
far as art was concerned. His view of art presupposes that
it does not come into existence except at the critical
moment of achieved truth, and therefore does not Involve
that mask common to all physical properties. One must
■^"Das Dritte Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 95.
^Meno Spann has pointed out that in the last few
years of his life, Kafka apparently published on his own
Initiative, in contrast to his reluctant consent earlier.
Janouch*s record of his conversations with Kafka support
this view, also. Meno Spann, "Franz Kafka's Leopard,"
The Germanic Review (April, 1959), 85-104.
suppose, then, that he considered art as a condition rather
than a fact, that art came Into existence not with a story
or novel but when the work actively functioned on a reader
(or on the writer, himself, in writing it). As a matter of
fact, he several times refers to art as experience in this
way, and describes the artist's attempt to discover ulti
mate truth as an act of literal creation. Commenting once
on a novel by Alfred Dbblin, Kafka offered a judgment that
seems to be equally applicable to his own writing. Dttblin,
he said, "'kommt mir so vor, als wtlrde er die sichtbare
Welt als etwas ganz Uhvollkommenes auffassen, das er erst
mit selnem Wort schttpferlsch erg&nzen rauss.'"^ In this
same sense, Kafka took the actual world around him--an
illusion of coherence over the unintelligible--and sought
to complete it. At the very least he gave the mask a
tug and threw a brief light on the "grimacing retreating
face."
While Kafka's art is unique and by his own view
necessarily had to be so, since for him all things occur in
a unique sense, the ultimate truth, the object of search,
involved at least a theoretical reconciliation in which
the imperfection of uniqueness is eliminated. While the
dilemma of man's condition seemed to render Impossible
^Janouch, p. 51.
56
the achievement of reconciliation, and so occupied his
attention that he could not go beyond that dilemma, his
conception of the eternal is almost Platonic where he does
express it. "Jedem Augenblick entspricht auch etwas
Ausserzeitliches.(He goes on, however, to twist away
from Platonism by denying the possibility of access to one
from the other.) In practice, he was very much guided by
the idea of correspondence, the notion that every physical
fact is an imperfect symbol of a spiritual fact, and that,
further, any one detail if ever perfectly understood would
contain the answer to all. It is for this reason that one
must scrutinize the detail so thoroughly. Each individual
moment is an object of infinite multiplicity, as he wrote
in one of the brief fragments: "Die Mannigfaltigkeiten, die
sich mannigfaltig drehen in den Mannigfaltigkeiten des
einen Augenblicks, in dem wir leben. Und noch imner ist
der Augenblick nicht zu Ende, sieh nur!"*-9
This infinite complexity is a matter to which we
are blind, for over it is the disguise of habit and
routine, the familiar which allows us to take things for
granted and so eliminates them for consciousness. Kasimir
Edschmid, one of the first critics to take notice of Kafka,
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 94.
19Ibid., p. 273.
57
discussed his work in a book that appeared in the early
1920s. When asked what he thought of Edschmid's comments,
Kafka answered:
"Edschmid behauptet, dass ich Wunder in gewtthnliche
Vorg&nge hineinpraktiziere. Das ist natlirlich ein
schwerer Irrtum von seiner Seite. Das Gewtthnliche
selbst 1st ja schon ein Wunder! Ich zeichne es nur
auf. MBglich, dass ich die Dinge auch ein wenlg
beleuchte, wie der Beleuchter auf elner halbver-
dunkelten Bllhne. Das ist aber nicht richtig! In Wirk-
lichkelt ist die Btthne gar nicht verdunkelt. Sie ist
voller Tageslicht. Darum schliessen die Menschen die
Augen und sehen so wenig."20
The ordinary is a miracle that mankind does not perceive.
As artist, Kafka considered it his function to show the
ordinary in its true nature. If its nature is miraculous,
it must be presented as such. On the mechanical level, at
least, this accounts for the element of exaggeration
(exaggeration, he must have thought, only to the "normal,"
blinded point of view) that is so conspicuous a part of his
writings. In part, too, this explains Kafka's taste in the
drama. As already noted, he was quick to criticize Werfel
for being too realistic in the play Schweiger and, in con
trast, was fascinated by the grotesque elements of the
Yiddish theatre. He once explained this by what he called
the "law of gravity," and the explanation accords perfectly
with hi8 belief that the artist must reveal the miraculous
nature of the ordinary:
^Janouch, p. 38.
58
"Der Schauspieler soli theatralisch seln. Seine
GefUhle und Ausserungen rails sen grttsser seln als die
Geftihle und Ausserungen des Zuschauers, urn bel dlesem
die gewQnschte Wirkung zu erreichen. Soil das Theater
auf das Leben wirken, muss es sttrker, intensiver als
das alltXgliche Leben seln. Das ist das Gesetz der
Schwere. Wenn man schiesst, muss man hbher, tlber das
Ziel hinaus zielen."21
On still another occasion, he went on to describe the
theatre as "'Seelenperiskop, das die Wirklichkelt von innen
beleuchtet. ",22
The ordinary detail disguising an Infinite com
plexity was the proper material for the artist to work
with, and Kafka not only perceived but faithfully followed
this theoretical concept. In a recent article2- * Meno Spann
offers a reasonable argument that the personal meaning of
"Der Hungerkttnstler," for Kafka, was that of regret for an
unfulfilled life. Another brief story, or fragment by
Kafka, "Der Kreisel," seems to be an even more convincing
statement of such regret, and is intimately tied to the
search for meaning in the external detail. Only a page
long, the story runs as follows: A philosopher spends his
time loitering near where children are at play. Every time
one of the children spins a top, the philosopher runs to
seize it. He believes that In the simple action of the
21
Janouch, p. 37.
22Ibid., p. 38.
2^Spaim, pp. 85-104.
59
spinning top, all things may have their answer; and as the
toy is being wound in preparation by the child, the phi
losopher waits in eager hope that this time his revelation
will come. He feels a moment of great joy as his hand
grasps the spinning toy; but when he has it in his hand, a
feeling of nausea overcomes him and he threw it away each
time. The core of the story is contained in these lines:
Er glaubte nflmlich, die Erkenntnis jeder Klei-
nigkeit, also zuxn Beispiel auch eines sich drehenden
Krelsels, gentlge zur Erkenntnis des Allgemelnen.
Darum beschttftigte er sich nicht mit den grossen Prob-
lemen, das schien ihm unttkonomisch. War die kleinste
Kleinlgkeit wirklich erkannt, dann war alles erkannt,
deshalb besch&ftigte er sich nur mit dem sich dre
henden Kreisel.24
If "Der Kreisel" was written as the record of a moment of
pessimism on Kafka's part, he clearly perceived that the
detail was the symbol for the art with which he had
struggled for so long. There is, of course, no justifica
tion for reading the story as a rejection of art, itself.
The philosopher feels a moment of joy as he touches the
spinning top; the failure is that the moment of contact
with the detail in vital movement cannot be preserved; the
very act of it turns the top into an inert piece of wood in
his hands, and it is that which fills him with nausea. Art
always succeeds for the briefest of moments, but the moment
A i
Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 120.
60
after that lies inert. No artist has ever finally estab
lished meaning. "'Alles ist Kampf, Ringen. Nur der
verdient die Liebe und das Leben, der tttglich sie erobern
muss.",25
On infrequent occasions, Kafka also indicated his
views on specific literary types and techniques, such as
comedy, allegory, and fantasy. The element of comedy in
his work has frequently been noted by critics; and Max Brod
in the biography recalls that Kafka, when reading his work
to others, frequently interrupted himself with uncontrol
lable laughter. Brod also emphasizes that Kafka's humor
was a delicate balance between the serious and the comic,
and that he himself frequently did not know when Kafka was
speaking seriously or joking.^ F. D. Luke27 sees Kafka's
use of comedy as that of "humorous distance," established
in order to provide detachment for the essentially tragic
theme of degradation. There is a degree of truth in this
view, certainly; and at least at one point early in his
writing career, Kafka seems to express something like the
same thought. In the third section of the Supplicant's
story in Beschreibung eines Kampfes, the Supplicant relates
Janouch, p. 39.
2^Brod, Franz Kafka, pp. 147-148.
2?f. D. Luke, "Kafka's 'Die Verwandlung,''* Modern
Language Review. XLVI (April, 1951), 232-245.
61
a dialogue between himself and a girl. She tells him that
while what he says is boring, incomprehensible, and tiring,
that is not enough to establish the truth of it. Kafka
then has the Supplicant react joyfully to her frankness and
say:
Und sehen Sie, liebes Fr&ulein, von alien diesen
Leuten . . . scheine ich allein wttrdlg, ganz Klares
tiber mich zu httren. Und damit auch das noch mit
Angenehmen gefttllt sei, sagen Sie es spttttisch, so das
merkllch noch etwas ttbrlg blelbt, wie es auch durch
die wichtigen Mauern eines im Innern ausgebrannten
Hauses geschieht.28
The implication that truth must be made palatable by a
humorous manner seems to tie together with the girl's
earlier description of truth as boring and incomprehensi
ble. There is also a suggestion that it is a protective
device against the damage of truth; instead of total de
struction, it leaves the outer walls standing. However,
this is not sufficient to Justify the belief that Kafka
would have agreed with Luke's judgment. There is, in the
words of the Supplicant, a note of bitterness that has to
be accounted for. Mockery leaves the walls standing, but
they themselves are a hollow mockery surrounding the
bumed-out interior; the walls support nothing and only
deceive the eye as to the damage that has been done. While
Luke goes a certain distance towards reconciling the comic
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 49.
62
and the tragic, he does not go far enough. Kafka actually
sees no opposition between them at all; the comic is a dis
tinct source of the tragic for him. One again is forced
to remember his comment that art, involving the total per
sonality, is fundamentally tragic.
If true, such a conception explains an utterance by
Kafka that must startle any reader who comes across it
after reading the stories or novels. Speaking of Hasen-
clever*8 play Der Sohn, he said: "'Die Revolte des Sohnes
gegen den Vater 1st ein uraltes Thema der Literatur und ein
noch Ulteres Problem der Welt. Es werden dartlber Dramen
und Tragttdien geschrieben, in Wirklichkeit ist es aber ein
Kbmbdienstoff.*"29 father-son conflict is a funda
mental subject, of course, in his own work; and, while he
may have had doubts about the execution of his art, it goes
beyond belief that he would so dismiss his own subject
material. The genres of drama, tragedy, and comedy to
which he refers are simply modes of treatment; the tragic
is potential in all of them when there occurs the total
engagement of personality, to which he makes reference
elsewhere. In brief, tragedy as genre and tragedy as con
dition are quite distinct.
Most of the earlier critics of Kafka identified him
as an allegorist, but the arbitrary definitions of allegory
29
Janouch, p. 34.
63
have been unsatisfactory for recent Interpreters. Meno
Spann quite justly attacks the allegorists (and, with much
less justice those who interpret "intellectual" meanings
for the images),^® but he fails to give Max Brod credit for
having pointed out the same error many years before. In
the biography, Brod insists upon the symbolic, as opposed
to the allegorical, nature of Kafka's work at fairly con
siderable length and his presentation of his case is an
it
effective one. Neither Brod nor Spann, however, have
cited the best evidence available, that of Kafka himself.
(In Brod's case, however, the biography preceded the
availability of the evidence.) Kafka not only did not
write allegory, he distinctly rejected it as a deceptive
device. Allegory necessarily works within absolute limits,
and 1 think by this time it is readily apparent that Kafka
denied the absolute nature of any detail. He once con
demned allegory in these words: "'Die Allegorie wird im
Denken der Menschen zum Abbild der Wlrklichkelt, was
natUrlich falsch ist. Aber die Verirrung ist schon hier.'"
Asked if this meant that the allegory was false, he
answered with his characteristic ability to see two things
^Spann, pp. 87-89.
•**Brod, Franz Kafka, pp. 236-238. Brod's real
failure is that after having pointed out the non-
allegorical nature of Kafkars art, he Interprets him
allegorically.
64
simultaneously. "’Es ist richtig, und es ist falsch.
Richtig ist es nur nach einer Richtung hin. Falsch ist es,
insofem es diese Teilansicht zur Gesamtansicht prokla-
32
miert.'" In other words, the danger of the allegory is
that of all partial truths; the fragment of truth contra
dicts itself by trying to assume control over that part for
which it is not true. While partially true it cancels out
its own truth by giving a false color to other circum
stances.
Kafka's use of fantasy, by whatever name one may
choose to call it, is so distinctive that his few recorded
comments on this aspect of art are worth attention. He has
been called both a surrealist (generally by surrealists)
and a realist (Wilhelm Emrich), but one suspects that he
would have much preferred a less literary definition of
himself. His devotion to the extemporaneous drama of folk
theatre and the legends that he himself wrote both point
quite accurately to his interest in the imaginative litera
ture of generic beliefs. On a couple of occasions, he
referred to the fairy tale in a rather unorthodox way. In
his letter criticising Werfel1s play, for example, he uses
the fairy tale as an example of a bona fide literary medium
for serious concerns, opposing it to the "individual" or
^Janouch, p. 90.
65
realistic treatment that he felt Werfel had used. "Wenn
man ein MMrchen erzMhlt, dann wissen alle, dass man sich
fremden MMchten anvertraut und die heutigen Gerichte aus-
33
geschaltet hat." These alien powers or the demon whis
pering the "inner commandment," it comes to the same thing;
if Kafka had been forced to admit the same choice that he
here casually offers Werfel, there is no doubt that he
would have elected the fairy tale. In fact, he does so
implicitly by castigating Werfel for his realistic tech
nique.
That the nature of the fairy tale was no careless
entertainment, so far as Kafka was concerned, is still more
evident when we read the following:
'Es gibt keine unblutigen MMrchen. Jedes MMrchen
korant aus der Tiefe des Blutes und der Angst. Das ist
die Verwandtschaft aller MMrchen. Die OberflMche ist
verschieden. Nttrdliche MMrchen sind nicht von so
einer Uppigen Fauna der Phantasie erfillIt wie afri-
kanische NegermMrchen, aber der Kern, die Tiefe der
Sehnsucht 1st die gleiche.
Later in this study, in discussing Kafka's themes, the im
portance to him of such things as "the depths of blood and
fear" and "the depth of longing" will become evident. For
the moment it is sufficient to note the high seriousness
with which he regarded the fairy tale and the universal
function that he considered to be its core. His interest
■^Hochzeitsvorbereituntten, p. 277.
34
Janouch, p. 55.
66
in the bizarre, in strange beasts of his own inventing, in
the lore of the strange (to him) Eastern Jew is never that
of the grotesque for the sake of the grotesque, but a
fascination generated by anything that has escaped the
shackles of familiar definition. These were the things
that challenged the familiar and freed one from it. He
once called a friend a magician, because "*Er kann . . .
ein starkes Geftlhl der Freiheit herbeirufen. Darum ist er
ein Zauberer.'
Kafka's attitudes towards literature as art encom
pass much of the romantic and a good bit that is unique.
His concern with the unintelligible constantly brings us
back to the old question of how a man can effectively con
trol his materials if he does not perceive the limits of
his subject. The legend of the doorkeeper has already been
cited to show that such a difficulty did not concern Kafka.
He saw his technique as the search for, and--sometimes--the
discovery of, meaning. In the Notebooks, he once wrote a
series of comments on Kierkegaard's Furcht und Zittem. two
of which are significant for our understanding of Kafka's
own art. The first links together the logical and the
"magic,” to produce what almost seems to be a definition
of a situation in a typical Kafka story:
35
Janouch, p. 57.
67
Neben seiner BeweisfUhrung geht eine Bezauberung
mit. Einer BeweisfUhrung kann man in die Zauberwelt
ausweichen, einer Bezauberung in die Logik, aber beide
gleichzeitig erdrileken, zumal sie etwas Drittes sind,
lebender Zauber oder nicht zerstttrende, sondem auf-
bauende ZerstBrung der Welt.3®
Through magic, transformed into logic, the world is de
stroyed and there is constructed--the unintelligible ulti
mate truth? In a second quotation, Kafka explicitly denies
the necessity of a priori knowledge of meaning:
Die Nichtmittelbarkeit des Paradoxes besteht
vielleicht, Hussert sich aber nicht als solche, denn
Abraham selbst versteht es nicht. Nun braucht oder
soil er es nicht verstehn, also auch nicht fUr sich
deuten, wohl aber darf er es den andem gegenUber zu
deuten sueh e n .37
He concludes the passage from which the above is taken, by
stating that "the oracle" is always equivocal. The artist
or poet as the voice of prophecy, as the hunter or searcher
for meaning, is the interpreter for others, whose under
standing may exceed his own.
Max Brod has suggested3® that Kafka should be
viewed as two separate writers, that the author of the
stories is a man concerned with different things from those
which concern the author of the aphorisms and fragments.
If this discussion of Kafka's theoretical views on art has
3®Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 125.
37Ibid., p. 124.
IQ
Max Brod, Franz Kafkas Glauben und Lehre (Winter
thur: Mondial Verlag~ 1946).
68
established one thing, it seems to me that it has provided
us with a distinct and consistent relationship between the
mind of Kafka and the work of Kafka. The final paradox of
all paradox is resolution, and Kafka's attitudes, finally,
are not contradictory at all; they lead directly into the
art that he achieved with them.
CHAPTER IV
THE SITUATIONAL THEME
As was noted early in this study, Kafka's Images
are not simply those of physical description but of quali
tative description. The nature of a figure is what he was
interested in, the involuntary gestures, unwitting atti
tudes, the curve of an actor's back or the way a man held
a walking stick. All of these are magnified through a
distinct technique; the author refuses to take them for
granted and so does not allow the reader to do so. Simi
larly, the symbolic devices that Kafka uses are what I
should like to call "situational"; they consist of certain
thematic situations Infinitely varied. They occur in
Kafka's earliest work, although it is not until his style
has fully developed that the situational theme functions
with full effect as a device for him. Because of this, it
will be instructive to take a fairly thorough look at the
only sizeable piece of youthful writing that is available
to us.
Max Brod originally presented the story Beschrei
bung eines Kamofes as Kafka's earliest extant work,basing
^"Nachwort," Beschreibung eines Kampfes. pp. 310-
312.
69
70
his judgment solely on mechanical characteristics of two
fair copies in his possession. His dating was a logical
one, even on the limited basis of evidence with which he
worked. The date given was 1902-1903. Brod has since
repudiated that dating and now suggests that the story was
written in 1907-1908, in any event after the fragment
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. which he dates 1907. The reason
for the change is much more tenuous^ than was the evidence
given to support the earlier date, and turns essentially on
Brod'8 admittedly incomplete records in which he had noted
down a reading by Kafka of the Hochzeitsvorbereitungen some
months before he read Brod the manuscript of Beschreibung
eines Kampfes. Yet, Brod incidentally points out that the
second fair copy of Beschreibung eines Kampfes is in a
later calligraphic style, and that no draft copy exists.
(The first copy of Hochzeitsvorbereitungen is described as
difficult to read and is quite different, of course, from
the second and third ones. It is therefore in all proba
bility an original or early draft.) It seems likely, then,
that Brod's reversal of his original judgment is an error
on his part. Further consideration of the content of
Beschreibung eines Kampfes seems to me to justify quite
convincingly an early dating for the story; the year 1903,
^"Anmerkungen," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 434.
71
at which time Kafka was twenty years of age, is probably
close to accurate.
On the simplest level, the very concerns of the two
stories are markedly different. Hochzeitsvorbereitungen is
a story, in either version, that relates to one of his most
consistent major themes--the problem of the bachelor con
templating marriage. In contrast, Beschreibung is a story
of relationships that are much more casual intrinsically.
In fact, while a central character allegedly tells the
story, a series of other characters successively occupy the
center of the stage to tell their own stories while the
narrator waits on the sidelines. (The central character,
vaguely, is identified with the other characters, but they
do not coalesce.) In no other work by Kafka is this true.
Further, Beschreibung is a story that reveals the awkward
ness of youth. While Hochzeitsvorbereitungen is frag
mentary and indecisive in meaning, Eduard Raban's feelings
and responses are already those which we might expect from
K. the surveyor in the late Das Schloss. The narrator of
Beschreibung, on the other hand, is self-consciously com
plex and therefore rather ridiculous— a statement that
could never be made about Raban or any other Kafka pro
tagonist. He is concerned about each individual circum
stance that he encounters, separately, and therefore is not
controlled by a basic underlying problem that will hold
the reader as well, in the desire for discovery. In short,
while Beschreibung is quite definitely a Kafka piece in
many respects, it is an episodic tour de force, dependent
on the very emotional impressionism that Kafka himself many
years later was to assert is not art, but a groping towards
3
it. For this reason, Beschreibung at an early date
yielded Kafka brief pieces for separate publication, in*
eluding two published as early as 1909 in Hyperion
(Munich), as well as the introductory piece to his first
book. In fact, the story functions only in fragments be*
cause at twenty he has not yet the fusion of thematic
concerns that is already present by the time he wrote
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen: the central character of Beschrei
bung is an emotional rogue moving along a fantastic high
road. It is not yet the work of the minor functionary
chained to a desk and routine that he hated and pondering
the enormity of challenging the authority of the universe
by marrying. It is still the work of the brilliant student
who, as an interruption to the cramming for his first State
examination, had his first sexual experience in a cheap
hotel with a shopgirl taken by conspiracy from another
man. ^
3
See Chapter III, footnote 14.
^Briefe an Milena, pp. 180-181.
73
In addition to immaturity of content, there are
many other things to mark the technique as a beginning one.
Brod, in originally dating the manuscript, called attention
to the strange outline headings and sub-divisions that
Kafka employed here but nowhere else in his work. Brod saw
this as a lingering influence from school assignments.
Whether or not that is true, the outline form suggests a
self-consciousness at the technical level. This self-
consciousness extends into the writing itself, where the
author apparently feels a necessity to account for the fan
tastic atmosphere instead of making it the subtle element
of magnified detail that he later perfected. The narrator
himself literally creates the atmosphere, so that the
reader can comfortably accept it, in lines such as these:
Erst als mir der Hinmel allmtthlich durch die Xste
der BBume, die Ich an der Strasse wachsen liess.
verdeckt wurde, besann Ich mich.
Weil ich aber als FussgXnger die Anstrengung der
bergigen Strasse fttrchtete, liess ich den Wag immar
flacher werden und sich in der Entfemung endlich zu
einem Tale senken. Die Steineverschwanden nach
meinem Willen und der Wind verlor sich I italics
added]. 5--------- -----------------
The mature Kafka may not have had the opportunity or desire
to cross out such lines, but he had the perception not to
write them in the first place. The separately printed
"Kinder auf der Landstrasse," present only in the later
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes. pp. 27-28.
74
manuscript, shows no such awkwardness. Certainly, too,
there is nothing in Hochzeitsvorbereitunaen that indicates
so amateur a hand. The work also shows Kafka faced with a
problem that did not trouble him at all later— the ina
bility to frame a concept in words. In the following lines
he leaves the reader without any image possible for the
concept.
. . . lauter niemand. Aber so ist es doch nicht.
Nur dass mir niemand hilft, sonst w&re lauter niemand
hllbsch, ich wUrde ganz gerne (was sagen Sie dazu?)
einen Ausflug mit einer Gesellschaft von lauter niemand
machen. Hatdr1ich ins Gebirge, wohin denn sonst?”
The use of "niemand" in this way is that of the university
student, not that of the author of the novels. The later
Kafka would have been the first to regard it as a form of
empty wit masquerading as an idea. Further the awkwardness
of the passage is not the only instance of such a stylistic
character in Beschreibung: perhaps equally self-conscious
is the following line: "'Ich weiss nicht, rief ich ohne
Klang ..." (italics added). Kafka's mature use of the
paradox is one that simultaneously justifies contradiction,
not one that strangles it.
However, the weaknesses of Beschreibung eines
Kampfaa cannot, except by contrast, tell us a great deal
about his art. Despite what X consider to be major im
perfections, the story is interesting in that it shows
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 27.
75
from the very beginning certain thematic concerns emerging,
however vaguely. Physical objects are given a sentient
nature, leading to a confusion of identity between the
individual and the world around him, ". . .da ich die
Anstrengung, die Dinge der Erde um mich zu sehn, nicht
ertragen konnte. Ich war (lberzeugt, dass jede Bewegung und
jeder Gedanke erzwungen seien, dass man sich daher vor
ihnen htlten aolle."7 This ambiguity leads to an assault on
the identity of the self, a sense of terror generated by
the familiar:
Sonst ist er [the mountain] nicht zufrieden.
Und mtlssen wir nicht ihn uns freundlich erhalten,
damit wir tlberhaupt ihn nur aufrecht erhalten, ihn,
der eine so launische Vorliebe ftlr den Brei unserer
Gehime hat. Er wdrde seine gezackten Schatten auf
mich nlederschlagen, er wflrde stumm schrecklich kahle
WInde mir vorschieben und meine Trttger wtlrden fiber die
kleinen Steinchen am Wege stolpem.
Aber nicht nur der Berg ist so eitel, so zudring-
lich und so rachsttchtlg dann, alles anderes ist es
auch. So muss ich mit kreisrunden Augen— oh, sie
schmerzen— inner wiederholen:
"Ja, Berg, du blst schOn, und die Wilder auf
deinem westlichen Abhang freuen mich."8
The Fat Man, speaking here, feels compelled to
placate nature as he travels along. Objects Intrude upon
the self and force our recognition of them, thus challeng
ing our own identity. If the physical, external object
7Beschreibung eines Kamnfes. p. 31.
8Ibid., pp. 33-34.
76
is real, one's own reality becomes doubtful. After the
Supplicant leaves the party, described in the third section
of his story, he says:
Ich ging ruhig aus dem Schatten ins Mondlicht,
knOpfte den uberzieher auf und w&rmte mich, dann liess
ich durch Erheben der HHnde das Sausen der Nacht
schwelgen und fing zu Uberlegen an:
'Was ist es doch, dass ihr tut, als wenn ihr wirk-
lich wtret. Wollt ihr mich glauben machen, dass ich
unwirklich bin, komisch auf aem grttnen Pflaster
stehend.*9
There is, in other words, already present in Beschreibung
eines Kampfes the ambiguity of the physical detail, the
external world as a challenge to the identity of the self,
which creates the alienation of the characters in the later
stories from the world around them. The reality of the
external threatens to dissolve the self: in Beschreibung
we first see the Fat Man trying to placate external nature,
which subsequently engulfs him (while he is telling his
story and that of the Supplicant, in fact). He warns the
narrator not to try to rescue him for— "Das 1st die Rache
des Wassers und des Windes; nun bln ich v e r l o r e n . " ^ The
elements of nature revenge themselves, he says, because he
and the Supplicant have often attacked these elements. For
his offense, he Is literally engulfed by the external; its
reality destroys him. After he drowns, the narrator
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 52.
10Ibid.. p. 37.
77
himself loses control of his body. First it shrinks quite
small, then his arms become so huge they threaten to crush
his head, while his legs stretch out over the mountains and
villages, finally passing over the landscape. Even that is
not the end, for he next feels himself to be an avalanche
roaring down a mountain. ^ The penultimate section of the
story, it ends with the narrator crying, "Bitte, vorttber-
gehende Leute, seid so gut, sagt mir, wie gross ich bin,
messet nur diese Arme, diese Beine." As with the Fat
Man, the reality of external objects destroys his own
reality. Many years later, in the aphorisms that he wrote
in 1920, Kafka expressed the same thought and extended it.
One's own body becomes the alien element, the external
object that challenges the identity of self. In the aphor
isms, it is seen as an obstruction. The two following
thoughts are successive in the text:
Er hat das Geftthl, dass er sich dadurch, dass er
lebt, den Weg verstellt. Aus dieser Behinderung nimmt
er dann wieder den Beweis dafttr, dass er lebt.
Sein elgener Stimknochen verlegt ihm den Weg, an
seiner eigenen Stim schlBgt er sich die Stirn blu-
tig.13
the parabolic story "Die Brttcke" fBaachraibung
eines Kampfes, p. 113), the identical situation forms the
basis of the story. It begins: "Ich war stelf und kalt,
ich was elne Brttcke, ttber elnem Abgrund lag ich. Diesseits
waren dies Fusspltzen, jenseits die H&nde elngebohrt in
brttckelndem Lehm habe ich mich festgebissen."
12
Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 60.
13Ibid.. p. 280.
78
The physical body, more significantly the forehead, is that
which stands as a contradiction to the self, a barrier that
bars free access. (The last sentence of the above quota
tion will remind most readers, undoubtedly, of the scene in
"Der Bau" where the central figure builds the great central
room by pounding against the earth--again external object--
until the blood runs from his forehead, the pain of it
giving him great satisfaction because it proved the dura
bility of the walls.) Another reference, a creative frag
ment, that is in the eighth octavo notebook, supports and
is itself clarified by this identification:
Ich bin gewohnt, in allem meinem Kustscher zu
vertrauen. Als wir an eine hohe weisse seitw&rts
und oben sich langsam wtJlbende Mauer kamen, die Vor-
wllrtsfahrt einstellten, die Mauer entlang fahrend,
sie betasteten, sagte schliesslich der Kutscher: ”Es
ist eine Stirn."^
The exact word we use here is unimportant, but it seems
likely that one's mind or sense of reason, or perhaps per
sonality itself, is represented by the coachman. In any
event, the impassable barrier that defies the realization
of intrinsic self once again occurs. The external contra
dicts and denies the intrinsic self. In the brief piece
called "Prometheus" Kafka gave what he called the four
myths that account for this archetypal figure of human
suffering. Which myth is accurate is, finally, a matter
^"Das achte Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 153.
79
of indifference, for at the end: "Blieb das unerklttrliche
Felsgebirge.
Turning once again to Beschreibung einan Kampfes.
we can see that there exists, also, in rudimentary form
a theoretical solution to the crisis, never achieved though
always attempted. If the external world can be made to
recognize the self, then one's identity can be wrested from
it. The Supplicant goes to church and prays at the top of
his voice, he tells the Fat Man, in order to be looked at
and thus to acquire a real identity. In the same way,
Josef K. seeks vainly to extract a real bit of personal
attention from the officials of the Court, K. the surveyor
devotes his life to the singleminded task of securing the
recognition of the Castle, and the HungerkUnstler, in
fatuated with his fate, literally fasts away all his body
as the crowd no longer notices him. Ue exist, the Suppli
cant tells the Fat Man, "auf Grund unseres Einverst&nd-
nisses." The agreement was a delicate balance, inevitably
upset as one perceived the failure of the external world
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 99. This brief
piece is an excellent example of Tauber's attempt to force
everything into a preconceived theme of essentially reli
gious Import. He ignores the alternate possibilities of
Prometheus's fate, concentrating on one that fits his
theory, and interprets the rocks as dead and sterile, tomb
stones for the mythical savior. Herbert Tauber, Franz
Kafka: Eine Peutung seiner Werke (Ztlrich: Verlag Oprecht,
1441), p. 75.
80
to recognize it. After Beschreibung eines Kampfes. Kafka
no longer even creates the possibility of the agreement
(although it somehow continues always to exist). Signifi
cantly too, it is the one story in which there exists a
clear case of what might be called friendship: that of the
Fat Man and the Supplicant, assaulting together the waters
and wind with their swords and cymbals.(One recalls for
example the pivotal point of "Das Urteil," where Georg
Bendemann's father abruptly gains power over his son with
the announcement that the friend in Russia is his con
fidant, not that of the son.) In Beschreibung, of course,
the friendship is only mentioned, and the figures of the
Supplicant, the Fat Man and the protagonist are more or
less different aspects of a single identity, yet between
the figures an intimacy exists that is not broken except by
death. I can recall no other case in Kafka's stories where
the intimacy does not suddenly twist into a contradictory
situation. The agreement by virtue of which we exist seems
to have been permanently thrown into question for Kafka
after writing Beschreibung eines Kampfes: from that point
on, personal relationships, institutions, traditions, even
one's own existence, all become insubstantial and ambiguous
when the magnifying lens is applied to them. The rock of
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 37.
81
Prometheus remains, as a contradiction to all else, in
cluding his fate.
Aa is apparent, this itself is paradox, since it
represents a heightened self-consciousness operating so as
to destroy the reality of the self. Even in Beschreibung,
this destructive consciousness is fully present, although
the lack of a strong focus on a central consciousness
allows us to escape without taking it as seriously as we
are forced to in the later stories. The agreement by which
we exist, as it respects our relationship to ourselves, is
that of simply accepting ourselves without question as
existent. Once the doubt begins, it becomes impossible to
go on successfully; once the lungs begin to ponder their
function, the breath falters. The narrator of Beschrei
bung. watching the Fat Man engulfed by the river, perceives
this truth just before he himself is engulfed by external
reality:
"Was sollen unsere Lungen tun," schrie ich, schrie,
"atmen sie rasch, ersticken sie an sich, an innern
Giften; atmen sie langsam, ersticken sie an nicht
atembarer Luft, an den empttrten Dingen. Wenn sie aber
ihr Tempo suchen wolien, gehen sie schon am Suchen
zugrunde."17
In the story "Die Brttcke", Kafka dramatized this dilemma
perfectly. The "ich" of the story is a man; that is, he
is clothed, has arms and legs and a human consciousness,
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 59.
82
but he exists as a bridge, carefully laid across a chasm,
hands touching one side and feet, the other. His position
is uncomfortable and even painful, but otherwise he exists
in relative peace, almost dreaming. The seasons pass, and
then one day someone comes to use him as a bridge, to make
him, in other words, exercise his function. The man-bridge
becomes so conscious of himself, as the person steps upon
him, that he turns to see what he is bearing. The delicate
balance by which he is maintained is upset. The story
ends:
Brttcke dreht sich um! Ich war noch nicht umge-
dreht, da stttrzte ich schon, ich stttrzte, und schon
war ich zerrissen und aufgespiesst von den zugespitzten
Kieseln, die mich immer so friedlich aus dem rasenden
Wasser angestarrt hatten.18
So long as he accepted himself, the precarious
balance was maintained; the sharp rocks below were simply
peaceful inanimate objects. When self-consciousness upsets
the balance, the rocks tear his body and he is destroyed--
without even having seen the unknown face, for sight of
which he had relinquished the tenuous grasp he had upon the
earth. LAter, in "Bin Landarzt" and "Der JHger Gracchus,"
we will see this same fatal moment abstracted as the single
wrong step that can never be made right again.
Essentially, then, the relationship of the indi
vidual to the external world is maintained only by an
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 114.
83
unquestioning acceptance of the self, an acceptance that
for certain men, at least, is impossible. Once his own
reality becomes nebulous, man is threatened by the very
stones and trees of the physical world that surround him.
They assume life, his own perhaps, and rise to crush him.
One of the changes that Kafka made in the "Gespr&ch mit dem
Beter" when he extracted it from Beschreibung and re-wrote
it for publication in Hyperion in 1909 was the addition of
the following lines, given to the Supplicant as he explains
himself to the Fat Man:
'£8 hat niemals eine Zeit gegeben, in der ich durch
mich selbst von meinem Leben tlberzeugt war. Ich
erfasse nMmlich die Dinge um mich nur in so hinf&lligen
Vorstellungen, dass ich immer glaube, die Dinge hBtten
einmal gelebt, jetzt aber seien sie versinkend. Immer,
lieber Herr, habe ich eine Lust die Dinge so zu sehen,
wie sie sich geben mttgen, ehe sie sich mir zeigen. Sie
sind da wohl schBn und ruhig. Es muss so sein, denn
ich hBre oft Leute in dieser Weise von ihnen reden. * ^
Before showing themselves to him, they were calm and
beautiful*-as peaceful as the rocks below the human bridge
had been. It is to force the wind and waters back into the
inanimate, and so gain his own reality, that the Suppli
cant, together with his accomplice the Fat Man, assaults
nature. The phrasing varies but the situational theme
remains the same; the Supplicant in Beschreibung eines
in trying to catch and fix the things of the
^ Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 17.
84
external world Is In quest of himself, just as Kafka, de
fining himself when he characterized the writing of Alfred
DOblin, spoke of putting the finishing touches to creation.
The sections of the story which this study has been
chiefly concerned with so far all occur in the long middle
section entitled "Belustigungen oder Beweis dessen, dass
es unmOglich ist zu leben." The significance of that head
ing should now be reasonably apparent. The first and third
sections, dealing primarily with the relationship of the
protagonist and a "new acquaintance," involve a walk on the
Laurenzlberg. The action of the two episodes is linked,
and its significance is a matter that will be discussed
later in this study. However, the setting is important in
connection with the basic situational theme that has just
been Identified. Many years later Kafka apparently re
called the inspiration for this youthful story and he cited
it, in what is probably as clearly phrased a passage as any
he ever wrote, as corresponding to a life ambition. The
passage, from the series of Aphorisms entitled "Er" written
in 1920, is given in its entirety, together with the
related aphorisms that immediately follow it:
Es handelt sich um folgendes: Ich sass elnmal vor
vielen Jahren, gewlss traurig genug, auf der Lehne des
Laurenziberges. Ich prttfte ale Wttnsche, die ich fUr
das Leben hatte. Als wichtigster oder als relzvollster
ergab sich der Wunsch, eine Ansicht des Lebens zu
gewinnen (und— das war allerdings notwendlg verbunden—
schriftlich die anderen von ihr tiberzeugen zu kBnnen),
85
in der das Leben zwar sein natilrliches schweres Fallen
und Steigen bewahre, aber gleichzeitig mit nicht
minderer Deutlichkeit als ein Nichts, als ein Traum,
als ein Schweben erkannt werde. Vielleicht ein schttner
Wunsch, venn ich ihn richtig gevtinscht hfttte. Etva
als Wunsch, einen Tisch mit peinlich ordentlicher
Handwerksmkssigkeit zusanmenzuhttmnem und dabei gleich
zeitig nichts zu tun, und zwar nicht so, dass man sagen
kOnnte: "Ihm ist das Httnmem ein Nichts/' sondem
"Ihm ist das H&ranem ein wirkliches Httmmem und gleich
zeitig auch ein Nichts," wodurch ja des H&mmem noch
ktlhner, noch entschlossener, noch wirklicher und, wenn
du willst, noch irrsinniger geworden w&re.
Aber er konnte gar nicht so wlinschen, denn sein
Wunsch war kein Wunsch, er war nur eine Verteidigung,
eine Verblirgerlichung des Nichts, ein Hauch von
Munterkeit, den er dem Nichts geben wollte, in das er
zwar damals kaum die ersten bewussten Schritte tat,
das er aber schon als sein Element ftthlte. Es war
damals eine Art Abschied, den er von der Scheinwelt der
Jugend nahm, sie hatte ihn (lbrigens niemals unmittelbar
get&uscht, sondem nur durch die Reden aller Autori-
taten ringsherum tBuschen lassen. So hatte sich die
Notwendigkeit des "Wunsches" ergeben.
Er beweist nur sich selbst, sein einziger Beweis
ist er selbst, alle Gegner besiegen ihn sofort, aber
nicht dadurch, dass sie ihn widerlegen (er ist un-
widerlegbar), sondem dadurch, dass sie sich bewei-
sen.20
The confession echoes that of the Supplicant, quoted im
mediately before. Kafka says he wished to convince others
(later, he realizes, he only proves himself and no one
else) that life is a dim hovering, a dream, at the same
time retaining the rise and fall of its "natural" identity.
He wished to do this--as he explains in the simile of the
table hammered together--not as though it were a casual
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 281-282.
86
matter but as though it were an act of establishing reality
truly but from which nonetheless he remained free from
involvement. His failure, and at the age of thirty-seven
Kafka seems to regard it as failure, was that he was
actually attempting to vindicate non-entity. Like the
Supplicant, he was striving against an external reality
that existed only in his own conception of it. The illu
sive world of youth, he suggests, is that view which the
traditions and institutions of mankind have established and
which youth accepts as truth. The forming of the wish, or
desire to vindicate the nothingness, was for him a neces
sity (despite its inevitable failure) as a farewell to the
illusions of youth. At the age of twenty, Kafka was still
able to sum up "proof that it is impossible to live" with
the alternate title of "Belustigungen." At that time, as
he himself says, he was taking his first steps in the ele
ment that was to be his own from that time forwards. At
the age of thirty-seven, "Belustigungen" is no longer pos
sible as an alternate title, for in direct reversal to the
original wish, the table has proved to be indifferent to
the carpenter.
In this early work, then, Kafka had established the
outlines of what may be the most fundamental situational
theme that he was to employ. As one moves on to his other
works, there is little difficulty in recognizing the
recurrence of the theme as it Is confronted by a variety of
particular circumstances. One certainly should not call it
the central theme of his work, for as we shall see the
implications of it become even more important than the
theme itself, but it governs most of the other themes in
greater or lesser measure. If one begins with the neces
sity of proving one's own reality by re-establishing the
balance or relationship with the external world, all con
tacts, whether with individuals, institutions, or tradi
tions, become crucial. In fact, the struggle becomes one
in which we are involved every moment of our existence,
from birth to death. It is this which makes the struggle
an eternal one. Kafka's conscious use of this paradox is
attested by the following sentence, in which he summed it
up perfectly: "Dass unsere Aufgabe genau so gross ist wie
unser Leben, gibt ihr einen Scheln von Unendllchkeit.
This paradox provides us, therefore, with another
fundamental theme that can be traced through the writings.
Because one is concerned with everything outside the self
in an attempt at self-definition, there is no moment, no
incident that Is not potentially important. The struggle
is total— exactly equivalent to the life in which it takes
place. One of the most apt comments used by Brod in the
21»'Das dritte Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 99.
88
biography--although he uses it in a different connection—
is a quotation from the Rabbi Tarfon's Sprtlche der VMter:
"Es ist dir nicht gegeben, das Werk zu vollenden,--dennoch
darfst du dich nicht entziehen.Kafka closely para
phrased this thought, giving it an added element of anguish,
in his diary entry of July 20, 1916: "Bin ich verurteilt,
so bin ich nicht nur verurteilt zum Ende, sondem auch
verurteilt, mich bis ins Ende hinein zu wehren."^
If the conflict is total, allowing no moment of
rest, there is no such thing as a casual meeting or a
casual relationship. The narrator of Beschreibung eines
Kampfes in the first section of the story wants to leave
his new acquaintance but is horrified at the thought of
being sent away. The apparent reality of the other, one
may suppose, is repellent to the narrator, but his rela
tionship with him cannot be broken off since it may contain
the answer--certainly, it cannot be regarded as casual.
The same is true in the relationship between the Supplicant
and the Fat Man; it has the inevitability that such meet
ings always have in Kafka's writing. Nothing happens by
chance, and the situation of one has an unavoidable effect
on the other. As the Supplicant expresses it: ". . . mein
Unglttck 1st ein schwankendes Unglttck und bertthrt man es,
2^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 121.
^ Tagebiicher. p. 508.
89
so f&llt es auf den Frager."^ This total engagement is
what colors every circumstance of Josef K. *s life in Der
Prozess and what lends significance to each meeting and
every dialogue in Das Schloss; the life of the creature in
"Der Bau" and the existence of the dog in "Forschungen
eines Hundes" are precisely equivalent to the "task" which
each of them faces. This attempt at self-definition repre
sents a battle against the circumstances of life Itself,
a form of activism in which a moment's rest or carelessness
can be fatal. Finally, it seems, this fight against the
circumstances of life in which one finds oneself, is a
struggle against that most ancient adversary--death.
Transience, wrote Kafka, is a proof of death which one
must not accept, not even by the delusive resources of con
ventional faith or the groundless hope that is the rational
equivalent of conventional faith:
Das Entscheidend Charakteristische dieser Welt ist
ihre Vergttnglichkeit. In diesem Sinn haben Jahr-
hunderte nichts vor dem augenblicklichen Augenblick
voraus. Die Kontinuitflt der Verg&ngllchkelt kann also
kelnen Trost geben; dass neues Leben aus den Ruinen
bltlht, beweist weniger die Ausdauer des Lebens als des
Todes. Will ich nun diese Welt bek&npfen, muss ich
sie in ihrem entscheidend Charakteristischen bek&mpfen,
also in ihrer VergMngllchkeit. Kann ich das in diesem
Leben, und zwar wirkllch, nicht nur durch Hoffen und
Glauben?25
0 /
Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 41.
25**Das vierte Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 115.
90
The transient view of life, the insubstantiality of a fixed
existence, demands an active involvement of a kind differ
ent from but just as crucial as that which Goethe assigned
to Faust. For Kafka, the activity was that of constant
examination by writing; for his characters, it was that of
playing the part of the searcher for meaning, of acting as
advocate against the ambiguous charge of one's existence,
of trying out the roles of servant, animal, or outcast to
determine one's relationship to the abstract powers that
decree guilt, suffering and death. The Hunter Gracchus,
with his unending dream of climbing up and down flights of
stairs in a search for heaven, is a direct representation
of the concern with which all mankind is involved.
Kafka*8 situational themes are, generally speaking,
simply archetypal possibilities for the different facets of
the basic problem. The quality of all things is estab
lished by egocentricism; like all thinkers Kafka is halted
at the first step by solipsism. Uhlike most philosophers,
however, he cannot invent a password and move on, for he
sees the hidden side of the argument: the existence of all
things in relation to oneself is not verification but a
questioning of one's own reality. In this sense, Kafka
stands apart from the basic view of the existentialists who
claim him. While they accept as fundamental only one
thing— the existence of the self as established by the
91
reality of one's individual senses, Kafka regards existen
tial reality just as ambiguously as he does social institu
tions. In fact, the rejection of Institutions and tradi
tion, as we shall later see, is due not to an essential
falseness of these elements beside the reality of the self
but to the illusory reality which they give to the self.
Kafka sees them as failures in a valid function, and his
mysticism--if one can call it that— is an attempt to estab
lish in their place his own symbolic devices for defining
ultimate truth. For this reason, religion and psychology
frequently coincide significantly with his work but, while
the parallel may run alongside for a while, neither reli
gion or psychology can contain it. Religion, concerned
with the myths of answer, and psychology, concerned with
the pattern of mental response; both accept as basic the
fact of occurrence and work away from it, while Kafka's
question, while it may sometimes sound elsewhere in the
search, is addressed to the very foundation of self
reality.
The situational devices that Kafka uses in his
writing have varying levels of complexity. Their ability
to function with significant meaning is rarely due to their
being traditional or public symbols, and when they are— as
with certain of the animal stories--the traditional symbol
ism is secondary or complementary. More often, the quality
92
of the symbol is achieved by a private significance with
which Kafka invests it. Sometimes this private symbolism
is objectively established, and sometimes it is established
by the emotional attitude with which the author consist
ently presents it. As we have already seen, this discovery
of meaning results when we duplicate the manner in which
the author achieved it; that is, by studying the instances
of repeated occurrence of a particular circumstance or con
cept to see what common characteristics have been given it.
The situational device, as in the case of the "double-
figure" treated in the next chapter, may be fairly simple,
a building block, so to speak, which Kafka creates as a
unit of meaning with which to work. The same use is made
of certain figures in particular circumstances--in the
simpler animal stories, for example--wherein Kafka mixes
natural attributes with his own attitudes to achieve mean
ing. In addition to using symbols of this sort, as units
of meaning, Kafka also, of course, uses them more sweep-
ingly, as the over-all meaning of a particular work. Not
only objects and figures, but even Institutions and
abstract concepts function in their particular way almost
solely by virtue of the author*s private attitude towards
them. For Kafka, the most personal form of social involve
ment was that which related to what he regarded as the
basic human relationship--that of man and woman, involving
93
the problems of sex and marriage, as well as the failure
represented by bachelorhood. This relationship is simply
an opportunity*-or necessity--to grapple at a personal
level with more abstract forms of relationship--those em
bodied in the community, its institutions and its laws both
social and universal. Finally, all forms of relationship
are an attempt to know the self with regard to those criti
cal questions that challenge the self--guilt, suffering,
retribution, and death--which stand between the self and
ultimate reconciliation.
In the general view of Kafka's technique given
earlier, it was noted that the theme of ambiguity fre
quently exists as part of the author's statement or mean
ing. In the novels, this ambiguity interweaves itself with
larger concerns, but in some of the very short pieces, it
exists as the central theme. A brief look at a few of
these short pieces where the theme exists in more or less
pure form will add to our understanding of the theme as it
occurs in the major works. Perhaps the clearest instances
of it can be found in the brief "Die Vorttberlaufenden,"
from Kafka's first book, Betrachtung (1913).
The story, if it can be called that, is framed as
a speculative situation. When one goes walking at night,
and sees another man running towards him in the darkness,
perhaps pursued by another man, one does not seize the man.
94
The reason for not doing so forms the body of the work:
Denn es ist Nacht, und wir kbimen nicht dafllr, dass
die Gasse im Vollmond vor uns aufsteigt, und ilberdies,
vielleicht haben diese zwei die Hetze zu ihrer Unter-
haltung veranstaltet, vielleicht verfolgen beide einen
dritten, vielleicht wird der erste unschuldig verfolgt,
vielleicht will der zweite morden, und wir wtlrden
Mitschuldige des Mordes, vielleicht wissen die zwei
nichts voneinander, und es lfiuft nur jeder auf eigene
Verantworung in sein Bett, vielleicht sind es Nacht-
wandler, vielleicht hat der erste Waffen.
Und endlich, dtirfen wir nicht mUde sein, haben wir
nicht so viel Uein Getrunken. Wir sind froh, dass
wir auch den zweiten nicht mehr sehn.^o
The piece is a rationalization for suspension of the indi
vidual judgment in any particular set of circumstances.
The setting itself contributes to the meaning; one is walk
ing uphill, that is involved in one’s own progress. The
scene is that of surrounding darkness; lit only by the
pallid light of the moon, nothing can be viewed as certain.
The two running men--passing obscurely through the illusory
world--represent all sorts of possibility for interpreta
tion. Each possible interpretation nullifies the other and
is itself nullified by it. If one were to act rightly, it
would only be by the blindest chance, not from awareness of
truth. Moreover, one might very readily place one's own
self in jeopardy or, escaping that by chance, offer insult
or offense to another. In short, one does not know the
circumstances; the truth might be anything; but because
^ Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 39.
one does not know, the only truth that does exist Is that
all possibilities are simultaneously valid and invalid.
Finally, Kafka suggests, one's own nature--here Indicated
by fatigue--is that of isolate experience, which relieves
the necessity for decision, which has already been proven
futile. One may stand in the darkness and watch the scene
unfolding in the pallid, reflected light, but who can say
27
with any authority what he has seen? ' Ambiguity is the
nature of all relationships between the self and that which
exists outside the self; attempts at definition are only
blind thrusts into the darkness.
A more complex view of the ambiguity of relation
ships occurs in the story "Eine allt&gliche Verwirrung."
The two characters are designated simply as A and B.
A goes to the town where B lives to transact some business
with him. He makes the trip in only ten minutes, takes
care of preliminary matters, says he will return to discuss
the more Important matters the next day, and returns home,
again in ten minutes. He is proud of his speed and boasts
of it. Next day, knowing that he has a great deal of
^7Compare the very next piece in the same collec
tion. Entitled "Der Fahrgast," it begins: "Ich stehe auf
der Plattform des elektrischen Wagens und bln vollsttndig
unsicher in ROckslcht meiner Stellung in dleser Welt, in
dieser Stadt, in meiner Familie. Auch nicht belliuflg
kOnnte ich angeben, welche AnsprUche ich in irgendeiner
Rlchtung mit Recht vorbringen kbnnte." ErzKhlungen und
kleine Prosa. p. 40.
96
business to transact with B, he leaves home very early.
This time, although all circumstances seem to be the same,
it is ten hours before A reaches the home of B. Arriving
exhausted, A learns that B, grown impatient, had left half
an hour before to go to A's home; they must have passed on
the road. He is advised to wait, but in his anxiety A
hurries home. At home, he learns that B had, indeed,
arrived; in fact, he had met A on the doorstep as A was
leaving that morning and had attempted to speak to him, but
A had answered that he had no time to spare and had hurried
off. Despite this, B had waited and was even now waiting
upstairs in A's room. Overjoyed at having finally, appar-
ently, achieved his goal, A rushes upstairs, but stumbles
just short of the top, falling into a dark comer where he
lies speechless with the pain of a twisted ankle. As he
lies there, moaning faintly, he hears B--"undeutlich ob in
grosser Ferne oder knapp neben ihm"— stamp down the stairs
in a violent rage, vanishing for good. 2**
This "Everyday Confusion" is effective as a story
precisely because it dissects the nature of futility in
whatever form it may occur. Poor A is unable to do any
thing that will turn out properly after the illusory
success of his first trip to take care of the preliminaries
28
"Eine alltttgliche Verwirrung," Beschreibung eines
Kampfes. pp. 122-123.
97
of his business. Essentially, his error is that he thinks
himself master of the journey— it takes ten minutes for a
man who knows what he is doing. Yet, when the real busi
ness is involved, he travels wearily for ten hours, only to
find his man gone. Coming back again, the trip takes only
one second, a fact which he does not even notice. What,
then, is the real truth of the journey? Further, was the
journey even necessary? Did he not meet his objective on
his own doorstep and fail to recognize it, precisely be
cause he was involved in his plans for the journey that he
thought would bring him to B? In other words, reliance on
method had made him overlook the objective, there for the
taking. The path had proved to be different in character
than he had thought it, and in the end had only brought him
to realize that he had been on a fool's errand. Still more
capricious, after finally getting to within a few steps of
the goal, on the staircase leading to his own room, A is
defeated by the slightest chance— his ankle twists and he
lies in pain, hearing the figure for whom he has been
searching go down the stairs and disappear forever. What
ever A had done, it seems, would have been wrong, once he
began to believe that he knew how to reach his goal. The
journey has no fixed character that can be defined, it
leads nowhere except back to one's own room— a favorite
metaphor for Kafka, incidentally— and furthermore the
98
merest bit of chance at any moment can place the goal
permanently out of reach. There are, of course, certain
more profound implications to the story than that which we
are concerned with at the moment, but the concept of am
biguity as the condition of existence is illustrated in
precise detail here. As in the more abstract "Vor dem
Gesetz," there is no right course of action, as such.
Kafka's use of the ambiguous is central to his statement.
It is a situational theme that places atmosphere in a posi
tion of equal importance with such specific subject matter
as the nature of guilt.
To be sure, the conception of ambiguity that Kafka
reveals in a story such as "Eine alltttgliche Verwirrung" is
not necessarily pessimistic. The paradox, like all such,
contains its own contradiction. There is no guarantee that
A would have actually achieved his purpose if he had re
mained at home, just as there is no reason to believe that
the man waiting before the door of the Law would have been
more successful if he had attempted to force his way in.
In fact, in both cases, the opposite seems true; the last
misfortune of A on the staircase provides the story with
the completely unrelated element of chance that may come
into operation at any moment. The man waiting before the
door of the Law might have been admitted at any moment, and
he might have permanently ruined his prospects by trying
to force his way in. In fact, did he not see more of the
radiance within than the doorkeeper did? The nature of
ambiguity is paradoxical in that sense; so long as no final
definition occurs, hope remains. The very fact of failure
or refusal eliminates a decisive nature to things; defini
tion establishes limit while a barred door sends a seeker
towards other possibilities (which are not more probable,
of course). In the story "Die Abweisung," Kafka suggests
that the refusal is vital to the continuation of expecta
tion:
In wichtigen Angelegenheiten aber kann die Blirger-
schaft einer Abweisung tinner slcher seln. Itod nun 1st
es eben so merkwtirdig, dass man ohne dlese Abweisung
S
ewissermassen nicht auskomsen kann und dabei 1st
ieses Hingehn und Abholen der Abweisung durchaus keine
FormalItIt. Immer wieder frisch und ernst geht man hln
und geht dann wieder von dort, allerdings nicht gera-
dezu gekrlftigt und begltickt, aber doch auch gar nicht
enttluscht und mttde.29
While one can always count on failure, possibility always
exists, and rejection can never be taken for granted. The
experience of the petition Itself is the important thing
here; if the refusal were ever conceived as completely
final, no new petition would ever occur. In other words,
the refusal stimulates in some way its apparent antithesis,
hope. Ambiguity, by its nature, leaves the door of the Law
open until the final moment of death. HAlle menschlichen
29Beschrelbung elnes Kampfea. pp. 88-89
100
Fehler sind Ungeduld," wrote Kafka In his "Betrachtungen
ttber SUnde, Leid Hoffnung und den wahren Weg,"--". . . eln
scheinbares EinpfKhlen der scheinbaren Sache."30 To accept
the ambiguous as fundamental is the first step in avoiding
the acceptance of an illusory truth.
It is this view that necessarily twists the stories
away from any consistently realistic treatment. So
straightforward a lyric idyll as "Kinder auf der Land-
strasse," for example, includes description such as: "Es
gab keine Tages- und Nachtzeit." Ambiguity is so complete
a part of Kafka's thematic material that any criticism
which does not accept it inevitably assigns Kafka one of
the very roles he rejected. It is this functional use of
the ambiguous that lies behind and makes vital what Brod
(and others) refer to as Kafka's dependence on his early
days "in der das Kind allein, womit es spielt, verzaubert
und traumhaft umgeformt sieht."*^ No child ever played so
serious a game.
Undoubtedly there are critics who will reject am
biguity as meaning on the grounds that ambiguity denies
meaning. It was intended, as part of the purpose of this
discussion, to establish that such need not be the case
and is not the case with Kafka. A piece of literary art,
- ^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 39.
■^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 51.
101
by the fact that it is art, represents far more than a
vehicle to carry along pieces of specific data. When a
reader believes that a literary work is a case history con
trived by the poet solely to make a statistic (of neurosis,
or anything else) more acceptable, he has overlooked the
nature of art itself. The work of art is reduced to the
purpose of a verbal packing box; and the shape, form, and
artistic identity must be regarded as being left to chance
so long as it serves Its "packing box" purpose.
CHAPTER V
THE DOUBLE-FIGURE AS DEVICE
Certain basic situational symbols are used by Kafka
over and over, and in discussing his technique, it is
worthwhile considering their nature. One of the most re
current, and one which has not been so fully treated as it
deserves, is that of the "double-figure" serving as chorus
in the dramatic sense. To a varying degree, this double
figure occurs in each of the three novels, while it is
treated at considerable length in an early story, "Blum-
feld, ein ttlterer Junggeselle."
The most notable use of the double-figure is in Das
Schlo8S. where for the greater part of the novel the two
assistants to K. are treated as a single personality.*
They combine servility with cunning and even opposition,
although their attitude is so mercurial that K. is never
sure just what they stand for. It is suggested that they
are spies for Klamn, but this is not established and they
are so simple-minded that it seems ridiculous. Generally
speaking, they contain in their personality the sum of all
*Franz Kafka, Das Schloss (New York: Schocken
Books, 1946).
102
103
the contradictions and ambiguities that the entire situ
ation has for K. For most of the novel they are a constant
quality in their ambiguity, and so serve as an animated
summing-up of the attitudes of both the Castle and the
village. In brief, they serve as chorus in the truest
sense.
This double-figure is less important in Der
2
Prozess, but nonetheless it is present. The two wardens
who arrest Josef K. in the first chapter are not individu
ally distinguished. Having disappeared after the first
chapter, in which they represented the impersonal force of
the court, tainted however by avarice, they reappear later
in a contradictory role. Now they are supplicants. In the
scene where they are whipped, they accuse Josef K. of
having betrayed them. In other words, they both act as
representatives of the impersonal court and as victims of
Josef K.*s guilt. In this dual role, they suggest the
nature of his dilemma; he is both innocent and guilty at
the same time. Again, they serve as chorus, personifying
the society that accuses him inexplicably, is itself
guilty, and paradoxically places him in a position where
he is guilty.
In Das Schloss. the double-figure divides after
^Franz Kafka, Der Prozess (New York: Schocken
Books, 1946).
104
a period of time, one of the assistants ultimately vanish
ing Into the Castle to complain about K. while the other
emerges as a suddenly distinct, more hostile personality.
A related situation Is found in Amerika.^ The two vaga
bonds that Karl Rossmann meets on the road are almost
identical in their personalities until they part from Karl
at the hotel; later they assume distinctly different
roles.^ Delamarche becomes a much more sinister figure,
while Robinson remains about the same; if he changes it is
only to become still more a victim of life. However, in
the first encounter they are clearly related to the double
figure as Kafka used it in the other two novels. They
accuse Karl of betraying them, at the same time that they
are covertly trying to take advantage of him. As with the
assistants in Das Schloss and the wardens in Der Prozess.
they make the protagonist responsible for their condition.
While the social view in Amerika is not so comprehensive as
in the other two novels, the original role played by Dela
marche and Robinson is choric to the extent that their
3
Franz Kafka, Amerika (New York: Schocken Books,
1946).
^A similar situation in reverse form occurs in
"In der Strafkolonie," where the soldier who is acting as
guard and the soldier that is reprieved from sentence be
come intimate mid-way through the story. From that point
on, they have a distinct relationship to the double-figure,
even to the extent of trying to make the narrator responsi
ble for their future welfare at the end, and by implication
putting him in a position of undefined guilt.
105
attitude is typical of his situation. If Karl Rossmann is
much less concerned about their attitude than is Josef K.
or K. the land"surveyor, it is only because his situation
is much less in control of him. In each of these three
novels, however, one can note how the double**figures make
the protagonist responsible for them at the same time that
they accuse him of serious offense against themselves.
They figuratively climb upon his back and as he staggers
tinder them, they accuse him of personal betrayal. It is,
clearly, an important part of the guilt motif that pervades
Kafka's novel8.
In the story, "Blumfeld, eln Ulterer Junggeselle”
Kafka devoted a complete work to the symbol of the double-
figure. Once one perceives the significance of the symbol,
an otherwise puzzling story can be seen as a neatly mani
pulated tour de force, for Kafka here presents the symbolic
theme in two different forms which complement and explain
each other. For purposes of reference, the plot should
probably be summarized; it runs as follows: One evening
the elderly bachelor Blumfeld returns to his apartment.
A man of fixed habits, he looks forward to an evening very
much like a thousand others. Upon opening the door, he is
startled to see two small celluloid balls bouncing up and
down on the floor, making a peculiar noise. When he
attempts to seize them they bounce frantically away and
106
eventually move to a point behind his back. Every time he
turns, they move faster so that they are always behind him.
He cannot finally trap them and apparently they will not
leave him. At night they bounce under the bed and become
passive, but begin to move again as soon as he stirs. The
next morning they follow him as before around the apart
ment. Finally, by the trick of standing against an open
closet, he succeeds In slamming the door shut upon them and
making his escape from the apartment. Outside, he en
counters three children and, giving them his key tells them
that they may have the two balls In the closet. Blumfeld
then continues on to his office, where the story enters a
second phase. For all practical purposes the phenomenon of
the balls Is forgotten. We learn that Blumfeld Is In
charge of an operation that he considers very Important
(overseeing girls In a factory, a job that Kafka himself
had to do In his father's factory part-time, and one that
he hated); while certain people in the company have been so
hostile as to suggest that his function is outdated and
superfluous. Actually, believes Blumfeld, he is burled
under an avalanche of work; the opposition is Insidiously
undermining his position for reasons of their own.
Earlier, he had asked for an assistant and after some delay
had surprisingly been presented with two. The latter part
of the story is devoted to a presentation of these two
107
assistants, who are almost identical twins with the assist
ants in Das Schloss. They accomplish nothing, run around
frantically, seem to be spying upon Blumfeld at the very
same time that they are deathly afraid of him. As with all
the double-figures, they are virtually one in their actions
and statements. Blumfeld directs them like animals but is
never able to succeed in controlling them, in any way.
As Brod suggested in the Kafka biography, Kafka
considered the role of the bachelor as one of guilt. He
says many times in the Taaebttcher that he is responsible
for the suffering of his fiancee, in his failure to go
through with the marriage, and there occur at least a dozen
references to a bachelor life as one that is somehow
morally indefensible. Undoubtedly this belief is tied to
the sense of guilt established by his relationship to his
father (a point that will be discussed more fully later).
In any event, the role of the bachelor, Blumfeld, is
clearly that of the man who has failed society, and in the
first several pages of his story, Kafka presents the pro
tagonist as living a sterile, self-centered existence al
most completely. Also, his attitude towards the importance
of his position--regarded by others as a superfluous one—
is an attitude of almost desperate defensiveness. The two
assistants, therefore, in the second half of the story
undoubtedly represent society Imposed upon by Blumfeld.
108
At the same time they represent the chorus character as
seen In the double*figure In the novels; they are In a bad
position, somehow, because of him. Paradoxically, they are
deceiving him; they are Incredibly simple and dangerously
cunning. They are forever rushing to give him useless
assistance and succeed only in making his situation far
worse. Although they were sent to relieve him of some of
his burdens, those burdens have actually Increased by their
presence. In short, they are a perfect summary of the
world that confronts Blumfeld, Josef K., K. the land-
surveyor, and even Karl Rossmann. The contradiction that
they act out In frantic pantomime is the contradiction of
existence, the eternal ambiguity of meaning in the uni
verse.
The more interesting part of the Blumfeld story Is,
of course, the first section. The celluloid balls are a
perfect abstraction of the assistants. Their movement is
echoed in the frantic bouncing; the ambiguity of what the
singular phenomenon represents is similar to the baffling
contradiction of the assistants' behavior. The balls evade
Blumfeld*a attempt to contain them; yet, they follow behind
his back as though they are somehow bound to him. They are
described as dutiful, as frantic, as wielding a certain
power, as having no one to fear but Blumfeld. We are told
that "... sie wolien Blumfeld nicht unnbtig reizen . . .”
109
and that:
Wle untergeordnete Begleiter, suchen ale es zu
vermeiden, vor Blumfeld sich aufzuhalten. Bis jetzt
haben sle es schelnbar nur gewagt, urn sich ihm vor*
zustellen, ietzt aber haben ale bereits ihren Dienst
angetreten.3
However, we also are told that they seem to be pursuing him
and Blumfeld ponders, before going to sleep, the possi
bility that the balls might do him some harm during the
night. When they grow quiet under the bed, he is so re
lieved that instead of trying to trap them he prefers to
remain where he is for . . er will an die ruhigge-
wordenen BHlle nicht einmal mit den Blicken rilhren.As
with the assistants and the other double-figures, both
their attitude and his own towards them is so contradictory
that terror and condescension are fused.
Even though the balls represent an almost com
pletely abstracted form of the double-figure, their charac
ter is so identical with what we have come to expect that
the abstraction gives us no difficulty. Again, they are a
chorus, representing the forces and responses of society as
experienced by the protagonist. Blumfeld*s isolated life,
his self-involvement, has created them. Like the assist
ants they are vaguely threatening, and like the assistants,
^"Blumfeld, ein Mlterer Junggeselle," Beschreibung
elnes Kamofes. p. 147.
6Ibid., p. 152.
110
he is somehow guilty of a serious offense against them.
This story has an additional Interpretive element, however.
Blumfeld actually does betray the balls, by trapping them
in the closet when he knows that by their nature they have
no choice but to enter it. After leaving the house, he
commits an even more serious betrayal, for he gives over
the balls to the children, one of whom (the boy) is de
scribed as slow-witted and dense, while the two little
girls are calculating and over-eager. The implications of
the act are fairly clear; Blumfeld in restoring his self-
centered isolation has betrayed society, which had made
itself available to him, and which he fears at the same
time that he is contemptuous of it.
Since this technical device of the double-figure is
one that occurs so frequently we are fortunate that the
Tagebticher again represent a valuable source for clari
fication and verification. The projection into the figure
of the protagonist's indecisiveness is hinted in an early
notation:
Szafranski, Schiller Bernhards, macht wMhrend des
Zeichnens und Beobachtens Grimassen, die mit dem
Gezeichneten in Verbindtmg stehn. Erinnert mich
daran, dass ich fttr meinen Teil eine starke Ver-
wandlungsf&higkeit habe, die niemand bemerkt.'
One need not, however, see the assistants' frantic behavior
^Tagebticher, p. 71.
Ill
as drawn from Kafka's own grimaces. An even more explicit
model existed in the Yiddish theatre which Kafka attended
faithfully for a number of years beginning about 1910. On
October 4, 1911, Kafka saw a performance of a play at the
Cafe Savoy in Prague. This same autumn, it will be remem
bered, saw him making many of the observations on style
that were quoted earlier in this study. In recording this
particular performance, he begins by ignoring the plot and
the leading character, but describes at some length two
figures who acted as a peculiar chorus in the play. One
reason may have been that the actress (Frau K.) who played
the role together with her husband was the object of a cur
rent infatuation of Kafka. It may be here that the am
bivalent sex sometimes implicit in the double-figure had
its foundation (the assistants, for example, in both Das
Schlo8S and in "Blumfeld" frequently giggle, hold hands,
embrace, are fragile physically, and generally seem
defenseless against the anger of the protagonist). Frau K.
in the Cafe Savoy production is called by Kafka a male
impersonator; she and her husband are dressed identically
in caftans, trousers, and large hats, with hers hiding her
hair. Kafka's notes dwell at some length on disguised sex,
which obviously struck his attention. His subsequent
analysis of their character is significant enough to
justify the quoting of a fairly long excerpt here:
112
Eigentlich weiss ich nicht, was ftir Personen das
slnd, die sle und lhr Mann darstellen. Wollte lch sle
jemandem erkl&ren, dem lch melne Unwissenhelt nicht
elngestehn will, wtlrde lch sehn, dass lch sle ftir
Gemelndedlener halte, ftir Angestellte des Tempels,
bekannte Faulenzer, mlt denen sich die Gemeinde abge-
funden hat . . . Leute, die lnfolge lhrer abgesonderten
Stellung gerade ganz nahe am Mlttelpunkt des Gemeinde-
lebens slnd . . . die Verh<nlsse aller Gemeindemit-
glleder genau durchschauen, aber lnfolge lhrer Bezie-
hungslosigkeit zum Berufsleben nichts mlt dlesen
Kenntnissen anzufangen wissen, Leute, die in einer
besonders reinen Form Juden slnd, well sle nur in der
Religion, aber ohne MUhe, Verstttndnis und Jamner in
lhr leben. Sle schelnen sich aus jedem einen Narren
zu machen, lachen gleich nach der Ermordung eines
edlen Juden, verkaufen sich einem Abtrttnnigen, tanzen,
die H&nde vor Entztlcken am Wangenhaar, als der ent-
larvte MBrder sich verglftet und Gott anruft, und doch
alles nur, well sle so federleicht slnd, unter jedem
Druck auf dem Boden liegen, empfindlich slnd, gleich
mlt trockenem Gesicht weinen (sle weinen sich in
Grlmassen aus), sobald der Druck aber vortiber 1st,
nicht das geringste Eigengewicht aufbringen, sondera
gleich in die Htihe springen mils sen. °
Except for the references specifically tied to the play
Kafka had witnessed, this description of the two actors in
caftans is amazingly close to the double-figure that occurs
so repeatedly in his own works. The assistants in "Blum-
feld" or Das Schloss could scarcely be better summarized.
There is no question that these characters from the drama
were transferred almost intact; the surprising thing is
that Kafka realized so clearly what they embodied. Again,
one is forced to conclude that the elements of his work
had a clear identity in his mind, however ambiguous the
®Tagebtlcher, p. 80.
113
over-all significance of any particular story might have
been.
Later In this Tagebtlcher entry, of which only a
small part has been quoted, Kafka describes the two in
caftans as standing in the foreground while behind them the
murderer, self-poisoned, staggers to the door. An embodi
ment of the community, according to Kafka, they giggle and
leap in erratic activity, while the grim tragedy goes on,
while the murderer--the Kafka protagonist?--a victim of
himself, lurches towards death. The fusion of murderer and
"murdered" in the one character, furthermore, has been
brought about because the two in caftans first agree en
thusiastically to support him, and then when the time
comes, they stand up and shout gleeful confirmation of his
guilt (even this, however, is done as though they are
actually helping him, as planned).
One need not force the point to see a potential
influence of a considerable sort in the Yiddish theatrical
production which Kafka describes. The double-figure is the
community in all its absurdity; it both confers guilt and
condemns for it. Because it is ridiculous, it cannot it
self be attacked since its moral character is undefined;
yet it damns the individual, not even falsely but by
proving his guilt. The double-figure which Kafka uses over
and over is, then, a technical device that has an impressive
114
role In the structure of meaning. Investing with import*
ance an apparently peripheral device, Kafka manages to make
the details of the work operate as reflections of the
larger theme. A work by Kafka is a fusion of such details,
like a group of fitted mirrors mutually reflecting and dis
torting simultaneously each of the other mirrors. Such on
effect is possible because each of the details is loaded
with the implications of the whole viewed just a little bit
differently at any one time. None is capricious in effect,
each is a microcosm of the situation seen from one angle.
While none provides the absolute answer, all enrich the
total situation, the presentation of which is meaning as
Kafka created it.
CHAPTER VI
THE ANIMAL AS PROTAGONIST
Deshalb bleibt doch der beste Rat, alles
hinzunehmen, als schwere Masse sich verhalten,
und ftthle man sich selbst fortgeblasen, keinen
unnBtigen Schritt sich ablocken lassen, den
anderen mlt Tierbllck anschaun. . . .
Kafka, "Entschltlsse,"
ErzMhlunaen. p. 34.
The use of the animal experience to indicate ab
stract significance is one of Kafka's most striking charac
teristics as a writer. The device has been used since
fiction first took shape; even before Apulelus transformed
his protagonist into what became the most celebrated ass in
literary history, the wanderings of Io and the seduction of
Leda had made the beast fable a familiar form. However,
Kafka ignores tradition here as elsewhere. Many of his
animal stories, such as "Forschungen eines Hundes" or "Der
Bau,” represent a realistic animal existence that corre
sponds perfectly in every way with significant human
activity. In these stories, the animals are not fable-
like— that is, human beings in thought and activity, wear
ing the guise of animals— nor are they human beings in
form, in their degradation acting like beasts. In fact,
115
116
the two stories just mentioned may be the most clear In
meaning that Kafka wrote— that is, the most easily inter*
preted by the reader. Uhfortunately, however, many of the
others centering around an animal protagonist are not
equally accessible, for the correspondence between mankind
and the animal world took several different forms in
Kafka's mind. In analyzing this complex device, therefore,
the most effective method will be to establish first the
general relationship of human nature and experience to the
animal parallel, as Kafka reveals it in the more personal
writings and fragments, then, to analyze the various forms
that the animal symbol assumes.
These forms can be grouped in something like the
following fashion. The most common is that of vermin, in
the fullest sense of that word, including not only scurry*
lng Insects such as roaches and beetles, but moles, mice,
jackals, and even dogs. Related to this group is that mock
form of man, the ape. Generally, this group is conceived
of as vile in its habits, creatures that pollute the earth
but are at the same time terrified victims of larger
beasts. A second group is that of powerful animals such as
the leopard of , f Ein HungerkQnstler,” the horses of "Ein
Landarzt," or those of the nomads in "Bin sites Blatt," and
the anonymous beast that threatens "Der Bau." Generally
speaking, they represent a non-mental brute force, an
117
eternalized vitality that either directly threatens or
stands as a symbol of self-sufficiency denied the protago
nist. A third group, much more infrequently used and less
definite in nature, is that of the intelligent or gentle
animal, and includes the mythical horse Bucephalus and
Eleanor, the horse with whom one protagonist sets up a
household. The last group, which perhaps is the largest in
number, is composed of the demonic and freak-like beasts.
The category ranges from such creatures as the soaring dogs
of "Forschungen eines Hundes" to the half-animal, half-
mechanism Odradek. (One is tempted, in fact, to discuss
the machine of "In der Strafkolonle" and the figure of the
Hungerkttnstler as related to this animal group; even if not
technically part of it, they are conceived in a way that is
quite similar.) In this group Kafka does not ever, of
course, use the mythical creatures of tradition. He con
trives original forms to embody his meanings, a technique
which both hampers and assists interpretation, since the
individual monsters in this group are defined implicitly by
the nature of their grotesque characteristics.
Kafka* s sense of identity with the animal world
began with his own name. As Brod and others have noted,
and as virtually all the personal writings verify, Kafka
was fond of speaking of himself as the crow-like black bird
from which his family name derived (Kavka). It would
118
appear that this relationship remained significant to Kafka
all through his life, for Janouch records the following
remarks by Kafka under the date of May, 1921:
“Ja, meiner Verwandten [the jack-daw] geht es
besser als mir. Es 1st zwar wahr, sie hat die Flttgel
beschnltten. In meinem Falle war es aber Uberhaupt
nicht notwendig, da meine Flllgel verktlmmert sind. Aus
diesem Grunde gibt es fttr mich keine Htthen und Weiten.
Verwirrt hUpfe ich zwischen den Menschen herum. Sie
betrachten mich voller Misstrauen. Ich bin doch ein
gefMhrlicher Vogel, ein Dieb, eine Dohle. Das 1st aber
nur Schein. In Wirklichkeit fehlt mir der Sinn fttr
gl&nzende Dlnge. Aus diesem Grunde habe ich nicht
elnmal glKnzende schwarze Fedem. Ich bln grau wle
Asche. Eine Dohle, die sich danach sehnt, zwischen den
Stelnen zu verschwinden.
In the early Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. Kafka varied
the phonetic and quantitative parallels to his own name
that he generally employed for his characters (Samsa,
Bende-mann, Josef K., K., etc.), by naming his protagonist
"Raban." The association with his own family name is im
mediate. Less obvious is his use of the croaking call of
the black bird, used in the name of the "J&ger Gracchus,"
and drawn from the latin word that describes the sound.^
However, such parallels remain attached to human protago
nists, and their occurrence serves more to relate them to
the author in a private sense, than to establish a parallel
between the animal and human worlds. It is, perhaps, more
1Janouch, p. 18.
^Wilhelm Emrlch, Franz Kafka (Bonn: AthenEum
Verlag, 1958), p. 21.
119
surprising that Kafka never wrote a story in which the bird
for which he was named figures as a central character. The
explanation would seem to be that the jackdaw's actual
characteristics were not those for which Kafka had use. As
the comments just quoted affirm, the actual bird was far
too audacious and independent to serve as thematic material.
What Kafka needed, and found, were animals that
could serve both as symbol and as alter-ego. That is, he
used them as an expression of the animal nature of man, but
at the same time they served to reflect the dilemma of the
intelligent mind. Kafka frequently refers to the animal
inside himself as representing the basic identity, a
groping, suffering consciousness whose presence is dis
guised by the social personality. In one of the fragments,
he speaks of it in a moment of rare harmony: "Der gest&hlte
KBrper begreift seine Aufgaben. Ich pflege das Tier mit
wachsender Freude. Der Glanz der braunen Augen dankt mir.
-i
Wir sind einig. On another occasion, in an early refer
ence in his notebook, he refers to the story of the boy
(Dick Whittington) whose sole inheritance was a cat,
through which he became Lord Mayor of London. Kafka then
asks himself: "Was werde ich durch mein Tier werden, mein
ErbstUck? Wo dehnt sich die riesige Stadt?"^ In such
o
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 293.
^"Das zweite Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 65.
120
references, the animal Identity is vague and generalized.
However, the animal nature frequently crystallizes and
becomes virtually synonymous with the self as Kafka de
scribes himself— or a protagonist in the first person—
displaying the characteristics of an animal. These per
sonal references generally equate the self with a dog. In
the Tagebtlcher, he makes a comparison that will inevitably
recall to the reader the symbolic activity of "Forschungen
eines Hundes," a story which he was to write a year or two
later:
18 November [1913]. Ich werde wieder schreiben,
aber wie viele Zwelfel habe ich inzwischen an meinem
Schreiben gehabt. Im Grunde bin ich ein unfihiger
unwissender Mensch, der, wenn er nicht gezwungen ist,
ohne jedes eigene Verdienst, den Zwang kaum merkend,
in die Schule gegangen wire, gerade imstande wire, in
einer HundehUtte zu hocken, hinauszuspringen, wenn ihm
Frass eereicht wird, und zurtickzuspringen, wenn er es
verschlungen hat.
Zwei Hunde liefen auf einem stark von der Sonne
beschienen Hof aus entgegengesetzten Richtungen
gegeneinander.
(The last paragraph of the above quotation is explained in
the following reference in the text, where Kafka speaks
of writing a letter to "Friulein Bl." No sooner had he
conceived himself in the role of dog than he inmedlately
applied the figure in a more creative way to another situ
ation. ) The dog, leaping up for its food, ignorant and
^Tagebtlcher, p. 329.
121
Incapable fundamentally, is the same one who devotes his
life to a search for the ultimate answer. This compulsion,
in "Forschungen," is suggested to be one that the dog can
not keep himself from following. The same compulsion led
Kafka, throughout his life, on a similar search. Part of
the fate to which one is condemned is the necessity to
struggle; it is fundamental to one's nature. Such is the
point of still another more or less personal reference
that occur8 in the fragmentary writings. A dog ponders his
folly in constantly running away from home. He admits that
the chase on which he goes is one that affords him no
pleasure:
Warum denn das? Uhd ich war dabei verzweifelt.
Eln Gltick, dass ich wleder zurttck bln. Ich ftlrchte
mich vor diesem zwecklosen Herumlaufen, vor diesen
grossen Oden RBumen, was ftir ein armer, hilfloser,
kleiner, gar nicht mehr aufzufindender Hund bin ich
dort. Es lockt mich auch gar nichts dazu, von hier
wegzulaufen, hier lm Hof 1st mein Ort, hier 1st meine
Htttte, hier meine Kette fttr den manchmal elntretenden
Fall der Bissigkeit, alles 1st hier und reichliche
Nahrung. Nun also. Ich wUrde auch niemals aus
eigenem Willen von hier weglaufen, ich fdhle mich
hier wohl, bin stolz auf meine Stellung, wohlige,
aber berechtigte uberhebung durchrleselt mich beim
Anblick des anderen Viehs. LBuft aber irgendein
anderes von den Tleren so sinnlos weg wie ich? . . .
Ich bin also der einzige, der hie und da desertiert,
und es kann mich ganz gewiss einmal meine ttberragende
Stellung kosten.6
By his failure to stay safely at home, he places himself in
the threatening, bleak world of the unknown, the victim
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, pp. 391-392.
122
of any terror that his imagination can conceive. Further,
he jeopardizes the security of the familiar, the comfort
of the world at hand which he need only accept in order to
be completely secure. The dog of this story fragment has
a young master, Richard, who scolds him for his faithless
ness to the home. The youth, significantly, does this in
a friendly way, concerned over the dog's welfare, just as
the huge dog that appears during the hunger-vision of the
protagonist in "Forschungen eines Hundes." The guilty dog
promises his master that he will never do it again, weeps
over his own failing, and the story ends:
Daxnals versprach ich also Besserung und heute
wiederholt sich das gleiche, ich was sogar l&nger fort
as damals. Freilich, ich versprach nur, mich zu
bessem, soweit als an mir liegt. Und es ist nicht
meine Schuld. . . J
The nature of the dog (and the parallel nature of man, as
Kafka views him) does not allow him to accept the expedient
or even the good; it drives him to run through the unknown
darkness. This little story provides us with an effective
general commentary upon the more complex "Forschungen,"
as we shall later see.
The concept of the self as dog or a dog-like animal
frequently provided Kafka with a natural symbol for man as
the victim of life or particular circumstances. More often
7
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 393.
123
than not, the animal stands as a certain part of the self,
the more fundamental and Innocent, while the aggressive
opponent Is a more sophisticated and Insensitive being. In
"Das achte Oktavheft," Kafka left a revealing paragraph,
apparently a beginning for a story never written, In which
he describes In the first person the thoughts and sensa
tions of a wounded animal shot and captured by a hunter.
Despite Its brevity, the piece Is a remarkable piece of Im
pressionistic description, relating the pain of the animal
as It is first struck, and its attempt to claw its way into
the damp earth. The foot of the huntsman is felt pressing
lightly against the small of the back, and his voice is
heard announcing to the "Trelber"— a name Kafka once gave
to his mother regarding his relationship with the father--
that the animal has a fine pelt. The knife cuts into his
collar and coat and his flesh is prodded. He is thrown
over an open cart, head and arms hanging over. "Die Fahrt
ging flott, verdurstend mit offenem Mund sog ich den hoch-
gewlrbelten Staub in mich, hie und da sptlrte ich den
freudlgen Griff des Harm an meinen Waden."8 The story is
one of complete suffering, and gains this quality from the
subjective view with which it is recorded. A symbolic ex
perience, it can be directly related to Kafka's own
Q
"Das achte Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 160.
124
attitudes about himself. One Instance Is the personal
anguish that speaks forth from the following passages,
excerpted from successive letters to Milena, written as the
break In their relationship became more decisive. In them,
Kafka describes himself as the beast of the forest, able
to exist only by accepting the subterranean way of life
which his nature--or that of life— forces upon him.
Es 1st etwa so: Ich, Waldtler, war ja damals kaum
1m Wald, lag lrgendwo In elner schmutzlgen Grube
(schmutzig nur lnfolge melner Gegenwart, natttrllch),
da sah Ich Dlch draussen im Frelen, das wunderbarste,
was Ich je gesehen hatte, Ich vergass alles, vergass
mich ganz und gar, stand auf, kam nMher, Xngstllch
zwar In dleser neuen und doch heimatlichen Frelhelt,
kam aber doch nJfther, kam bis zu Dir, Du warst so gut,
Ich duckte mich bel Dir nleder, als ob Ich es dttrfte,
Ich legte das Geslch In Delne Hand, Ich war so glUck-
lich, so stolz, so frel, so m&chtig, so zuhause, immer
wleder dieses: so zuhause--aber lm Grunde war Ich doch
nur das Tier, gehbrte doch nur In den Wald, lebte hier
lm Frelen doch nur durch Delne Gnade, las, ohne es zu
wlssen (denn Ich hatte ja alles vergessen) mein
Schlcksal von Delnen Augen ab. Das konnte nicht
dauern . . . es wuchs Immer mehr vor mir auf, welche
unsaubere Plage, tiberall stbrendes Hlndernls Ich flir
Dlch war. . . . Ich erlnnerte mich daran, wer Ich bln,
In Delnen Augen las Ich kelne Tiuschung mehr, Ich
hatte den Traum-Schrecken (lrgendwo, wo man nicht
hlngehttrt, slch aufzuftlhren, als ob man zuhause sel),
diesen Schrecken hatte ich In Wlrklichkeit, ich musste
zurttck Ins Dunkel, ich hlelt die Sonne nicht aus, ich
war verzwelfelt, wirklich wie ein irregegangenes Tier,
ich fing zu laufen an, wle ich nur konnte, und immer-
fort der Gedanke: "wenn ich sie mltnehmen kDnnte!"
und der Gegengedsnke: "gibt es Dunkel, wo sle 1st?"
Du fragst, wie ich lebe: so also lebe ich.
tibrigens sagst Du es selbst: "nemate slly mllovat"
["You have not the strength to love"]; sollte das noch
kelne genttgende Unteracheidung seln zwischen "Tier"
und "Mensch"?
125
Du kannst, Milena, nicht genau verstehn, um was
es sich handelt, oder zum Teil gehandelt hat, ich
verstehe es ja selbst nicht, ich zittere nur unter dem
Ausbruch, quale mich bis an den Irrsinn heran, aber
was es ist und was es in der Ferne will, weiss ich
nicht. Nur was es in der NUhe will: Stille, Dunkel,
Sich Verkriechen, das weiss ich und muss folgen, kann
nicht anders.
Es ist ein Ausbruch und geht vorllber und ist zum
Teil vorUbergegangen, aber die Krfifte, die ihn
hervorrufen, zittem imnerfort in mir, vorher und
nachher, ja mein Leben, mein Dasein besteht aus diesem
unterirdischen Drohnen, hbrt es auf, hBre ich auch auf,
es ist die Art meiner Teilnahme am Leben, htirt es auf,
f
ebe ich das Leben auf, so leicht und selbstverstfind-
ich, wie man die Augen schliesst.9
The subterranean threat, which is at the same time
the only possible means of participating in life, is that
of the quivering animal which lies within one, the con
sciousness of self existent which is the source of trembling
weakness. Josef K., at the end of Der Prozess, thinks of
himself as dying "Wie ein Hund!"--a bitter thought that is
not simply a judgment upon his death but upon his entire
existence. The animal, which does not have the strength to
love--the sole possibility for earthly reconciliation, as
we shall later see--was the victim of the universe to
Kafka. The most painful part of the conception is that it
assumes that by its very nature the animal deserves no
better, yet it cannot evade its nature. As Kafka phrased
it in another fragment, "Nur um eines, um den Ekel vor dir
^Briefe an Milena, pp. 223-226.
126
selbst blst du reicher als die Mauerassel, die unter dem
alten Stein llegt und wacht."*-®
At times Kafka refers to the animal as distinct
from human nature In the sense that It has something to
convey to the person who can perceive It. One of his frag
ments that has to do with an original beast--a kangaroo
body, a huge fox-llke tall, and an almost human face (with
teeth that have "Ausdruckskraft")■*• • * • - -seems to be trying to
tame the protagonist by tempting him to grab for the tall,
then withdrawing It, waiting calmly for him to grab again.
Another story, apparently one of the last fragments that
Kafka wrote, tells of a young student who becomes obsessed
with the Idea that by applying his own method to the train
ing of wild horses, he can establish a new truth. His plan
calls for the wildest horses that he can find, to be made
still more wild, by uninterrupted training at night when
they will be most Irritable. He devotes his entire
activity to the project, giving up his studies, lying to
his parents so they will continue his support, working In
the daylight hours to support his venture. By means of the
project, he hopes to establish the truth of new principles
1 o
and prove the error of all other trainers. * The parallel
^Hochzeltsvorbereitungen, p. 334.
^"Fragmente," Hochzeltsvorbereltungen. p. 332.
12Ibid., pp. 412 ff.
127
to Kafka's own life Is obvious, and the wild horses, from
whose wilderness he sought to whip out a new truth, are
clearly personal symbols of the kind under discussion. The
animal self debases in one sense; but because it is the
fundamental self, as Kafka conceived it, it also is the
means of discovery.
The major accomplishment represented by "Die
Verwandlung" has made most readers of Kafka aware, to at
least some extent, of his paralleling of human life with
that of vermin. The comparison again is one of peculiar
significance for Kafka. The seemingly senseless activity
and the frantic terror of the woodlouse or the dungbeetle,
as man looks upon it, is a simple equivalent to the same
behavior in man, as viewed from the ultimate point of ob
jectivity, that of a sentient principle controlling the
universe. The most horrifying thing about the external is
its inability to feel, its insensitivity to the pain and
anguish known to the individual. Kafka's father first
embodied this principle of indifferent, superior force, and
so made it an element that would be transmuted to creative
significance in the writings. Hermann Kafka seems to have
frequently used the word "vermin" as a scornful judgment
upon anyone for whom he felt contempt. In the "Brief an
den Vater," Kafka, after admitting his father's physical
superiority and even--strangely— his mental superiority,
128
bitterly cites as an example of his father's contempt the
time Franz had introduced his father to a Yiddish actor,
Isaak Lttwy. He describes Lttwy as an innocent, childlike
person (a description which Brod, incidentally, verifies).
Ohne ihn zu kennen, verglichst Du ihn in einer
schrecklichen Weise, die ich schon vergessen habe, mit
Ungezlefer, und wie so oft ftir Leute, die mir lieb
waren, hattest Du automatisch das Sprlchwort von den
Hunden und Fltthen bel der Hand. 1-3
The aptness of the dog figure is once again underscored, of
course; but as Kafka goes on to say in the letter, the
father's judgment upon LOwy was--so far as Kafka was con
cerned- -actually a judgment upon the son. Brod, in his
case against Kafka's father, makes this incident one of the
cornerstones, maintaining that the effect upon Kafka was
one of profound emotional shock. Be that as it may, the
effect upon his creative consciousness was still more im
portant since it gave him the opportunity to perceive man
for a moment through the eye of the infallible deity. It
is on this point that Brod and other biographical critics
err through over-simplification. Kafka had, certainly, the
sensitivity to writhe with pain when subjected to it; it is
this quality which makes him so compelling a figure as a
man. But as an artist, he had an even greater capability;
that is, he could both writhe with pain and at the same
*^"Brief an der Vater,” Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 171.
129
time stand outside with the impartiality of a witness or
even of the anonymous torturer and approve the necessity If
not the justice--to borrow a key phrase from Der Prozess.
It is this dual capability which transforms the "Brief an
den Vater" from an autobiographical document to a creative
work. Kafka not only suffers bitterly from his father's
denunciation, he steps literally into the father's position
and approves it. Late in the letter, in a section that
decisively removes it from the strictly biographical cate
gory, he writes his father's answer for him; in doing so,
he compounds his own guilt and proves that the father has
been completely justified in his contempt. The most
damning charge of the father— as written by Franz Kafka
against himself--is that the son has denied responsibility
for his own life by laying it on the father's shoulders and
simultaneously sought to evade that charge by seeking to
prove the father's innocence. This, Kafka says through the
fictional voice of the father, is the fighting of vermin:
". . . den Kampf des Ungeziefers, welches nicht nur stlcht,
sondem gleich auch zu seiner Lebenserhaltung das Blut
saugt."1^ Easily squashed in their helplessness, vermin
use this very helplessness as an excuse for continuing
their parasitism.
l^"Brief an den Vater," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 222.
130
If one takes this particular shading of meaning
Into account, It becomes Impossible to read "Die Verwand-
lung" in the simplest sense, that one In which Gregor Samsa
Is 8imply a victim of the grinding forces which convince
him subconsciously of his insect-like nature. Just as the
"Brief an den Vater" ends with proof of the guilt that it
originally attempted to deny, "Die Verwandlung” is the
story of a man whose guilt is pre-established. Gregor
Samsa is a victim, but his fate is not simply pathetic, it
is deserved. The restoration of vitality to the rest of
the family following his death is due to the burden of his
guilt being lifted from the house. While Gregor is not
technically a blood-sticking insect, the symbolic equivalent
exists in the pernicious effect on the household, the
family sitting silently together, the sister's increasing
constraint, the mother's weeping, the additional burden
laid on the aged father. At the same time, Gregor is a
victim in that his role had originally been forced upon him
through his parents' "guilt"— that is, their debt to his
employer. The parallel here to the "Brief an den Vater" is
almost exact; Gregor, like the author of the letter, cannot
evade the guilt of his nature by assigning the original
guilt to his father. As Kafka explains it through his
father at the end of the "Brief," immediately after the
passage in which the parasitism of the son is equated with
131
that of vermin:
Lebensuntlichtig bist Du; um es Dir aber darin
bequem, sorgenlos und ohne SelbstvorwUrfe einrichten
zu kBnnen, beweist Du, dass ich alle Deine Lebens-
tUchtigkeit Dir genommen und in meine Taschen gesteckt
habe. Was kUmnert es Dich jetzt, wenn Du leben-
suntllchtig bist, ich habe ja die Verantwortung, Du
aber streckst Dich ruhig aus und lttsst Dich, ktSrper-
lich und geistig, von mir durchs Leben s c h l e i f e n . 1 5
Gregor Samsa is transformed to his true nature; his help
lessness is an attempt to assert the father's guilt and so
relieve his own. It inevitably fails, for the father,
rejuvenated, turns the guilt upon the son by the simplest
possible means--the verminous nature of the son is mani
fest, his nature is proof of his guilt and the fact that he
is unfit for life.
Such a view is a harsh one, more harsh than most
readers would immediately accept, since all of us are
trained to regard guilt and innocence as opposites. For
Kafka, such opposites do not exist, however; as we have
already learned, in his work every quality contains its
opposite within itself. The guilt of the innocent, or the
innocence of the guilty: this is the nature of the paradox
manifest in the protagonist as vermin. Writing to Milena,
at a time when Brod was convinced that his friend had
finally embraced the Jewish heritage to an extent that
15
"Brief an den Vater," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 222.
132
exceeded Brod's own Identification with It, ^ Kafka de
scribes one afternoon during which he had watched anti-
Jewish demonstrations. "Die ganzen Nachmlttage bin ich
jezt auf den Gassen und bade lm Judenhasse," he said, and
added bitterly a few lines later: "Das Heldentum, das darin
besteht, doch zu bleiben, ist jenes der Schaben, die auch
nicht aus dem Badezimner auszurotten sind."*^ The tenacity
of Gregor Samsa or of the son in the "Brief" is equally
negative, a "heroism" that seeks to assert the guilt of
others by establishing itself as victim. If Kafka was a
writer concerned with the dilemma of the Jews, as Brod and
others so often assert, It was solely because that dilemma
coincided with the universal dilemma of mankind.
It is in the earlier writings that one finds most
frequent use of vile forms of Insect life, beginning with
Hochzeitavorbereitungen and reaching a climax in "Die
Verwandlung."*® The effectiveness of the symbol was
*^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 139.
*^Briafe an Milena, p. 240.
*®The protagonist of "Hochzeitavorbereitungen,"
Eduard Raban, Is Involved in an obviously hopeless journey
to celebrate his marriage. In the first manuscript, Raban
thinks of himself lying in bed in the form of a huge
beetle, "eines Hirschklfers oder eines Maikftfers." He
than thinks, in an obvious parallel to "Die Verwandlung":
"Eines KXfers grosse Gestalt, ja. Ich stellte es dann so
an, als handle es sich um elnen Wlnterschlaf, und ich
presste meine Beinchen an meinen gebrauchten Lelb. Und Ich
133
exhausted In the story of Gregor Samsa, for It expressed
the process of withdrawal from and relinquishment of life,
which Is one alternative— perhaps even the one finally
accepted**~but one which the very nature of life struggles
against. In his later use of vermin, Kafka turned back to
the dog and related figures, those scratchers and burrowers
who frantically search for, as Rotpeter expresses It In his
report to the academy, not freedom but a way out. ("Neln,
Frelhelt wollte Ich nicht. Nur elnen Ausweg; rechts,
iq
links, wohln Immer. . . . Welterkommen, welterkommen!”)
These are the beasts who are pictured as whipped brutally
by figures of external force, who are pathetic Idealists In
one sense and foul sensualists In another. These beasts,
In contrast to the roaches and beetles earlier discussed,
are not withdrawn from life but desperate victims of the
trap that their lives represent.
This basic situation Is the theme of several
stories and fragments. One brief piece, written in first
person, tells of a protagonist who barricades himself
behind furniture in a comer of his room, while a person
lisple eine kleine Zahl Worte, das slnd Anordnungen an
melnen traurlgen KBrper, der knapp bei mir steht und
gebeugt ist. Bald bin ich fertig— er verbeugt sich, er
gehtflttchtig und alles wird er aufs baste vollfOhren,
wlhrend Ich ruhe” (p. 12).
^9t,Bin Bericht fttr eine Akademie," Erzthlunaen und
kleine Proaa. p. 171.
134
In high boots, flicking a dog whip in a circle around him,
demands that the protagonist come out and asks how long he
seeks to evade his fate.20 The basic setting and the
significant question of this fragment are varied in the
story "Schakale und Araber," where the jackals, themselves
foul, desire to free themselves from the brutal Arabs who
whip them. In a section reminiscent of the vermin strategy
defined by the father in the ’ ’Brief," the jackals throw
themselves on and cling to the explorer, begging him to
cleanse their world of brutality. Here, as "In der Straf-
kolonie," the explorer represents a potential advocate
through his non-involvement. However, the Arabs have no
difficulty in asserting their power; they simply prove
again the vile, sensual nature of the jackals--i.e. their
guilt--by tantalizing them with carrion. Thus, the su
periority of the Arabs and the consequent foulness of the
jackals establishes the justice of the situation. At the
same time, however, it is the Arabs who are responsible for
the debauchery of the jackals. Yet, the jackals cannot
deny their nature; they throw themselves with ecstacy upon
the carrion that the Arabs provide. In short, the vileness
of the jackals is elemental, but the Arabs are responsible
for the exercise of debauchery; they know that the jackals
20Hochzeit8vorbereitungen. pp. 332-333.
135
cannot resist filth and take advantage of this sensuality
to establish their own superiority. Then, contemptuous of
the animals whose debauchery they have contributed towards,
they whip the jackals brutally, knowing that the pain is
simply one more element of vile sensualism in the beasts.
Da strich der Ftlhrer kr&ftig mit der scharfen
Peitsche kreuz und quer t&ber sie. Sie hoben die Kttpfe;
halb in Rausch und Ohnmacht; sahen die Araber vor sich
stehen; bekamen jetzt die Peitsche mit den Schnauzen
zu fUhlen; zogen sich im Sprung zurUck und liefen eine
Strecke rtickwttrts. Aber das Blut des Kamels lag schon
in Lachen da, rauchte empor, der Kttrper war an mehreren
Stellen weit aufgerissen. Sie konnten nicht wider-
stehen; wieder yaren sie da; wieder hob der FUhrer die
Peitsche. . . .21
If they were not foul--that is, guilty-they would not
remain to be whipped; because of their attachment to the
vile flesh, they suffer and so prove their guilt. One
holds on to life, known only through physical conscious
ness, suffers, but will not relinquish and so suffers
through one's own fault. This sensual grossness of the
jackals confronted by the temptation of carrion, in order
to establish the paradox of suffering and justice, should
remind the reader of the container of filthy rice gruel
used in conjunction with the machine in the Strafkolonie.
There, too, it serves to show the victim's sensual gross
ness, the proof of the offense established through the
punishment.
21,1 Schakale und Araber," Erzlhlungen und kleine
Prosa. p. 150.
136
The figure of the sensual beast, whipped brutally
because of his overpowering desire or lust for the physical,
occurs several other times In the writings, and each time
It coincides with the Interpretation given above. The
guilt of the sufferer is that of his basic nature, the
offense of the external authority Is that of forcing the
beast to act according to its nature and then punishing him
for it. In this sense, the offense which anyone commits is
one of guilt, yet the guilt is forced upon him. The chap
ter "Der Prtigler" in Der Prozess becomes clarified, for
example, when we perceive that it is based upon the situ
ational theme of "Schakale und Araber." Likewise, we must
adopt a more cautious interpretation of the brutality of
the machine in the Strafkolonle. The whipper or agent of
punishment is synonymous with the brutality of the world;
it brings forth the guilt of mankind, but that guilt is
pre-existent, as fundamental to human nature as the appe
tite itself. Like the dog that could not help cunning off,
the beast in man instinctively follows its physical nature.
There is a very short animal story by Kafka, in which a
group of beasts are forbidden to drink from a pool in the
woods. Unable to resist it, they run there, lap up the
water blissfully and return to be whipped because of the
evidence of the water glistening on their fur. Even then,
their thirst remains and they lick the water, mingled with
137
the blood from the whipping, from the sides on one another.
The nature of the jackals is what determines their franzy
over carrion--their guilt--and it is as fundamental, Kafka
suggests in the related story, as the basic need of the
body for water. The mixing of the blood and the water
gives an equal inevitability to the suffering that results
from the elemental craving of the body.^
Another animal figure that occurs several times is
that of the mouse. The most important work involving this
symbol is, of course, "Joseflne, die SHngerln, oder das
Volk der M&use." Because of the content, extended discus
sion of this story properly belongs to a later chapter
("Institutions and Traditions"). For the moment it is per
haps sufficient to recognize that the mouse folk are com
munal in their identity, and as is true of all the vermin
are peculiarly pathetic and vulnerable to external force.
However, two shorter pieces that treat the mouse pro
tagonist are worth at least passing attention here. The
first of the two, jotted down in "Das sechste Oktavheft,"
represents the now-familiar story of futility, but with the
fairly unusual— for Kafka— coloration of pathos, as a
little mouse, beloved as no other in the world of mice,
^^See the fragment beginning "Es war ein klelner
Teich . . .," Hochzeitavorbereitungen. p. 330. Another
incomplete story that Involves whipping in a similar sense
occurs in the same volume, p. 410.
138
one night "... unter das Falleisen kam und mit einem
Hochschrei ihr Leben hingab ftir den Anblick des Specks.
23
. . The mouse dies for the mere sight of the bacon,
the wishfulness of his physical nature betraying him. In
this respect, he corresponds with the whipped beasts that
were previously discussed. The element of pathos, however,
occurs in the point of view, for his death has its sig
nificance on the community rather than on himself. The
mouse is a symbol of helplessness rather than vileness; his
death is due to his nature, but it is nonetheless an act of
gross brutality on the part of the unfeeling universe. The
story concludes:
Dort lag sie, die kleine liebe Maus, das Eisen
im Genick, die rosa Belnchen eingedrtlckt, erstarrt
den schwachen Leib, dem ein wenig Speck so sehr zu
gttnnen gewesen wiire.24
The story is the nearest thing to revolt, the nearest pro
test against the injustice of the universal dilemma, that
Kafka offers. The feeble body that would so well have
deserved a scrap of bacon— must the physical necessity be
so harshly punished? In the story, Kafka uses his animal
to express a different aspect of the human condition, help
lessness or total victimization, rather than a peculiar
2^"Das sechste Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereitungen.
p. 141.
24Ibld., p. 142.
139
justness in the punishment evoked by natural guilt.
A second short piece of writing Involving a mouse
protagonist verifies this particular emphasis. In "Kleine
Fabel," a mouse finds that the world, which In the begin
ning seemed Infinite, has grown narrower each day. How he
finds that It ends In a corner, In which stands a trap.
Apparently he has no choice left but to run Into It. "'Du
mu88t nur die Laufrlchtung Andem, ' sagte die Katze und
frass sie."25 The apparent choice Is an Ironic one that
comes to the same thing In the end. There Is no real out
let; the choice Is between final death or immediate
destruction.
The powerful brutes that occur In Kafka's stories
are invariably representations of external force. No one
of them is subjectively presented; they always exist as
awesome figures to the protagonist. The correlation be
tween such a conception and Kafka's own life undoubtedly
relates once more to his reaction to his father. Kafka
frequently expressed humiliation at his own physical inade
quacy beside what he regarded to be his father's magnifi
cent body. For many years, he felt shame at undressing
with his father in the public bath house, a circumstance
that he viewed with sufficient Importance to note in his
2~ * Beachreibung eines Kampfes. p. 121.
140
Tagebticher and to dwell on It at some length In the
"Brief." Also, he was very much awed by his father's
coarse eating habits. The brute-like manner with which
Hermann Kafka devoured his food, fragments of It falling
from his mouth, was one more instance of his physical
assurance, particularly since he made a point of allowing
such behavior to no one but himself. ^ Such manifest
superiority was totally that of physical strength; one is
reminded of the comment in "Ein HungerkUnstler" on the
beast that replaces the fasting artist:
Die Nahrung, die ihm schmeckte, brachten ihm ohne
langes Nachdenken die WBchter; nicht einraal die
Frelheit schien er zu vermissen; dieser edle, mit
alien NDtigen bis knapp zum Zerreissen ausgestattete
KDrper schien auch die Frelheit mit sich herumzutragen;
lrgendwo lm Gebiss schien sie zu stecken; und die
Freude am Leben kam mit derart starker Glut aus selnem
Rachen, dass es filr die Zuschauer nicht leicht war,
ihr standzuhalten.
The biographical critics have indicated, sufficiently, the
contrast of Kafka's own food faddism. The important thing,
however, is that it provided the creative mind with a set
of symbolic characteristics for the brute figure in the
stories. Kafka's distaste for meat, for example, is un
doubtedly related psychologically to his father's animal
26
"Brief an den Vater," Hochzeitsyorberelttmeen.
pp. 172-173. Note, a few pages earlier--"ich war ja scnon
niedergedrllckt durch Delne blosse KDrperllchkeit," p. 168.
27
ErzMhlungen und kleine Prose, p. 240.
141
appetite ("Knochen durfte man nicht zerbelssen, Du jaH);^
but the artistic result Is the horror that he achieves In
a story like "Bln altes Blatt" when the wild horses of the
nomads tear the living flesh from an ox In brutal ecstasy.
Brod, In his biography, tells of a piece of plaster statu
ary that adorned the bedroom of Kafka for many years. It
was the copy of an ancient relief, "elner Mftnadln, die ein
Fleischstttck, elnen Ochsenschenkel, schwingt."^ The
sensualist, with all of the questions of life rendered
superfluous by the satisfaction of the gross appetite, per
fectly exemplified the brutal force to which the helpless
victim was vulnerable. The tremendous horses from the pig
sty that run away with the country doctor, the horses of
the nomads, the leopard that succeeds where the hunger
artist fails--beside these awesome figures, the protagonist
was In fact, no more than the vermin on the flank of the
brute, as Kafka's father accused him of being.
The animal figure as the symbol of brute force
represents so alien an element to the helpless protagonist
that It appears almost as an abstract blood deity. The
horses In "Bln Landarzt" literally appear out of nowhere,
the nomads and their horses are demonic strangers that
28
"Brief an den Vater," Hochzeitsvorbere11ungen.
p. 172.
^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 70.
142
suddenly invade the city, and the anonymous enemy of "Der
Bau" evokes the limitless terror of the unknown. In con
trast, Kafka, on a few occasions, used animals to signify a
benign quality. In "Forschungen eines Hundes” the ghost
like dog that appears to the protagonist, during the fast
by means of which he hopes to achieve mystic revelation,
urges him to abandon his attempt and finally forces him to
do so. In effect, the spirit animal tells him that he will
destroy himself by his self-alienation, that he must accept
food (his physical identity), that in short he must accept
the unsatisfactory answers provided by the community. The
spirit animal is, however, sympathetic to the protagonist,
and his utterance is the actual message of truth that the
protagonist is to receive, although he does not realize it.
This revelation is identical with the statement of the
story "Der neue Advokat."
Dr. Bucephalus, the new advocate, was once the
charger of Alexander the Great. However, the world of
achievement is only a dream of a distant past. Bucephalus
recognizes the reality of things, and so has picked that
profession which most truly corresponds to the spirit of
modern times--the law.
Heute— das kann niemand leugnen— gibt es keinen
grossen Alexander. . . . Schon damals waren Indiens
Tore unerreichbar, aber ihre Richtung war durch das
KBnigsschwert bezeichnet. Heute sind die Tore ganz
anderswohin und welter und htther vertragen; niemand
143
zeigt die Richtung; viele halten Schwerter; aber nur,
um mit ihnen zu fuchteln, und der Blick, der ihnen
folgen will, verwirrt sich.
Vielleicht 1st es deshalb wirklich das beste,
sich, wie es Bucephalus getan hat, in die Gesetz-
btlcher zu versenken.™
The wisdom shown by Bucephalus is that of the ghost-hound;
things being as they are, one can continue to exist only by
resigning one's self to acceptance of the world as it
exists. Mythic valor has been reduced to the mundane
reality embodied in that rationalization known as the law.
Bucephalus bows to the necessity of fitting in. Another
mythic figure, the hunter of the Black Forest, Gracchus,
suffers the fate of the myth that has been denied; he
wanders friendless, midway between death and life, no
longer recognized. As he tells the BUrgermeister of Riva,
". . . niemand weiss von mir, und wttsste er von mir, so
wdsste er meinen Aufenthalt nicht, und wttsst er melnen
Aufenthalt, so wttsst er mich dort nicht festzuhalten, so
wUsste er nicht, wie mir zu helfen."^ It is this fate
that Bucephalus escapes.
Two of the fragments also present animal figures
that are more or less benign. Apparently a companion piece
to "Der neue Advokat" is the untitled story of Isabella,
^ Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 133.
Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 107.
144
the old gray horse who becomes a club woman, attending
charity parties, because she realizes that there Is no
longer any future for her In the stable. As she puts It
". . . Ich werde ja elgentllch nur gnadenwelse noch
gehalten, meine Zelten sind vortiber. . . . Donning her
late mistress's clothes, Isabella becomes the most striking
figure at the garden party. As with Bucephalus and Rot-
peter, Isabella recognizes that the only way to survive Is
to adapt herself to the prevailing pattern of conduct. One
might assume that Kafka was preaching a bitter doctrine of
conformity from these stories, and In one sense he Is.
However, the conception represents only one point of view,
and we know that It was one that Kafka could not endorse
either In his own life or In his more Important writings.
The world being as It Is, one would be better off If he
could be Bucephalus— but one Is not. Like the bridge In
the story of the same name, one has the fatal necessity of
turning to look at oneself. Bucephalus and Isabella adapt
to the times as the lesser of two evils, and the pro
tagonist of "Forschungen eines Hundes" Is driven back Into
society. Rotpeter becomes human as a way out of his
dilemma but reads his own reality every night In the Insane
look of the half-broken chimpanzee mate.
1 9
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 408.
145
An odd little tale that seems distinctly different
in theme from those just discussed is the story of the
affair between a human and a horse named Eleonor. The work
is too fragmentary to allow complete interpretation, but in
the section that was written the following lines seem most
significant. They follow a vigorous protest by the pro
tagonist against the allegation that he was the first per
son ever to become the soul mate of a horse.
Was ich getan habe, ist nur dieses: ich habe ein
Jahr lang mit einem Pferde gelebt derart, wie etwa
ein Mensch mit einem MMdchen, das er verehrt, von dem
er aber abgewiesen wird, leben wtirde, wetm er Eusser-
lich keln Hlnderais hltte, um alles zu veranstalten,
was ihn zu seinem Ziele bringen kOnnte. Ich habe also
das Pferd Eleonor und mich in elnen Stall gesperrt
und habe diesen geme ins amen Aufenthaltsort immer nur
verlassen, um die Unterrichtsstunden zu geben, durch
die ich die Unterrichtsmittel fttr uns beide ver-
diente*
He then goes on to concede that he finally failed in his
endeavors and to blame it on certain gentleman who would
not give him the funds to support his undertaking, thus
making it necessary that he absent himself for five or six
hour8 a day. The story is preposterous and therefore
amusing to a greater extent than are most of the animal
stories. The year of Isolated confinement with the horse
is obviously an experiment in which he, as the rejected
suitor, attempts to learn how he might be successful;
^ Hochzeitsvorbereituntten, p. 294.
146
the protagonist tells us that much in the complicated first
sentence of the above quotation. Later, in castigating the
men who would not support him, he speaks of his relation*
ship to the project: "... etwas, ftlr das ich mich so zu
opfem bereit war, wie man ein BQndel Hafer opfert, das man
zwischen die Mahlz&hne eines Pferdes stopft. . . ."34 The
relationship, described in "man and maiden" terms, is a
ridiculous idyll in one sense. More exactly, however, it
is a grotesque fable of the man who seeks to discover the
means to a successful relationship with womanhood by taking
lessons from the female animal. Later, we shall see that
Kafka regarded woman as being miraculously reconciled to
physical existence, thus representing a means whereby one
might achieve a similar peace. From what we have of this
story, it appears that Kafka intended Eleonor, the gentle
dumb beast, to represent the essential nature of womanhood.
The necessity of reconciliation is what makes the pro
tagonist a sacrifice--like a bundle of fodder shoved into
the mouth of the horse. There is a sexual symbolism co
incidental here, but the more important significance of
the simile is that it shows the rejected--or alienated—
figure as a necessary victim to the physical reality. The
story thus represents a variation on the simpler accounts
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 294.
147
of Bucephalus and of Isabella. (A different relationship,
though humor is not part of it, might be found with the
previously mentioned story of the student who wishes to
discover the reality of truth by locking himself in with
wild horses at night and lashing them to a frenzy.)
Generally, these animal figures— the vermin, the
powerful brutes, the benign or neutral beasts--are symbolic
in meaning, but realistic in form and character. The same
cannot be said for a fourth group of animals, those mon
sters, demons and freaks whose physical form is determined
by their symbolic nature. As we have already seen, the
more brutal animals have an unearthly quality that is an
effective contrast to the power that they represent. This
abstraction serves to suggest a spirit-like manifestation
of physical force, a quality that places the brutes close
to that group of creatures whose form is symbolic. The
conception of the animal as the manifestation of a spiritual
principle or identity is one that long precedes Kafka, of
course; the Eastern writings that fascinated him at one
point in his life are only a single instance of the trans
formation and reincarnation legends that occur in all
literatures.
A more immediate personal influence, however, may
be at the heart of an Incident reported by Janouch after
walking home with Kafka one day. Kafka suddenly stopped
148
and pointed with alarm at a small dog, apparently a poodle,
which ran In front of them and then disappeared around the
corner. Janouch remarked casually that It was only a dog,
but Kafka remained suspicious.
"Ein nledllches Httndchen," bemerkte Ich.
"Eln Hund?" fragte Kafka mlsstraulsch und setzte
slch langsam In Bewegung.
"Eln klelner, junger Hund. Haben Sle Ihn nlcht
gesehen?"
"Gesehen habe lch. Ob es aber eln Hund war?"
"Eln Pudelchen war es."
"Eln Pudel! Das kann eln Hund, aber auch eln
Zelchen seln. Wlr Juden irren uns manchmal In
traglscher Uelse."
"Es war nur eln Hund," sagte lch.
"Das wKre gut," nlckte Kafka. "Doch das Nur gilt
alleln fllr den, der es gebraucht. Was ftir den elnen
eln Abfallbtindel oder eln Hund 1st, das 1st filr den
anderen eln Zelchen."
[Kafka] "Etwas geht lmmer fiber die Rechnung
hlnaus."35
Even without Brod's testimony concerning Kafka's sense of
humor, 1 would assert that the writer was here engaging In
an obvious practical joke upon his Innocent young friend.
Janouch, writing thirty years later, still treats the Inci
dent as quite serious, but he should have remembered the
35
Janouch, p. 69.
149
constant references— faithfully recorded elsewhere^--that
Kafka made to Goethe. The incident is almost a parody of
the conclusion of the Easter walk of Faust and Wagner in
the first act of that play. Even the breed of the dog in
which Mephistopheles appeared is the same. Apparently
unwittingly, Janouch played the role of Wagner to perfec
tion. This is the parallel section from Goethe's play:
FAUST
Siehst du den schwarzen Hund durch Saat und Stoppel
streifen?
WAGNER
lch sah ihn lange schon, nicht wichtig schien er mir.
FAUST
Betrach* ihn recht! ftir was h<st du das Tier?
WAGNER
Ftir einen Pudel, der auf seine Weise
Sich auf der Spur des Herren plagt.
FAUST
Bemerkst du, wie in weitem Schneckenkreise
Er urn uns her und imner n&her jagt?
Uhd irr ich nicht, so zieht ein Feuerstrudel
Auf seinen Pfaden hinterdrein.
WAGNER
Ich sehe nichts als einen schwarzen Pudel;
es mag bei Euch wohl AugentBuschung sein.
FAUST
Mir scheint es, dass er magisch leise Schlingen,
Zu ktlnftgem Band, um uns re Ftisse zieht.
WAGNER
lch seh* ihn ungewiss und furchtsam uns umspringen,
Weil er, statt seines Herm, zwei Unbekannte sieht.
The most revealing: "Goethe sagt fast alles, was
uns Menschen betrifft." Janouch, p. 39.
150
FAUST
Der Kreis wird eng, schon 1st er nah!
WAGNER
Du slehst! Eln Hund, und keln Gespenst 1st da.
Er knurrt und zwelfelt, legt slch auf den Bauch,
Er wedelt. Alles Hundebrauch.^7
Aside from our amusement at Janouch'8 expense, the
Incident serves to verify that Kafka had Goethe's concep-
tlon of the animal as the manifestation of a spirit so
ready to mind that he was able to bring It forth at the
mere sight of the running poodle. The Idea of the demon or
spirit concealed within the familiar canine form Is so
pervasive In his writings that one searches In vain for a
dog that Is simply a dog. One's own basic nature Is that
of the sensual beast, as In "Schakale und Araber"; but this
character, In that It Is basic, also displays at unexpected
moments the spirit of that unknown consciousness that per*
vades all things and from which the self-conscious Indi
vidual Is alienated. One of the preliminary sketches for
Das Schloss. found In the Tagebttcher, Is the story "Ver-
lockung lm Dorf." Perhaps the pivotal point In the story,
although it is not carried over into the novel, occurs
during the night when the protagonist Is asleep in the
attic of the farmhouse-Inn. He awakes, unaccountably,
^7Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethes SMmtllche
Werke, Dreizehnter Band ( JubiHums-Ausgabe, Stuttgart und
Berlin: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, n.d.),
pp. 47-48.
151
to find a dog standing near his head, grotesque in the
moonlight streaming through the window.
Da bemerkte ich neben mir etwa in der HOhe meines
Ohres einen ganz kleinen buschigen Hund, eines jener
widerlichen SchosshUndchen mit verhttltnissmMssig
grossem, von lockigen Haaren umgebenem Kopf, in den
die Augen und die Schnauze wie Schmuckstttcke aus
irgeneiner leblosen hornartigen Masse locker ein-
gesetzt sind. Wie kam ein solcher Grosstadthund ins
Dorf? Was trieb ihn bei Nacht im Haus herum? Warum
stand er bei meinem Ohr? . . . [Er] drehte aich nur
urn, stand nun mit krummen Beinchen da und zeigte
seinen besonders im Vergleich zum grossen Kopf ver-
kUromerten kleinen Leib. Da er ruhig blieb, wollte
ich wieder schlafen, aber ich konnte nicht, immerfort
sah ich gerade vor meinen geschlossenen Augen in der
Luft den Hund schaukeln und die Augen hervordrttcken.
Das war unertrMglich. ich konnte das Tier nicht neben
mir behalten. . .
The protagonist picks up the dog to take it outside.
Apathetic until now, the beast begins to struggle; although
it makes no sound, he can feel the blood pounding wildly
through its arteries. It grows darker, his foot touches
one of the sleeping children and suddenly "wie auf Verab-
redung, wie auf Befehl" they all rise and stand there in
their white garments. "... meine Schuld war es nicht,
ich hatte nur ein Kind geweckt und dieses Wecken war gar
kein Wecken gewesen, sondem nur eine kleine StUrung, die
ein Kinderschlaf leicht hMtte Uberstehen mtissen."39
The word "Schuld" is important here, of course,
^ Tagebtlcher, pp. 396-397.
39Ibid., pp. 397-398.
152
and in the conclusion of the story it is related to one
of Kafka's basic themes. However, before noting that,
we should trace the relationship between the dog and the
protagonist, for such a relationship obviously exists.
As is so often true, the dog is a poodle-like bushy animal.
The prominence of the fur is always emphasized by Kafka
in describing his beasts; it provides a simple symbol of
the repulsiveness of the physical nature. (None of Kafka's
animals except those displaying brute force, are attrac
tive physically.) On the other hand, the huge head of
the dog, in contrast to the stunted body, suggests an over
development of the head at the expense of the body. Even
more significant, however, is the fact that both the dog
and the protagonist are aliens in the village: "Wie kam ein
solcher Grosstadthund ins Dorf?" Both of them are a dis
turbing Influence in the house; "Was trieb ihn bei Nacht im
Haus herura?" And, finally, the dog seems almost to have
emerged from the sleeping man's ear in a mythical birth.
The protagonist wishes to ignore the beast, but is unable
The classical myth of birth from the ear, or the
birth of Rabelais' Gargantua by the same means, provide a
precedent but little actual significance otherwise. How
ever, Goethe's young witch, from whose mouth a red mouse
leaps, in the Walpurgisnacht section of Faust, may repre
sent an oblique influence; as with Kafka's ghostly dog,
the mouse is symbolic of Internal reality contradicting the
surface illusion.
153
to do so. Even with his eyes closed, he sees the unsuffer-
able dog, rocking silently back and forth: "Das war uner-
tr&glich, lch konnte das Tier nicht neben mir behalten.”
He wishes to eject the animal and attempts to do so despite
Its silent struggle. There Is little likelihood of error
If we take this In a symbolic sense, for It Is pretty well
established for us In the reference to the children. They
rise up, ghost-llke In the darkness, as though to accuse
him. His attempt to rid himself of the beast Is a failure
to procreate. The reference to guilt thus Is clarified, as
he tries to excuse himself: "melne Schuld war es nicht, lch
hatte nur eln Kind geweckt und dieses Wecken war gar kein
Wecken gewesen, sondern nur elne klelne StOrung, die eln
Kinderschlaf lelcht h&tte ttberstehen mtissen." In other
words, why should the entire future of mankind accuse him,
when his guilt was only against one "sleeping" child; only
that one had been offended by him, and that offense was
one of which a sleeping--I.e. unborn— child should by all
logic have remained unconscious.
The story continues with the children telling him
that the dog belongs to "Frau Cruster," and running off
through the darkness with It. The protagonist races after
them, thinking with a certain sense of satisfaction that
he Is causing a great din In the house, although the land
lord and his wife do not appear. The story ends In
154
a strange, almost idyllic scene, as the children run into
a brightly lighted room where a delicate woman sits
writing. She does not see the protagonist, who stays in
the darkness outside the room: "Ich blleb vor der Tttr im
Schatten." The children place the dog on the table:
. . . sie liebten die Frau wohl sehr, immerfort
suchten sie ihr in die Augen zu sehn, ein Mkdchen
ergriff ihre Hand und streichelte sie, die liess es
geschehn und merkte es kaum* Der Hund stand vor ihr
auf dem Briefbogen, auf dem sie eben geschrieben
hatte, und streckte ihr seine zittemde kleine Zunge
entggjen, die man knapp vor dem Lampenschirm deutlich
The children beg to be allowed to remain. The woman,
apparently Frau Cruster, the owner of the dog, gives them
permission, and they lie down on the hard floor. The scene
closes: "Die Frau bllckte l&chelnd, die Hlnde im Schoss
gefaltet, auf die Kinder nieder. Hie und da hob ein Kind
den Kopf, aber da es auch noch die andera liegen sah, legte
es slch wieder zurtock."42
The implications of this final scene are drawn from
the contrast it presents to the earlier one in the attic.
The protagonist, who tried to eject the poodle, remains
outside the door, still in the shadows, while the woman and
children are in the bright light of the room. The dog
^TaeabUcher. p. 399.
42Ibld.. pp. 399-400.
155
is returned to the woman, its proper custodian, after being
rejected by the protagonist. In denying the animal, he
also loses the children, who find refuge with the woman
where they contentedly return to sleep. A room for Kafka
is always a symbol of one*8 innermost nature, and the
brightly lighted room of the woman is the redemptive nature
of womanhood, the peace and warmth of which is denied the
protagonist because he has been unable to accept the symbol
of his own sensual identity. The title of the story,
"Verlockung im Dorf," is one that has little meaning at the
literal level of action, but is perfectly clear as a com
ment upon the symbolic level just discussed. The tempta
tion is represented as the birth of sensual consciousness
in the figure of the dog, who appears as though out of the
protagonist's own body, during his slumber. Disturbed by
it, he rejects it; the failure is not that of yielding to
the temptation but of failing to yield to it.^ "Ver
lockung Im Dorf" is much more than a preliminary sketch for
Das Schloss. a relationship that really exists only in the
opening scene.
If Kafka could draw on his knowledge of Goethe
further comparison with Faust might be made at
this point. Faust, awakening after being put to sleep by
Mephistopheles, says: "Verscnwindet so der geisterreiche
Drang, / Dess mir ein Traum den Teufel vorgelogen, / Und dass
ein Pudel mir entsprang?" p. 61.
156
for the splrit-dog, the same cannot be said for most of
his other demonic animals. The dog of "Verlockung" is
related, for example, to two other figures, for whom the
quality of the symbolic character determines the form.
The sixth octave notebook includes a brief paragraph that
doubtlessly was conceived as something longer since it is
one of the few such entries given a title, "Der Qu&lgeist."
It begins:
Der Qu&lgeist wohnt im Walde. In einer lttngst
verlassenen Htttte aus alten KHhlerzeiten. Tritt man
ein, merkt man nur einen unaustreibbaren Modergeruch,
sonst nichts. Kleiner als die kleinste Maus, un-
sichtbar selbst einem nahegebrachten Auge, drttckt sich
der QuMlgeist in einen Winkel. Nichts, gar nichts ist
zu merken, ruhig rauscht durch das leere Fensterloch
der Wald. Wie einsam ist es hier und wie kommt dir das
gelegen. Hier im Winkel wirst du s c h l a f e n . 4 4
The author then asks the demon why it is not out in the
open forest where the air moves freely. He provides the
answer to his own question: "Weil du nun schon hier bist,
gesichert in einer Htttte, trotzdem die Tttr l&ngst aus den
Angeln gebrochen und vertragen ist." Still, he adds, the
demon gropes as though to pull shut the missing door, then
lies down again.
From the name of this figure, it is reasonably
probable that it represents desire, particularly physical
desire. Unlike the dog of the Village story, it is not
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 145.
157
an abstract figure, but an Intimately associated aspect of
the self. The demon is minute, inhabiting a long abandoned
cabin where the fires of the charcoal burners once glowed.
Now, the only thing left is the odor of mold. The isola
tion of the cabin suits the demon, and in his comer he
sleeps away the years, safe despite the fact that the door
has long ago been carried off. At times, however, the
instinct towards closing the missing door asserts itself.
The story is nothing more than a bit of symbolic impres
sionism, and there is little difficulty in tracing what
meaning exists in it. To begin with, it is obvious that
the tormenting demon is a pathetic being, tormenting no
one, but itself very much tormented in a mute, cowering
way. The cabin in which it hides is one where the fires
no longer bum; from the outside nothing whatever is to be
seen but the murmuring tranquility of external nature. If
we accept the demon as desire, it logically follows that in
this case desire seeks to avoid consciousness of itself.
The door long since carried away is an effective symbol of
the loss of that Innocence which the demon instinctively
seeks to protect itself with, although the necessity no
longer exists. In short, the tormenting demon as a terri
fied, vaguely conscious creature is desire in a self-
denying sense, seeking the peace of unconsciousness, trying
to shut Itself off from the world that has long since
158
abandoned it. Its size--smaller than the smallest mouse,
invisible even to an eye that comes close--is that of
diminished identity.
One may take "Der QuMlgeist" as a definition of
desire in the sense just described, but he runs a risk if
he decides that this is Kafka*s final concept of desire.
While Kafka's symbolic referents come into existence
through the personal significance with which they are in
vested, he always stands with at least one foot outside the
circle of definition. Kafka abhors the absolute in defini
tion as in everything, and the tormenting demon represents
desire in only one of its aspects, however startling or
effective it may be. Another short work that deals with
approximately the same theme, but sees a different view of
the matter, shows desire as a more aggressive beast. The
story is more humorous and considerably less delicate in
concept than that of "Der QuHlgeist."
Es Offnete sich die TUr und es kam, gut im Saft, an
den Seiten ttppig gerundet, fusslos mit der ganzen Unter-
seite sich vorschiebend, der grttne Drache ins Zimmer
herein. Formelle Begrttssung. Ich bat ihn, vOllig eln-
zutreten. Er bedauerte dies nicht tun zu kttnnen, da er
zu lang sei. Die Tllr musste also of fen bleiben, was
recht pelnllch war. Er lftchelte halb verlegen, halb
tUckisch und begann: "Durch deine Sehnsucht herange-
zogen, schlebe ich mich von welther heran, bin unten
schon ganz wundgescheuert. Aber ich tue es gerne.
Game fcomme ich, game biete ich mich dir an.^5
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 282. The reason that
the dragon gives for coming is again an echo from Faust.
See the Geist, p. 23 (in the edition previously cited)as
well as Maphistopheles' expressed motive for appearing and
the manner--crawling on his belly— by which he appears.
159
It is, of course, Inevitable that Kafka's beasts should
frequently symbolize sensuality, and the green dragon is
probably the clearest instance of it. The willingness of
the dragon, responding to the protagonist's longing, is
indicative of the physical response, as contrasted to the
more abstract, more mental character of desire in the
tormenting demon. Kafka portrays the physical, repulsive
in character, to be sure, as ready to offer itself as an
answer to longing. The protagonist even greets it with the
invitation to enter. However, the dragon cannot enter the
room completely; that is, it is too awkward, too physical,
too gross to share the Kafkian room--the inner personality--
and remains wedged in the doorway. It is, of course, its
very voluptuousness, its sensuality, that keeps it outside.
More than any other beast in Kafka's fantastic menagerie,
the green dragon is characterized perfectly by its form.
In the Tagebticher, one finds the female parallel to
the green dragon in the figure of a still more fantastic
creature. Generally, womanhood represented the possibility
of reconciliation with one's existence for Kafka. The
problem was that the relationship, culminating in sensu
ality, simultaneously reasserted the identity of the physi
cal self, that physical consciousness of the body that was
the very problem in the first place. Kafka's conception of
truth, mentioned earlier in this study as being a merging
160
of the fire of self with the fire of the eternal universe,
had as Its danger the destruction of the self In the
greater fire of the external reality. The problem is simi
lar in the relationship with women; one must pass through
the personal relationship before reconciliation is pos
sible. Women not only represent ultimate reconciliation,
then, they represent an immediate intensifying of the
physical consciousness as well. The TagebUcher sketch
begins with a man— as told in the first person--coming home
one night, his thoughts occupied as he enters the room with
a recent conversation about people's social standing.
Turning, after he hangs up his overcoat, he suddenly hears
a strange, spasmodic breathing:
Ich sah auf und bemerkte auf der HOhe des tief in
einen Winkel gestellten Ofens im Halbdunkel etwas
Lebendiges. Gelbllch glEnzende Augen blickten mich
an, unter dem unkenntlichen Gesicht lagen zu beiden
Seiten grosse runde Frauenbrtlste auf dem Gesima des
Ofens auf, das ganze Wesen schien nur aus aufge-
hluftem weichem weiasem Flelsch zu bestehn, ein dicker
langer gelblicher Schwanz hlng am Ofen herab, sein
Ende strich fortwihrend zwischen den Ritzen der Kacheln
hln und her.^°
The setting is reminiscent of "Blumfeld," and like the
elderly bachelor, the first reaction of the protagonist
here is to deny the experience: "Das erste, was ich tat,
war, dass lch mit grossen Schrltten und tief gesenktem
Kopf--Narrheit! Narrheit! wiederholte ich leise wie ein
^Tazebttcher. p. 400.
161
Gebet--zu der Hire glng. . . It Is a sensual nightmare
come to life, and he tries to banish it with a denial that
is like a prayer. The monster seems to consist of a mass
of soft white flesh, a parallel to the gross voluptuousness
of the green dragon. The thick tail hanging down and
swishing ceaselessly across the tiles is a further cor
relation to the dragon, while the glittering eyes that
stare at him remind us of the ghost-like poodle in "Ver
lockung im Dorf." The female breasts, the position on the
stove which is obviously cold, the apparent bachelorhood of
the protagonist, combined with the thoughts of social
status in his mind as he enters, all serve to identify this
work as one of Kafka's numerous stories about the guilt of
the man who fails to fulfill the obligation represented by
marriage. As with Blumfeld, the protagonist's failure
apparently brings the monster into existence. However, the
characteristics of the monster reveal the protagonist's
failure; to his sight, the symbolic beast is a mass of soft
white flesh engulfing the stove upon which it squats. The
swishing tail is a characteristic of the waiting beast, and
the glittering eyes suggest both accusation and the animal
regarding its prey. If one were to regard Kafka's symbolic
statements as final, this story would represent a particu
larly violent rejection of womanhood. However, as we shall
see later, in the chapter devoted to the role of women
162
In his work, this repellent view both exists and--inevi-
tably--is contradicted. However, as an example of Kafka's
ability to create creatures from the air, or, rather, from
the abstract qualities that they are meant to embody, the
monster on the stove is perfect in its way. Finally, of
course, we again err in reading it as biography when, as
with Blumfeld, it expresses an effective judgment upon a
certain aspect of the human condition.
Three other freak animals occur in stories that
merit attention. They are a stork*-like bird, a weasel-like
animal that haunts a synagogue, and the half-animal, half
mechanism Odradek. The first of the three brings us back
to Kafka as a comic writer. Not only the bird, but his
human companion behave in a preposterous way. Again, it
begins as did Blumfeld. A man returns to his lonely room
and finds a huge egg, almost as high as the table, in the
middle of the room. When he cuts it open, showing con
siderably more coolness than Blumfeld or the protagonist of
the beast story just discussed, a stork-like bird, still
without feathers, jumps out and beats the air with its
stubby wings. "Was willst du in unserer Welt?" he feels
like asking, and a moment later he thinks "Einer hilft dem
andem, ” then he offers the bird part of the sausage he is
47
calmly eating for supper. The sausage is, of course,
^^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 143.
163
disdained; and with a ridiculous deliberation that has
almost an element of slap-stlck comedy about It, the man
decides that the bird will probably like fish. "Und lch
sah Ihn scharf an, ob lhm vlellelcht seine Essenswttnsche
von aussen abzulesen wdren." Well, he thinks, he will
provide fish for him. But not free of charge, for his
means do not permit him to keep a pet bird. If he makes
such a sacrifice, the bird must repay him. The means of
repayment Is already clear In his mind; as with earlier
animals, the central character seems to create them through
his attitude towards what they symbolize. The passage that
follows Is one of the most effectively absurd ones written
by Kafka:
"Er 1st eln Storch, mttge er mich also, bis er
ausgewachsen und von melnen Flschen gemMstet 1st, mit
In ale stidllchen Linder nehrnen. LMngst schon ver-
langt es mich, dorthln zu relsen, und nur mangels
Storchfltlgel habe lch es blsher unterlassen." Sofort
holte lch Papier und Tlnte, tauchte des Vogels Schnabel
eln und schrleb, ohne dass mir vom Vogel Irgendeln
Wlderstand entgegengesetzt worden wire, folgendes: "Ich,
storchartlger Vogel, verpflichte mich ftir den Fall,
dass du mich mit Flschen, Frttschen und Wtlrmera (dlese
zwel letztem Lebensmittel fttgte lch der Bllllgkelt
halber hlnzu) bis sum Flliggewerden nlhrst, Dlch auf
melnem Rileken In die sUdllchen Linder zu tragen." Dann
wischte lch den Schnabel rein und hlelt dem Vogel noch-
mals das Papier vor Augen, ehe lch es zusamnenfaltete
und In melne Brieftasche legte.^®
He then hurries out and buys fish, making arrangements with
A . A
Hochzeltsvorbereitunaen. p. 144
164
the fishmonger to buy his rotten fish, and worms, in the
future. MVlelleicht wttrde die sttdllche Fahrt nicht gar zu
teuer warden," he thinks with satisfaction.
While a simple appreciation of humor is scarcely a
major function of the critic, one is tempted to stop here
and point a finger for the benefit of those readers who see
nothing in Kafka but morbid self-analysis. Few passages in
modern literature are so completely funny as the one just
quoted, and when one realizes, further, that there is a
valid meaning interwoven, the art becomes still more im
pressive. The story goes on to describe the stench of
rotten fish in the room, particularly during the winter
when the windows cannot be opened because of the rising
price of coal, as well as the man*s blissful dreams about
his trip to the south. The climax of the story is intro
duced with the words: "es war Zelt, mit den Flugttbungen zu
beglnnen." Since there is no mother stork, the man takes
her place in giving the lessons; his inadequacy is com
pensated for by the bird's eager attentiveness:
Wir begannen mit dem Segelflug. Ich stieg hlnauf,
er folgte, lch sprang mit ausgebrelteten Armen hlnab,
er flatterte hinterher. Spftter gingen wir zum Tlsch
tlber und zuletzt zum Schrank, inner aber wurden alle
Fltige systematlsch vlelmals wiederholt.^9
The absurdity here is rich in humor, but finally it is
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. pp. 144-145.
165
simply a vehicle. The dream of the south evokes the bird,
and In this sense Is a ridiculous parallel to the ldea-
manife8tation elsewhere described. More importantly, how
ever, It Is a variation on the theme treated in the story
of the student who lives in a room with the wild horses and
the story of the man who lives in a room with the horse
Eleanor. The stork-like bird is the agent of a power
desired by the protagonist. There is even the same giving
of lessons, although it is burlesqued in this story. The
animal's way of life dominates the room, and the pro
tagonist suffers it in the hope of achieving the desired
end by this sacrifice. In this story, seeking control of
the animal's power--part of its natural ability, it should
be remembered— the protagonist signs an actual agreement
with it; he will guarantee the means of the animal's exist-
ence--the foul flsh--ln exchange for the release from hard
ship that the south symbolizes to him. The story, if we go
beyond the amusing absurdity, can be seen as one more in
the series that suggest that an answer can be found in
one's animal nature, if one is willing to make the sacri
fices necessary. The sunny south of this story is a
lighter version of the truth that the young student hopes
to whip out of the wild horses or the goal that the human
protagonist hopes to achieve by isolating himself with
Eleonor. In a sense, it is even a parallel to that other
166
absurd paradise, "Das Naturtheater von Oklahoma" in
Axnerika. where struggle disappears and everyone has a
place.
The freak animal of the synagogue has attracted the
attention of critics beginning with Brod, even though it is
one of the fragments, which are frequently ignored. One
suspects that the reason for the attention is the correla
tion with the Jewish community, as suggested by the build
ing that the beast Inhabits. Generally, the shabby, un
welcome animal is considered as representing the decay of
actual belief; Tauber defines it as the amount of divinity
that still remains in the center of holiness in these
spiritually Impoverished days.^ Brod takes all such
animals as symbolic of Jewry, contemptuously disdained by
Western culture, and--at least for this story--Charles
Neider echoes him. Although the decay of Judaism can be
read into it, this seems to me to be too simple an inter
pretation of the story, not because complexity is a value
in itself but because the story is not really made coherent
through such a quick interpretation. While the decline of
Judaism, as such, was a matter of great Importance to Brod,
despite his wishful thinking it was not a concern in the
same sense for Kafka. We need only glance at the late
50Tauber, p. 75.
167
letters to Milena to see the disparity between Brod's view
of his friend on this matter and Kafka's actual attitude.
Generally, interpretation of the story has relied
too much upon the critic's reaction to the human community
and too little on the nature of the animal. It is true
that the synagogue warden has orders to keep the beast away
from the women's section, and the latter part of the frag
ment begins an incomplete story of an attempt made many
years before to get rid of the animal. These two points
are the main ones in the case of those critics who see the
animal as persecuted Jewry or rejected divinity. When they
are taken in context, however, they seem to provide a some
what different possibility.
First of all, the nature of the animal should be
noted. Although its actual breed is left in doubt and it
apparently is one of those original beasts conceived by the
author, it is clearly related to the vermin discussed else
where. It is somewhat the size of a marten. The color of
its fur is a pale blue-green, although this might be due
to the dust and mortar with which its fur is matted. The
description continues, later:
Warum sie [the women] es fttrchten, ist unklar.
Es sieht allerdings beim ersten Anblick erschreckend
aus, besonders der lange Hals, das dreikantige
Gesicht, die fast waagrecht vorstehenden Ober-
zfthne, ttber der Oberlippe eine Reihe 1anger, die
Z&hne Uberragender, offenbar ganz harter, heller
168
Borstenhaare, daa alias kann erschrecken, aber bald
muss man erkennen, wie ungef&hrllch dleser ganze
schelnbare Schrecken 1st."1
It is extremely shy of people, more shy than an animal of
the forest, although its favorite haunt Is a ledge looking
Into the women's section. It seems to be attached only to
the building; we are told that It Is the animal's misfor
tune that the building happens to be a synagogue. It is
remarkably agile in keeping its balance on the narrow
ledge, despite its age. The men of the community, and even
the children, far from regarding it with hostility, accept
it without question. Only the women are afraid of it.
Es ist das Haustier der Synagoge geworden, warunt
sollte nicht die Synagoge eln besonderes, nirgends
sonst vorkommendes Haustier haben? Wttren nicht die
Frauen,.man wllrde kaum von der Existenz des Tieres
wissen.52
If the animal here represents the decline of religion in
any sense, it is difficult to see the connection. In fact,
the animal is much more accepted at present than it was by
the previous generations. Further, the animal's loyalty is
expressly said to be to the physical structure; the fact
that it is a religious structure is only an inconvenience
to it. The declining membership of the synagogue, which
is mentioned, is said to be a matter of good fortune for
5^Hochzeltsvorbereitungan. pp. 398-399.
52Ibid.. p. 399.
169
the animal since the building will some day be a granary or
other warehouse, without the crowds o£ people to annoy the
animal. While this may be a bitter comment on the decline
of religion, it seems impossible to associate the animal
here with that vestige of spiritual faith that remains.
The filth of the animal, its terror of the com-*
munity, its interest in women, its brutal features which
disguise its actual incapacity to harm, the disgust with
which it is viewed by women, its delicately-maintained
balance on the narrow ledge: all of these characteristics—
and they include just about all of the animal's character
istics— should be familiar to us by now as to significance.
The nature of the verminous beast is as distinct here as it
was in the stories discussed earlier, if we do not allow
the word synagogue to throw us off the trail. 1 would
suggest that in fact the synagogue simply stands for the
coonunity as defined by its traditions, with a certain
emphasis, perhaps, on religious or moral tradition. The
relationship of these traditions to bestial nature accounts
for the attempts to drive away the beast in earlier days,
the indifferent acceptance of the men to it at present, and
the fear--which we discover subsequently is not fear at all
but a secret delight— of the women:
Es ist ja auch weder Furcht noch Neugier, welche
die Frauen in Bewegung hilt, wttrden sie sich mehr
mit dem Beten beschlftlgen, kttanten sie das Tier
170
vbllig vergessen, die frommen Frauen tMten das auch
wenn es die andem, welche die grosse Mehrzahl sind,
zuliessen, diese aber wollen inner gem auf sich
aufmerksam mac hen und das Tier ist ihnen daflir ein
willkonmener Vorwand. Wenn sie es kbnnten und wenn
sie es wagten, htttten sie das Tier noch nMher an sich
gelockt, tan noch mehr erschrecken zu dtlrfen.53
The attraction of the women's section to the animal is in
part the attraction that the redemptive possibility always
has in Kafka's work. However, the element of ambiguity is
very much present; the animal not only is attracted towards
the women's section, from which he is kept at a distance,
but fundamentally he is as little inclined towards them as
was the Qu&lgeist:
Aber in Wirklichkelt dr&ngt sich ja das Tier gar
nicht zu ihnen, es kUnmert sich, wenn es nicht
angegriffen wird, um sie ebensowenig wie urn die
M&nner, am llebsten wttrde es wahrscheinlich in der
Verborgenhelt bleiben, in der es in den Zeiten
ausserhalb des Gottesdiensts lebt, offenbar in ir-
gendeinem Mauerloch, das wir noch nicht entdeckt
haben. 54
The women find satisfaction and diversion from the boredom
of the religious service in regarding the animal with
horror; the Instinct of the animal draws him towards them
but he is really indifferent to them and would much prefer
to escape the confusion and retreat to his secret hiding
place in the wall. One of the points that the author
^^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 400.
171
emphasizes Is the animal's constant terror, for which there
seems to be no reason. "Was fttr Gefahren hat es denn zu
ftlrchten? Wer beabsichtigt ihm etwas zu tun? Lebt es
denn nicht seit vielen Jahren vOllig slch selbst ttber-
lassen?"55 (The questions are exactly the same ones that
Kafka several times addressed to himself in the Tage-
bticher.) At this point, the Interpretation by Tauber men
tioned earlier— the vestige of divinity left in an immoral
age— becomes totally irrelevant, it seems to me. On the
other hand, if we take the synagogue building, which the
animal will not leave and in the wall of which he would
prefer to hide in a secret niche, as society or life in a
general sense, then the animal of the synagogue becomes
perfectly clear as the helpless, vile vermin we have seen
in a dozen other stories. The indifference of the men, the
sham horror of the women, the constant terror of the beast
combine in a story of subjective reaction to the objective
world. In this case, an additional element is present, in
that a motive for the apparently unnecessary fear is con
sidered:
Und doch diese Angst. 1st es die Erinnerung an
lingst vergangene oder die Vorahnung ktlnftiger Zeiten?
Weiss dieses site Tier vielleicht mehr els ale drel
Generatlonen, die jeweils in der Synagoge versamnelt
aind?56
55Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 401.
56lbld., p. 402.
172
This passage suggests, again, a secret knowledge or truth
in the animal nature, although there is no lonely bachelor
present to seek it out. Or perhaps, as in some of the
stories discussed earlier, the bachelor and the beast in
this case are one. The whipped animals drinking at the
forbidden pool, the jackals punished by the Arabs who cause
the orgy of foul appetite, Kafka describing himself to
Milena as a beast of the woods retreating from her assur
ance, all of these figures are the elemental nature of the
beast, trapped in its own vile form, just as the beast of
the synagogue was long ago attacked by the synagogue warden
for befouling the place with its presence. To this extent,
religion— or more properly, social morality— enters into
the story; at one time strict morality attempted to deny
the poor beast. Today, it ignores it or regards it with
pretended horror.
If the animal of the synagogue is the manifest
spirit of man's animal nature as regarded by society, that
most fantastic of Kafka's creations, the thing called
Odradek, is the manifestation of a more complex identity.
Since it is neither totally animal nor totally inanimate,
one must arbitrarily assign one or the other nature for
purposes of referring to it. It is sentient, however, and
one Is therefore justified in listing it among the freakish
animals. The story in which it appears is "Die Sorge dee
173
Hausvaters," and it apparently explains the puzzling title.
As usual, Brod reads this story as a parable of
Jewry rejected by European culture. He performs an inci
dental service for us, however, in pointing out that the
name is a composite of various Slavic words; renegade from
the race and renegade from the council, as well as the
decree of the divine will, are all evoked by it. Brod's
customary error of making a particular and historically
limited application of the symbol is totally his own, how
ever; Kafka has no share in it. In fact, the very title
becomes senseless if one takes Brod's interpretation as
absolute, rather than as one possible application of the
symbolic situation.5^ Interestingly, Kafka seems to have
anticipated the difficulty of the story for his readers
and, in subtle fashion, provided a warning in the first
paragraph:
Die einen sagen, das Wort Odradek stamme aus dem
Slawischen und sle suchen auf Grund dessen die Bildung
des Wortes nachzuweisen. Andere wieder meinen, es
stamme aus dem Deutschen, vom Slawischen sei es nur
beelnflusst. Die Uhsicherheit beider Deutungen aber
l&sst wohl mit Recht darauf schllessen, dass keine
zutrlfft, zumal man auch mit keiner von ihnen einen
Sinn des Wortes finden kann.58
After throwing a certain equivocal shading upon his own
clue, the name Odradek, Kafka goes on to tell why the
^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 165.
- ^Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 155.
174
study, doubtful as the outcome Is, must be carried out.
The reason is that whatever it means, the creature exists:
"NatUrlich wUrde sich niemand mit solchen Studien besch&f-
tigen, wenn es nicht wirklich ein Wesen gfibe, das Odradek
heisst."59
In one sense, this points out the most significant
statement of the story. Odradek exists, however incoherent
and baffling he may be, and one thus is forced to attempt
to explain, or at least account for, him.
The equivocal source of the name is the first of
the list of ambivalent characteristics of the creature.
Whether it is Slavonic or German influenced by Slavonic-*
a possible description for the culture in which Kafka
existed, of course— is a pointless argument; neither is
accurate since neither provides an intelligent meaning.
Odradek is one of the queerest creatures ever conceived;
while animate, he is the shape and apparently even the size
of a flat, star-shaped spool for thread. And, in fact, he
does seem to have old, broken-off bits of thread, of varied
sizes and colors, wound around the spool body. He stands
by means of one of the star points and an oblique rod
coining down from a cross bar so as to serve the function
of the second leg. While one is inclined to think that
50
ErzHhlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 155.
175
he once had an Intelligible form, there is no proof of this
in the contradictory and jagged physical characteristics
that can be seen now. "... das Ganze erscheint zwar
sinnlos, aber in seiner Art abgeschlossen. N&heres lftsst
sich Ubrigens nicht darUber sagen, da Odradek ausseror-
dentlich beweglich und nicht zu fangen ist."^ Before
going on to see the relationship of Odradek to "the family
man," I think it is necessary to consider at this point
what we have already been told. Kafka did not write aim
lessly, and the collection of characteristics just cited
must have a meaning, despite their vagueness. As so fre
quently happens, in fact, the vagueness itself is a charac
teristic. Odradek, 1 would suggest, is the Kafka view of
life, conceived in the form of the dilemma that it presents.
His dual nature, that of the animate artifact,
expresses the consciousness of the limited, physical form,
matter invested with sentience. The spool symbol functions
in a Lockian sense, if we consider existence as a frame
upon which experience is wound. This interpretation
appears still more valid when we remember that Okradek is
wound with broken-off pieces of thread of every sort and
color. The small wooden crossbar, and the precarious
balance of the oblique rod and the star point as legs,
^Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa, pp. 155-156
176
suggest a make-shift, random construction that allows him
to function but does not represent a carefully conceived
plan. The reference to some earlier, intelligible shape of
which Odradek at present is only a broken remnant coincides
with the universal myth of an original form, a state of
perfect being that in a religious sense evokes a pre-
original-sin purity and in a historical sense relates to
the mythic conception of a distant Golden Age of innocence
before sophisticated knowledge began to poison life. This
vague possibility seems to be suggested at first sight of
Odradek; but "Dies scheint aber nicht der Fall zu sein;
wenigstens findet sich kein Anzeichen dafttr; nirgends sind
AnsMtze oder Bruchstelien zu sehen, die auf etwas Derar-
tlges hlnwelsen wUrden. . . . There is nothing in the
form to substantiate the thought. Finally, Odradek, or the
human Identity as Kafka sees it, is so illusive, that one
can never lay hold of it in order to scrutinize it closely.
The relationship of Odradek to the protagonist, a
family man to whose house he regularly returns, though at
infrequent periods, is that of an equivocal principle.
He lurks everywhere, on the stairs, in the attic, in the
lobbies; sometimes he is not seen for months, but he always
returns. The only questions he is asked are his name and
^ErzHhlungen und kleine Proaa. p. 155.
177
where he lives--"Uhbestimmter Wohnsitz." He resides every
where and nowhere, his name marking him as renegade to all
social Institutions and yet, somehow, an expression of the
Divine Will as manifested In creation. His life is pur
poseless, yet enduring; as such he is the visible mani
festation of the senselessness of human life. In fact, his
very aimlessness is what suggests that no climax will
result, for there is no purpose to be finally achieved, no
prospect to be exhausted. The story concludes:
Vergeblich frage ich mich, was mit lhm geschehen
wird. Kann er denn sterben. Alles was stirbt, hat
vorher eine Art Ziel, eine Art TMtigkeit gehabt, und
daran hat es sich zerrieben; das trifft bei Odradek
nicht zu. Sollte er also einstmals etwa noch vor den
Ftissen melner Kinder und Kinderkinder mit nachschlei-
fendem Zwimsfaden die Treppe hinunterkollem? Er
schadet ja offenbar niemanden; aber die Vorstellung,
dass er mich auch UQch ttberleben sollte, 1st mir eine
fast schmerzliche.
The only precise characterization of the protagonist as a
family man occurs here, in the reference to succeeding
generations. If, as I suggest, Odradek represents the
purposelessness of life, the cares of the family man are
those given in the last line of the story. Life Is indif
ferent to the individual destiny— the idea that Odradek is
likely to survive the individual is a painful one. Kafka's
protagonist is a family man in his relation to all other
individuals; the probability that he will be casually
^ ErzKhlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 156.
178
replaced, that his individual existence really makes no
difference, as suggested by the senseless apparition of
life surviving him to become the familiar spirit of
succeeding generations, is the explanation of the title—
"Die Sorge des Hausvaters." Odradek is the purposeless
question of life itself which one may not be confronted
with for long periods of time, but which always returns to
haunt the Kafklan man who occupies his house as a temporary
tenant.
In the discussion of the powerful beasts that
represent brute force, it was noted that they generally
have an unearthly quality which links them to the animals
that are strange in form. The demonic horses of "Eln
Landarzt" probably are the result of a visit to the country
that Kafka made in October 9, 1917. In the Tagebllcher. he
records his impressions of the peasant, LUftner, at whose
home he shared a meal. LUftner, like Kafka's father, was
apparently a man of formidable strength and gross appetite.
The description concludes: "Riesige zwei Pferde im Stall,
homerl8che Gestalten, in einem flUchtigen Sonnenschein, der
durch das Stallfenster kam. A sense of the unreal, a
mythic immensity, links the horses and the powerful man
banging on the table with his beer glass. In the third
^ TagebUcher. p. 536
179
o£ the Oktavheft, he wrote a fragment in which the great
horse is a clear symbol of force shattering the protection
of the "room. * ' "Staunend sahen wir das grosse Pferd. Es
durchbrach das Dach unserer Stube. Der bewOlkte Himmel
zog sich schwach entlang des gewaltigen Unrisses und
rauschend flog die M&hne im Uind."^ The powerful horse
(and, in all probability, the father who stands behind it)
seems to be a nature deity, the same force that assaulted
the protagonist in the early Beschreibung eines Kampfes.
The room, or the retreat of the inner personality, is no
protection against it. The powerful horse, quivering with
animal life and appearing out of nowhere, is always a con
trast to the protagonist's weakness and vulnerability.
A short tale, which expresses this situation quite clearly,
tells of a stable keeper at an inn who tries to deceive a
guest that is ill.
Ich wurde zu meinem Pferd gefUhrt, lch war
aber noch sehr schwach. Ich sah das schlanke,
im Fieber des Lebens zitternde Tier.
"Das 1st nicht main Pferd," sagte ich. . . .
"Ihr Pferd war heute nacht das einzige in unserem
Stalls," sagte der Knecht und sah mich l&chelnd
oder, warm ich es so wollte, trotzig llchelnd an.
"Hein," sagte lch, "das 1st nicht mein Pferd." Der
Fellsack entsank meinen HMnden, lch wandte mich.und
ging in das eben erst verlassene Zimmer hinauf.®5
The horse's "fever of life" is emphasized beside the
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 103.
^^Ibid.. p. 140.
180
weakness of the man; It appears out of nowhere through a
trick of the keeper— an obvious parallel to "Eln Land-
arzt"--and one assumes that were the man to mount the
horse, he would be at its mercy as was the case with the
country doctor. In rejecting the animal, the protagonist
returns to the retreat he has just left, his room. His
weakness is the truth of his own condition. Conspiring
against it is the paradox of the external, Kafka's con
ception of vital force, as an unearthly, threatening
apparition. His powerful horses are those of a new Apoca
lypse.
The advantage of reserving consideration of “For-
schungen elnes Hundes” and "Der Bau" until the end of this
chapter is that much of the prior discussion on the nature
of the animal as symbol in Kafka's works serves to prepare
us in advance. The basic symbolic identity of the dog, for
example, has been established in the many shorter pieces
that involve furred animals who are victims of their own
nature. The personal relevance of this figure, and the
Implications of it as an artistic device, are quite clear.
One can, then, go on immediately to the particular function
of the animal protagonist in "Forschungen": his analysis of
his relationship to society, to its institutions, and to
the source of life.
181
It Is quite clear that the dogs are equated with
the human community and that the dog who is protagonist is
representative of the individual confronted by the question
of his existence. The immediate effect of presenting human
society through a canine parallel is that of a distorted
lens, the activity and the concerns are absurd when so
viewed. The mockery of the following passage certainly
achieves that effect:
Es gibt ausser uns Hunden vielerlei Arten von
Geschttpfen rlngsumher, arme, geringe, stumme, nur auf
gewisse Schreie eingeschr&nkte Wesen, vlele unter uns
Hunden studieren sle, haben lhnen Namen gegeben,
suchen ihnen zu helfen, sle zu erziehen, zu veredeln
und derglelchen. Mir sind sle, wenn sie mich nicht
etwa zu stttren versuchen, gleicbgtlltlg, ich verwechlse
sie, ich sehe tiber sie hinweg.°°
The presumption of the beasts here is effective solely
because it is human presumption, the belief that human
rationality is proof of superiority when in fact it only
serves to cut one off from an understanding of life as it
is manifest in other creatures. The instinctive gre
gariousness of the dogs accounts for the growth of tradi
tions and institutions, but this instinct is countered by
certain laws of the universe that serve to isolate each
individual from another.
Alle in einem Haufen! Es drMngt uns zueinander
und nichts kann uns hindem, diesem Dr&ngen genug zu
tun, alle unsere Gesetze und Einrichtungen, die
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 234.
182
wenigen, die ich noch kenne und die zahllosen, die
ich vergessen habe, gehen zurtick auf die Sehnsucht
noch dem grOssten GlUck, dessen wir f&hig sind, dem
warmen Beisammensein. Nun aber das Gegenspiel hierzu.
Rein GeschBpf lebt tneinen Wissens so weithin zerstreut
wie wir Hunde, keines hat so viele, gar nicht Uber-
sehbare Unterschiede der Rlassen, der Arten, der
Beschllftgungen, wir, die wir zusammenhalten wollen,--
und inner wieder gelingt es uns trotz allem in tiber-
schw&nglichen Augenblicken--gerade wir leben weit von
einander getrennt, in eigenttlmlichen, oft schon dem
Nebenhund unverstfindlichen Berufen, festhaltend an
Vorschriften, die nicht die der Hundeschaft sind; ja,
eher gegen sie g erichtet.°7
This basic longing, the bliss of being together, seems to
be the true instinct of the community, but opposing laws--
not those of the community fundamentally, but actually
directed against the achieving of happiness--are accepted
and divide the community into isolated fragments. It is
this latter problem, the paradox of Isolation, that
obsesses the protagonist. In one sense he regards himself
as unique in this;
Warum tue ich es nicht wie die anderen, lebe
eintrttchtig mit meinem Volke und nehme das, was die
Eintracht sttjrt, stillschweigend hin, vemachlMssige
es als kleinen Fehler in der Rechnung, und bleibe
lmmer zugekehrt dem, was glttcklich bindet, nicht dem,
was, freilich lmmer wieder unwiderstehlich, uns aus
dem Volkskreis zerrt.°°
The reason is that he cannot ignore the contradiction, and,
in fact, neither can any one else. His search is one
^ Beschreibung eines Rampfes. p. 235.
68Ibid.
183
not simply of a personal need but of that of his kind.
"Man darf eben nicht ausser acht lessen, dass ich trotz
meinen Sonderbarkeiten, die offen zu Tage liegen, doch bei
weitem nicht vttllig aus der Art schlage."^ His dis
tinction is solely that of being unable to accept the para
dox sufficiently to live with it in some measure of peace.
His nature is that of all dogs--or humans--intensified.
The vision that started the protagonist on his in
vestigations occurred in his puppy days, when he was, as he
tells us, in one of those blissful, inexplicable states of
exultation that everyone experiences in childhood. The
description of this natural happiness accords with the
previously mentioned state of bliss in the dog world, that
natural law by which every dog desires the harmony of feel
ing himself at one with the world. The hostile laws that
isolate the individual and which he helplessly accepts had
not yet manifested themselves to the young protagonist.
Believing himself the center of the universe, warmly
accepted by it, the young dog meets a company of dogs, or
rather he does not meet them, they abruptly appear before
him. The scene is deliberately presented as a mystic
vision:
Ich war darnels lange durch die Finsternis
gelaufen . . . kreuz und quer, blind und taub fttr
alias, gefilhrt von nichts als dem unbestlmmten
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfea, p. 234.
184
Verlangen, machte plbtzlich halt in dem GefUhl hler
sel lch am rechten Ort, sah auf und es war ttberheller
Tag, nur eln wenig dunstig, alles voll durchelnander
wo gender, berauscnender GerUche, lch begrtlsste den
Morgen mit wlrren Lauten, da— als hUtte lch sle
heraufbeschworen— traten aus lrgendwelcher Flnsternls
unter Hervorbrlngung elnes entsetzlichen L&rms, wie
lch Ihn noch nle gehbrt hatte, sleben Hunde ans
Licht.' 0
As he listens, the dogs bring forth the profound
and terrifying music that represents the truth revealed In
the vision. Never before had the protagonist realized the
power and Immensity of music, though In one form or another
It had been around him all his life. The music has the
force of a hurricane, it seizes the listener, overwhelming
and crushing him. When a momentary pause comes, the pro*
tagonlst attempts to shout to the dogs, asking them what
they are doing, but again the music swells forth, drowning
out his cries.
. . . aber kaum setzte ich an, . . . war wieder
ihre Muslk da, machte mich besinmmgslos, drehte mich
im Krelse herum, als sel ich selbst einer der
Musikanten, w&hrend ich doch nur ihr Opfer war, warf
mich hierhin und dorthin, so sehr lch auch urn Gnade
bat, und rettete mich schliessllch vor ihrer elgenen
Gewalt, indem sie mich in eln Gewirr von Httlzem
drtlckte, das in jenar Gegend ringsum 8ich erhob, ohne
dass ich es blsher bemerkt hatte, mich jetzt fest
umflng, den Kopf mir niederduckte und mir, mochte
dort im Freien die Muslk noch donnern. die MBglich-
kelt gab, eln wenig zu verschnaufen. 71
70Beschreibung elnes Kampfes. p. 236
71Ibid.. p. 238.
185
At first, he thinks that the seven dogs are brave creatures
in facing the music of their own creating and in enduring
it without collapsing. But then he realizes that the dogs
are exhibiting incredible tension in their dance, their
limbs quiver and their eyes are fixed in despair.
Kafka's use of music here represents one of his
most private symbols. However, interpretation is possible
because of the relationship of the music to known elements
in the situation; Kafka has provided his meanings in the
passages quoted earlier. The music represents revelation,
light as against the darkness of his blissful childhood.
Since Kafka has already pointed out a correlation between
this childhood bliss and a basic instinct towards regarding
the universe and one's relationship to it as harmonious,
the music that shatters this bliss must represent the ex
ternal laws which he described as hostile to one's basic
nature but which one follows even though they are the
source of alienation that creates the various categories
and classifications of division. The music, therefore,
represents to the protagonist the loss of innocence that
comes when one realizes the force of the external universe
taking hold. It seems to be the essence— heard but never
perceived— of all the brutal and crushing circumstances of
life: the arbitrary institutions, the unjust but ines
capable laws of compliance, the rationalistic traditions
186
of mankind. It is the music to which we all are forced to
dance. It drives the young protagonist into a barred cage,
the existence of which he had not previously noticed. The
seven dogs who dance precisely and skillfully to it are,
nonetheless, victims of the compulsion of the music and
gaze at each other with a tense, despairing look that is
broken only by an occasional moment of sagging fatigue.
When the young protagonist shouts his questions at them,
they dare not answer, although he can see that some of
them, particularly the youngest of them, would like to
do so.
The reaction of the protagonist is one of astonish
ment, for in his innocence he cannot believe that his per
fectly logical questions should be ignored. "Hunde, die
auf Hundeanruf gar nicht antworten, ein Vergehen gegen
die guten Sitten, das dem kleinsten wie dem grOssten Hunde
unter keinen Urnstlinden verziehen wird.’ ’^ jn the grip of
the ’ ’ music," however, the natural harmony between dog and
dog--or man and man--is destroyed; questions that ask "why"
must be ignored; the music will not allow them to be heard,
and to the extent that they are heard, one dares not answer
to them. The protagonist never realizes this situation
during the course of the story; the law, according to his
72
Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 239.
187
naive conception, Is the elemental one of natural hap
piness, of the harmony of all Individuals. Questioning the
failure of the dogs to answer him, he says: "Aber warum
durfte es nicht sein, warum durfte denn das, was unsere
Gesetze bedlngungslos lmmer verlangen, diesmal nicht
73
sein?" He goes on to comment on the failure of the dogs,
executing their marvelously precise steps to the compulsive
music, to obey the basic law of their nature; in doing so,
of course, he is describing the paradox of human behavior,
the compulsion of man to dance to the music and so alienate
himself from the happiness which is his fundamental desire.
The dogs go still further; they deny their dog nature and
exhibit themselves as vile.
Diese Hunde hier vergingen sich gegen das Gesetz.
Mochten es noch so grosse Zauberer sein, das Gesetz
gait auch fttr sle, das verstand ich Kind schon ganz
genau. . . . Denn wie ftthrten sle sich auf, vor lauter
Musik hatte ich es bisher nicht bemerkt, sie hatten
ja alle Scham von sich geworfen, die elenden taten das
glelchzeitlg Lllcherlichste und UnanstSndigste, sie
gingen aufrecht auf den Hlnterbeinen. Pfui Teufel!
Sie entblttssten sich und trugen ihre Blttsse protzlg
zur Schau: sie taten sich darauf zugute, und wenn sle
einmal auf einen Augenblick dem guten Trieb gehorchten
und die Vorderbelne senkten, erschraken sie rBrmlich,
als sei es ein Fehler, als sei die Natur ein Fehler,
hoben wieder schnell die Beine und ihr Blick schien urn
Verzelhung dafttr zu bitten, dass sle in ihrer Stind-
haftigkeit ein wenig hatten innehalten milssen. War
die Welt verkehrt? . . . Hier durfte ich tan meines
eigenen Bestandes willen nicht mehr zBgem, ich machte
mich los aus den umklammemden HBlzern, sprang mit
^ Beschreibung elnes Kampfes. p. 239.
188
elnem Satz hervor und wollte zu den Hunden, ich
klelner Schiller musste Lehrer sein, musste ihnen
begreiflich machen, was sie taten, musste sie abhalten
vor weiterer Versttndigung. "So alte Hunde, so alte
Hunde!" wiederholte ich mir immer fort. Aber kaum war
ich frei und nur noch zwei, drei Sprttnge trennten mich
von den Hunden, war es wieder der Lttrm, der seine
Macht liber mich bekam. . . . Ich konnte nicht weiter,
ich wollte sie nicht mehr belehren, mochten sie weiter
die Beine spreizen, SUnden begehen und andere zur
SUnde des stillen Zuschauens verlocken, ich war ein
so kleiner Hund, wer konnte so Schweres von mir ver-
langen? Ich machte mich noch kleiner, als lch war,
ich winselte, htttten mich danach die Hunde um meine
Melnung gefragt, ich hfitte ihnen vielleicht recht
gegeben.
Although all of the above references occur in the
first half dozen pages of what is one of Kafka's longest
stories, they contain the essential elements of the sym
bolic situation. The law to which the protagonist refers
in the opening lines of the last quotation is that of the
innocent young dog; it is contradicted by the compelling
music, the core of which is "ein klarer stronger, immer
sich gleich bleibender, fttrmlich aus grosser Feme un-
verHndert ankommender Ton, vielleicht die eigentlich
Melodie inmitten des Lttrms . . . literally, a tone that
represents a universal decree that forces the young pro
tagonist to his knees. The dogs who are gripped by this
music rise on their hind legs, an exact parallel to human
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 239-241.
75Ibid., p. 240.
189
evolution, and so both deny their basic identity and reveal
their vileness. They do it, Kafka says, as though it was
a meritorious act, as though Nature were in error. When
they momentarily revert to true dogs (true man) they seem
to be asking forgiveness for having ceased for that brief
period from their shameful activity. The young dog bolts
out of his barred enclosure--another form, of course, of
the room that is a retreat--and is again gripped by the
music. He wishes, young as he is, to reveal the shame of
their actions to the older dogs; this seems to be one of
Kafka's rare uses of the traditional literary conception of
the innocent child as the medium of truth.^ However, he
is as vulnerable as anyone else to the imperious demand of
the music; in leaving the security of his enclosure to
reform the world, he too is gripped by it. His desire to
instruct them vanishes before the immensity of the task and
the sense of his own weakness. Succumbing to the music,
he whimpers pathetically and no longer would have a thing
to say against it.
During the remainder of the story, Kafka varies
these symbolic elements to achieve a fairly extended state
ment of the theme. The protagonist is an alien in the
community because questions continue to bother him; he will
^Compare janouch, pp. 23-24.
not accept the situation, although a certain resignation
to it later comes as he grows older. The use of music in
the manner just described occurs again, the most important
instance being the appearance of the ghost"like hound
during the protagonist's attempt to achieve knowledge
through fasting. Kafka conceives a perfect situational
metaphor here, so clear that it scarcely needs inter
pretation. The dog wishes to discover where nourishment
really comes from. According to community tradition, it
results from scratching and watering the earth (agricul
ture) and--according to some believers--incantation, song
and dance (religion, including both prayer and the rites of
appeasement). The first brings it from the earth, the
second from the skies. This questioning of nourishment, of
course, involves that which sustains life, in other words,
what is the source of life. The question with which the
protagonist concerns himself thus is the ultimate question;
he seeks to find the basis for his own existence.
As was the case with the seven dogs gripped by the
music, the protagonist meets only with silence when he asks
this question. At most, the other dog will ask him, as
though it were pertinent, if he does not have enough food
and then offer him some. The question is not to be asked,
and the protagonist is diverted from his concern about
source with an offer of the object. It is a parallel to
191
the materialism of the human world; the ultimate question
is ignored because the mind cannot rise above the fact of
the existence of the material. There is an element of
conspiracy, however; the protagonist by asking his question
seems to jeopardize the delicate balance of an operating
system whereby one can exist in reasonable comfort so long
as he does not ask questions.
After receiving no satisfactory answer from the
community, the young dog attempts to assault the Godhead
directly, committing the same sort of sin of which K. in
Das Schloss is guilty. However, the dog tries to achieve
a mystic vision by denying the material world; he refuses
to take the food that nourishes the coontunity, in the ex
pectation that the source of food must then make itself
known to him personally. This, too, is an error, for in
so doing he is denying the circumstances of his own exist
ence; as previously noted, he is bound by the laws of the
dog world like everyone else. The hunger fast reminds us
first of all of the traditional religious mystic. In
Kafka's own work, it is an echo of the Hungerktlnstler and
the trapeze artist in "Erstes Leid," both of whom deny the
reality of their physical nature in pursuit of a private
dream. The protagonist of "Forschungen" is not allowed to
continue his fast until the end; neither mystic revelation
nor death comes to him, for the spirit of the community
192
drives him back Into reality with his question unanswered.
This communal tradition Is represented by the powerful
hound, and the force that he uses against the fasting pro
tagonist Is his song--the same compulsive music that the
protagonist had encountered earlier. A new element Is
added In that while the music was earlier presented as
necessity, the universal compulsion that destroys the bliss
of Innocence, It Is here seen as the means whereby communal
life protects Itself. The dog of the vision does not deny
that mystic realization might come to the protagonist, he
simply asserts that inversion of the self--the fast--will
destroy the protagonist and endanger the community. How
ever much one is a prisoner of the music, it is the only
thing that protects the individual, through ignorance, from
the greater danger that self-consciousness represents. One
exists as part of the totality, although this never satis
fies the individual sense that is conscious of the dilemma
of existence but unable by itself to discover a true
answer.
Nun also, warum machst du den anderen ihre
Schwelgsamkeit zum Vorwurf und schweigst selbst?
Leichte Antwort: Weil ich ein Hund bin. Im Wesent-
lichen genau so wie die anderen fest verschlossen,
Widerstand lelstend den eigenen Fragen, hart aus
Angst. . . . Ich verstehe sie, lch bin Blut von
lhrem Blut, von ihrem armen, immer wieder jungen,
immer wieder verlangenden Blut. Aber nicht nur das
Blut haben wir gemeinsam, sondern auch das Wlssen,
und nicht nur das Wissen, sondern auch den Schltlssel
zu ihm. Ich besitze es nicht ohne die anderen, ich
193
kann es nicht haben ohne ihre Hilfe. --Eisemen
Knochen, enthaltend das edelste Mark, kann man nur
beikomnen durch eln gemeinsames Beissen aller Z&hne
aller Hunde . . . w&ren alle Z&hne bereit, sle
mils8ten nicht mehr beissen, der Knochen wtlrde sich
ttffnen und das Mark lMge frel dem Zugriff des
schw&chsten Httndchens. Blelbe lch Innerhalb dieses
Bildes, dann zlelen melne Absicht, melne Fragen,
meine Forschungen allerdings auf etwas Uhgeheuer-
liches.77
But, he continues, the guilt of this desire is that while
he wants the entire race to cooperate in providing him with
the answer, he wants it as an individual. Once the bones
cracked open and the marrow was revealed, he would dismiss
the dogs back to the oblivion of their ordinary life while
he feasted on the marrow by himself. This is the guilt of
the individual will:
Das klingt ungeheuerlich, 1st fast so, als wollte
ich mich nicht vom Mark elnes Knochens nur, sondern
vom Mark der Hundeschaft selbst n&hren. Doch es 1st
nur ein Bild. Das Mark, von dem hier die Rede 1st,
1st keine Speise, 1st das Gegenteil, 1st Gift.78
In demanding an answer for the Individual self, one
destroys the collective security. The desire for happiness
thus reasserts the paradox of innocent guilt found all
through Kafka's work. Here, it serves to explain the
phenomenon of the "soaring dogs," those strange creatures
who float far above the earth, remote from the community,
77Beschreibung elnes Kampfes, pp. 248-249
78Ibid., p. 249.
194
enraptured in a dream-like existence by their own music--
the sound of their own voices constantly babbling. These
are the ascetics, the abstract theoreticians, those who
deny the totality of life. In his fasting, the protagonist
almost became a soaring dog himself, just as the Hunger-
ktlnstler is a near mirror-image to the trapeze artist who
no longer can endure being on the ground. The soaring dogs
have escaped the limits of their dog-nature, become almost
a myth to the community in their dreaming serenity. Yet,
this is a world of illusion, for the reality finally is in
the community from which they have cut themselves off. The
description fits the religious monastic, the saint-like
individual whose sole concern is with the spiritual, and
it fits equally well the academic or philosophical being
whose only interest is abstract theory. Finally, it fits
the artist whose art is not tied to life.
Aber viel wunderbarer ist filr mein Geftthl die
Unsinnigkeit, die schweigende Unsinnigkeit dieser
Existenzen. Im allgemeinen wird sie gar nicht
begrtindet, sie schweben in der Luft, und dabei
bleibt es, das Leben geht weiter seinen Gang, hie
und da spricht man von Kunst und Klinstlem, das ist
alles. . . . Warum schweben sie dort oben, lassen
die Beine, den Stolz des Hundes verktlmmem, sind
getrennt von der n&hrenden Erde. . . .'9
One can imagine, from this, the surprise with which Kafka
would have read those critics who believe him to be remote
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 252-253.
195
from the concerns of life. While he instinctively thought
in images, his questions are the most fundamental ones
possible. His view of a pure aesthetic is given us in his
final judgment of the soaring dogs: "Man weiss gar nicht
genau, woher sie koranen. Vermehren sie sich durch
Fortpflanzung? Haben sie denn noch die Kraft dazu, sie
sind ja nicht viel mehr als ein schOnes Fell. . . .”80
Finally, the conclusion reached by the protagonist
of this story is that which Josef K. learns in Der Prozess.
The dialogue with the spectre dog is based on the premise
that not justice or truth but necessity--the world consti
tuted as it is because it is--represents the answer beyond
which one cannot go.
"Ich muss fortpehen, du musst jagen," sagte ich,
"lauter Mils sen. Verstehst du es, warum wir mtlssen?"
"Nein," sagte er, "es ist daran aber auch nichts zu
verstehen, es sind selbstverst&ndliche nattlrlich
Dinge."81
There is nothing to be explained; things in their occur
rence are self-contained, self-justified. One can only
turn, as the now-aging protagonist does, to the "science"
of incantation, religion. However, his studies here, with
which he is involved at the end of the story, are described
as useless also, invalidated by a certain basic instinct.
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 254.
81Ibid., p. 275.
196
The last lines of the story show that while the protagonist
has learned his lesson, he cannot really accept it:
Es war der Instinkt, der mich vielleicht gerade
urn der Wissenschaft willen, aber einer anderen
Wissenschaft als sie heute getibt wird, einer aller-
letzten Wissenschaft, die Freiheit hbher schMtzen liess
als alles andere. Die Freiheit! Freilich, die Frei
heit, wie sie heute sttglich ist, ist ein kUnmerliches
Gew&chs. Aber immerhin Freiheit, immerhin ein
Besitz.8^
It is characteristic of Kafka's sense of paradox that
having proved the impossibility of freedom, he should
assert it as the highest of values.
Two of Kafka's most Important themes provide the
simple structure for "Der Bau"— the animal identity and the
private retreat, the room of the inner self. Considered as
a psychological study, "Der Bau" represents the various
channels and rooms of the mind. The "Burgplatz" or Castle
Keep, as it is commonly translated, would seem to be the
fundamental ego. However, if we consider the story as a
study of the individual's attempt to survive, the complex
structure of the burrow represents a system to live by; the
completion of construction at the beginning of the story
equals the final definition of the system. In whole or in
part, the story thus could stand as an equivalent to reli
gion, or any other institutionalism, or it could represent
^^Beschrelbung eines Kampfes. p. 278.
197
the seme sort of withdrawal to the self, mystic or other
wise, that was seen in the soaring dogs or the Hunger-
kUnstler and the trapeze artist. These various possibili
ties are complementary rather than opposing; thus, one can
discuss the story from a general point without eliminating
any particular application of the situations that occur.
If we assume, and I think it is logical to do so,
that the work opens with the protagonist having found a
system or belief to live by, and that it closes with a
realization of the inevitable failure of that system or
belief, the body of the story is devoted to an analysis of
the relationship of the protagonist to his system and the
growing assurance of its inadequacy. Whether institutional
or purely psychological, the system stands for those things
which one has made crucial to the self, the characteristics
of one*8 intimate identity. As we are told, while one
could get along without the burrow in the days of youthful
ignorance, it is no longer possible to do so. The burrow
is jealously guarded from invasion by others, its very
existence must be kept a secret. The Burgplatz is the very
center of the system or of the self-identity, and it is
built by the blood of the most basic part of the body, the
head. It is here that the protagonist assembles his
stores. If, from one possible point of interpretation, it
is assumed that the Burgplatz is the brain or intellect,
198
then the piling up of stores there suggests a reliance upon
the intellect (regarded as religion, the Burgplatz would
correspond to the central tenet of the religious faith).
When the protagonist realizes the vulnerability of having
his entire security placed in the Burgplatz, he distributes
his stores in a network of smaller rooms; that is, he tries
to live by means other than the Intellect exclusively, or
he attempts to protect the basic tenet of belief by a
series of supporting points. In every case, however, he
ultimately returns to it, for it is the center of his
existence. His indecisiveness, which keeps him busy dis-
tributing and then returning the stores, represents his
mode of defense. There is even a suggestion that it has a
certain effectiveness, since it keeps him from occupying
a fixed position; in any case, it makes his life a constant
activity of terror, broken only by intervals of complete
exhaustion when he falls asleep— and thus becomes truly
vulnerable--in the middle of his preparations.
There are other times when the protagonist is still
more open to attack and helpless to resist. These are
occasions brought about by his own perversity, when he
abruptly ignores his danger and engages in an orgy of
sensual delight, glutting himself with the stores of food.
This sensualism is madness, of course, for one would be
completely defenseless if the enemy were to appear.
199
GlUckliche, aber gef&hrliche Zelten; wer sie
auszuntitzen verstllnde, kttnnte mich leicht, ohne sich
zu geffihrden, vemlchten. . . . Ich s tic he mich ver-
schiedentlich dagegen zu schUtzen, die Verteilung
auf die kleinen Plfitze ist ja auch eine derartige
Massnahme, leider ftlhrt sie wie andere tthnliche
Massnahmen durch Entbehrung zu noch grOsserer Gier,
die dann mit Uberrennung des Verstandes die Ver-
teidigungsplfine zu ihren Zwecken willkUrlich findert.5J
Regarded purely as sensuality, these orgies suggest the
danger of the flesh; he who yields to the compulsion of
carnal appetite is at the mercy of the universe. It is the
equivalent of sin for the animal in the burrow, for it so
intoxicates him that he becomes oblivious to the ever
present danger that exists as the result of his own exist
ence. It is the relief of tension brought about by de
spair, rather than a release from tension; it is the actual
weakness of his defense, the vulnerability of his own body
overruling the intelligence. The physical narcissism in
volved in such sensual abandon leads him, always, to
attempt afterward to gain an objective view of the self.
Nach solchen Zeiten pflege ich, urn mich zu
sammeln, den Bau zu revidieren und, nachdem die
nBtigen Ausbesserungen vorgenommen slnd, ihn Ufters,
wenn auch isomer nur fttr kttrzere Zeit zu verlassen.
Die Strafe, ihn lange zu entbehren, scheint mir
selbst dann zu hart, aber die Notwendigkeit zeit-
weiliger AuaflUge sehe ich ein.84
The excursion to the outside world thus is both penance and
88Beschreibung eines Kaapfes. p. 179.
84Ibid., pp. 179-180.
200
the desire to objectify one's situation. However, anxiety
colors every minute away; he spends most of his time zeal
ously guarding the burrow from the outside. Objectivity is
an illusion, only a different means of protecting the
labyrinthine entrance of one's private world and a more
dangerous one in many ways than that of protection from
within. Although no one comes, this is only one more ele
ment of terror, for it suggests that the enemy is deliber
ately pretending not to see the concealed point of access.
The passage of the animal protagonist through the
external world is that of the hunter. He is apparently
free there, but this freedom is limited always by the
inevitability of death. It will end in destruction by
someone, a greater hunter, a divinity of death.
Auch bin ich nicht dem freien Leben bestimmt und
ausgeliefert, sondem ich weiss, dass meine Zeit
gemessen ist, dass ich nicht endlos hier jagen muss,
sondem dass mich gewissermassen, wenn ich will und
des Lebens hier mUde bin, jemand zu sich rufen wird,
dessen Einladung ich nicht werde widerstehen kOnnen.
This passage is a foreshadowing of the later crisis within
the burrow. Freedom outside is a contradiction because it
means being cut off from the sustaining ties of the burrow,
and the animal lives in an agony of suspense until he can
bring himself to rush back in. However, the real danger is
within. The secret burrow is hidden in the midst of heavy
85
Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 183.
201
traffic in the forest, just as one hides oneself in the
crowd in the belief that he cannot be confronted by the
enemy in a public place. It is fitting, then, that when
danger comes, it is in the inner isolation of the burrow,
beyond which there is no further retreat.
The protagonist, despite the labor of a lifetime,
knows that his burrow is defective; his only hope is that
no one will discover it. The labyrinth at the entrance,
the nearest point to the external world, is the most com
plicated part of the burrow but basically its weakest part.
It is a clever tour de force, constructed in his youth,
theoretically brilliant but which ". . . in Wlrklichkeit
aber eine viel zu dttxmwandige Splelerei darstellt, die
einem emsten Angriff oder einem verzweifelt urn sein Leben
kfimpfenden Feind kaum widerstehen wird.Interpretation
of this labyrinth presents no difficulty; it obviously
represents that part of the self which is closest to the
outer world, the beliefs or attitudes that form one's ex
ternal personality. While it appears to be complex, it is
actually quite vulnerable. Everything depends upon It now,
but it was originally formed in youth, almost as play, at
a time when there was nothing to be risked because the
inner chambers had not yet been constructed. This early
^ Beschreibung eines Kamofes, p. 180.
202
forming of the self provides the shaky structure of belief
upon which the later, more vital structure depends. The
protagonist ponders whether or not he should reconstruct it
so as to strengthen it; that is, symbolically, whether the
external personality or the basic core of beliefs should
not be reshaped. That, he decides, would be a dangerous
procedure, for it would leave the entrance to his private
world visible and completely unprotected. Moreover, its
very weakness is a sort of fatal attraction, one cherishes
it as one's own even if it is admittedly defective.
Finally, it is only the most obvious weakness in a system
which is riddled with defects.
Damals, als ich den Bau begann, konnte ich dort
verhBltnismassig ruhig arbeiten, das Risiko war nicht
vlel grBsser als irgendwo sonst, heute aber hiesse
es fast mutwillig die Welt auf den ganzen Bau auf-
merksam mac hen wollen, heute 1st es nicht mehr
mOglich. Es freut mich fast, eine gewlsse Empflnd-
samkeit fttr dieses Erstlingswerk ist ja auch vor-
handen. . . . Der Bau hat so viele von der Natur ihm
aufgezwungene SchwHchen, mag er auch noch diesen von
meinen HBnden geschaffenen und wenn auch erst nach-
trttgllch, so doch genau erkannten Mangel behalten. '
The animal watching the entrance to his burrow from
the outside projects himself into the role of the enemy to
spy out his own weaknesses. He cannot conceive that others
should fail to see how vulnerable he is, and for a while
considers the feasibility of finding a confederate to watch
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 180-181.
203
the entrance for him while he is inside. However, this is
impossible, for finally there is no one in whom one can
confide. To do so would leave the door of the inner cham
bers open to another being, who most certainly would want
to see inside. Thus, in the name of protection, the burrow
would be after all endangered. No one else can see the
inside of the burrow, and so no one can guard it but one's
self.
The burrow as the complex structure of inner
identity is both vital to the self and a trap in which one
can easily be destroyed. One should be able to escape the
imprisoning finality of definition that the self repre
sents, and the animal considers the possibility of a second
entrance from which he can keep watch over the first. How
ever, this simply would add another point of access to the
self, and instead of relieving the danger would double the
possibility of it. Besides, this puncturing of the burrow
with entrances, this desire to go forth, amounts to nothing
more than a false conception of freedom. It would be
better if there were no entrance--!.e. if there were no
contact with the outer world, none of the self visible to
be discovered by the enemy. Instead of true freedom, his
going forth is simply proof of his failure to accept him
self.
Es deutet auf unruhigen Sinn, auf unsichere
Selbsteinschtttzung, auf unsaubere Geltlste, schlechte
204
Eigenschaften, die noch viel schlechter werden
angesichts des Baues, der doch dasteht und Frieden
einzugiessen vermag, wenn man sich ihm vbllig bffnet.
. . . Heisst es nicht in der augenblicklichen ner-
vOsen Angst den Bau sehr unterschtttzen, wenn man ihn
nur als eine Htthlung ansieht, in die man sich mit
mbglichster Sicherheit verkriechen will?°°
The urge for freedom is an evil thing, a failure to commit
one's self totally to the burrow. This is an attack upon
the self, for the burrow is the innermost personality or
being. Kafka defines it quite precisely:
Aber der Bau ist eben nicht nur ein Rettungsloch.
Wenn ich auf dem Burgplatz stehe, umgeben von den
hohen Fleischvorrflten, das Gesicht zugewandt den zehn
Gttngen, die von hier ausgehen, jeder besonders dem
Gesamtplatz entsprechend gesenkt oder gehoben,
gestreckt oder gerundet, sich erweitemd oder sich
verengend und alle gleichmMssig still und leer, und
bereit, jeder in seiner Art mich weiterzuftlhren zu
den vielen Pl&tzen und auch diese alle still und
leer--dann liegt mir der Gedanke an Sicherheit fern,
dann weiss ich genau, dass hier meine Burg ist, die
ich durch Kratzen und Beissen, Stampfen und Stossen
dem widerspenstigen Boden abgewonnen habe, meine
Burg, die auf keine Weise jemanden anderen angehtJren
kann und die so sehr mein ist, dass ich hier letzten
Endes ruhig von meinem Feind auch die tOdliche Ver-
wundung annehmen kann, denn mein Blut versickert hier
in meinem Boden und geht nicht v erlor e n . ° 9
The passage is almost a hymn of praise to the self-
sufficient mind. The mind as a castle, self-contained, is
a traditional literary figure, and Kafka makes effective
use of it here in his own way by combining it with the
animal parallel. It represents the positive aspect of
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 189-190.
89Ibid., pp. 190-191.
205
solitude, the idealized view of the mind sufficient unto
itself. It is, one should note, not a false value; it has
a dignity and even a beauty that is undeniable. Yet, this
simply provides the material for tragedy, for it is to be
assaulted. The whistling of the invisible and powerful
enemy breaks in upon it shortly afterward; the inevitable
cracking of the perfect moment is the paradox of that
moment.
The whistling noise is at first attributed to "das
Kleinzeug," the small fry. The helpless small vermin that
the protagonist frequently encounters and which he easily
captures and devours are nothing to be concerned about.
They symbolize, probably, the insignificant contacts of
everyday life which one easily conquers. However, at any
time, the whistling of the Insignificant creatures may
actually be that of the powerful opponent, one is lulled by
the easy successes of everyday life. While every contact
is a struggle, the only one dangerous is that final
struggle which one always vaguely expects; it is the only
one that can be lost, since there is only one loss pos
sible. All the others are unimportant, "small fry," to be
devoured. However, that is the real danger of the enemy;
his approach, unknown because it is unique, will always be
mistaken for that of the small fry, which makes it that
much more terrifying. There is, then, a relationship
206
between the great enemy and the small fry. The small fry,
we are told, always come from one direction and so are
easily eliminated; but the enemy is the small fry vastly
magnified, the whistling coming from all directions at
once. A particular answer does not serve, for the noise--
the danger--is limitless and indefinable. Earlier, the
small fry had penetrated through the outer entrance, the
labyrinth discussed earlier; now, the protagonist is being
attacked at the very inmost center of his being: "Grabungen
hatte ich jedenfalls bisher in den Wttnden des Burgplatzes
nicht beobachtet. . . . Nun aber bohrten sie also auch in
den GMngen."^
Attempts to explain away the danger only serve to
make it that much more terrifying. The rational faculty
becomes an additional danger, for through it one may be
delivered into the hands of the enemy. Conversely, one
becomes obsessed with the desire to discover whether the
deduction of cause that has been made is valid. Is it in
fact nothing more than the rolling of grains of sand— or
has the unknown hunter finally arrived? The mind continues
to play its part in teasing the fears of the protagonist.
He begins to wonder whether the whistling noise has always
been there, whether it is not just that his ability to hear
^ BeBchreibung eines Kampfea. p. 198.
207
it has increased. With this thought, the danger becomes
still more profound, for the whistling is associated with
his own mortality, the flowing of the blood in his veins.
One recalls the passage in Beschreibung eines Kampfes where
the protagonist speaks of the impossibility of continuing
to breathe once one becomes conscious of the act of breath
ing. The whistling noise in the burrow is the sound of his
own mortality, but it is the sound of the advancing enemy,
also, for the enemy is death. The obsession is self-
destroying; the protagonist digs into his walls everywhere,
no longer bothering to patch up the openings, creating
chaos in his formerly neat passages and rooms.
Now, the mind becomes still more deceptive as the
assurance grows that the final enemy is the cause of the
whistling. Once the idea of death is realized, it becomes
a poison. Even though many things contradict the proba
bility of the sound coming from a single great source, one
begins to rationalize these contradictions away. The
belief has firmly gripped him, and reason is now used to
deny the reasonable. The acceptance is that of fatality;
when he thinks vaguely of coming to some sort of agreement
with the enemy, the hope of this is denied even as the
thought occurs.
Since the worst danger is now in the innermost part
of the burrow, the animal rushes up to the moss covering
208
that leads to the outer world.
Ich gebe mich nicht hin, Ich elle hlndurch, Ich
welss gar nicht, was Ich suche, wahrscheinlich nur
Zeitaufschub. Ich Irre soweit ab, dass Ich bis zum
Labyrinth konxne. . . . Tiefe Stille; wle schon es
hier 1st. . . . Eine vtJllige Uknkehrung der Verh<-
ni8se im Bau, der bisherige Ort der Gefahr 1st ein
Ort des Friedens geworden, der Burgplatz aber ist
hinelngerissen worden in den L&rm der Welt und ihrer
Gefahren.9*
However, this is only illusion; the danger outside is as
great as it has always been. The choice that the pro*
tagonist faces is that of the mouse in "Kleine Fabel," the
choice between death and destruction* The world outside is
the waiting trap, while to turn back is to enter the jaws
of the waiting beast. "Noch schllmmer, auch hier 1st in
Wlrklichkeit kein Frieden, hier hat sich nicht ver&ndert,
ob still, ob lttrmend, die Gefahr lauert wie frtiher (lber dem
Moos. . . . ”92 The final reaction of the protagonist is a
burst of profound regret for a life improperly spent; if he
is spared this time, he will reshape the burrow; that is,
if the danger would only go away, he will make himself over
in a more perfect form. He thinks, frantically, that he is
still capable of such arduous tasks, that the danger will
be a useful lesson to him. But there is no real chance
that this way out will be given him. The story ends with
Beschreibuna eines Kampfes. p. 206.
92Ibid.
209
the desperate hope that the enemy does not know of his
existence, for he has always been very quiet and so should
have escaped notice.
Of all of Kafka's stories, then, "Der Bau" is the
one most intimately related to "Ein Hungerkttnstler." It is
a story that tells of the inevitability of defeat, as so
many of the stories do, but it is the defeat of a certain
figure--that one who chooses withdrawal as a means of
defense against the assault of the external world. As with
the fasting dog in "Forschungen," retreat means self-
destruction, but in "Der Bau" there is no benign spectre
to force the animal into the world as the lesser of two
evils. The torture of the animal protagonist in this last
story is that of the mind, the consciousness of self, the
growing realization of the invisible death with which one
shares the secret burrow. The HungerkUnstler is spared
this final agony, of course, although a realization of his
self-deception is manifested in his final words. For this
reason, "Der Bau" is a much more powerful and significant
work (despite the preference of academic critics, beguiled
by the references to art, for "Ein HungerkUnstler"). Even
more than "Forschungen eines Hundes," the incidents of the
story are an exact parallel to animal experience, which
makes the symbolic meaning that much more inevitable. "Der
Bau" is a story of man in his most intimate retreat, faced
210
with the realization that the walls will inevitably fall,
that he escapes the trap of the world only to be assaulted
from within by the invisible antagonist of his own mor
tality. The protagonist at the end hopelessly hoping that
he will have a chance to build his life over again if death
will only pass him by, is every man on his deathbed. By a
stroke of cruel irony, it is even Franz Kafka, who in the
last year of his life found a powerful will to live when
the enemy within him had already penetrated the walls of
the burrow.
CHAPTER VII
INSTITUTIONS AND TRADITIONS
Kafka's works represent a comprehensive refusal to
accept an allegiance to any set of beliefs. Such a denial
is a logical result of the pervasive ambiguity that he sees
in all things. Nihilism is not the message that Kafka
offers us, a point that Brod has accurately maintained for
many years, but Kafka is a skeptic--psychological, reli
gious, cultural and even emotional. He believes in some
thing indestructible, but the very nature of it, for Kafka,
eliminates definition. He is willing to use cultural or
religious elements as symbols, but he does not subscribe to
them as final truth. Any description of his work must note
the fact that it includes a denial of all ready-made sys
tems, based upon an analysis of their weaknesses and their
inevitable failure to provide an answer for the human
condition. Whatever part Kafka's life served as inspira
tion, his works certainly do not remain psychological auto
biography, and he certainly does not affirm faith in any
of the manifold systems of belief. In fact, his private
writings reveal as little adherence to traditional beliefs
as do his creative works.
211
212
A number of disjointed sentences in one of the
notebooks provide an interesting series of comments on the
nature of evil. Among them one finds the following
thought: "Selbsterkenntnis hat nur das BtJse." Then, a few
lines further, "1st die Tatsache der Religionen ein Beweis
flir die UnmBglichkeit des Einzelnen, dauemd gut zu sein?"^
The first thought is a clear rejection of explanation, at
least as it applies to the good or the source of good.
Religions, institutions, or systems are an assertion of
definition; Kafka's attitude is that such knowledge is in
compatible with goodness. The first quotation thus ex
plains the second; the existence of religions, and the
definition which they assert, suggests an antithesis to
natural goodness. Aphorism # 30, which follows immediately,
supports this view: "Das Gute ist in gewissem Sinne
trostlos." The good, like Kafka's protagonist, is denied
comfort; he experiences the incredible nature of the real
without the blindfold of dogmatic belief. "Wer glaubt,
kann keine Wunder erleben. Bei Tag sleht man keine
Sterne," says Kafka, employing a paradox that reverses
the traditional concept of the religious believer as he
who experiences miracles. The miracle of the real is seen
• ^ Hochzeitsvorbereltungen, p. 84.
^Ibid., p. 85.
213
only In darkness, the sun Is that dogma which blanks out
the universe. Revelation in any traditional sense is
denied by the very rejection of the stock image. In
"Forschungen eines Hundes," Kafka had used light and dark
ness in the same way when the young dog, running through
the night, meets the seven dogs who are victims of the
compelling music, as morning comes. The light of revela
tion is not answer, but one of the aspects of man’s cap
tivity by necessity; institutions, cultural traditions and
religious dogma do not release man from his dilemma but
hold him fast in it.
A more orthodox phrasing of the same thought was
expressed by Kafka in his conversations with Janouch. God,
he says, is only approached by the Individual; religious
orthodoxy is a sign of the soul that supports itself by
artificial means.
"Gott ist nur persBnlich fassbar. Jeder Mensch
hat sein Leben und seinen Gott. Seinen Verteidiger
und Richter. Priester und Riten sind nur Krticken
des erlahmenden Erlebens der Seele.” . . . "Die
Wahrheit ist das, was jeder Mensch zum Leben braucht
und doch von niemand bekomroen oder erstehen kann.
Jeder Mensch muss sie aus dem eigenen Innem inner
wieder produzieren, sonst vergeht er. Leben ohne
Wahrheit ist unmbglich. Die Wahrheit ist vielleicht
das Leben selbst. 3
The impossibility of an objective final truth is estab
lished by the subjective nature of it; truth is not simply
Janouch, p. 99.
214
perceived through the individual life, It is synonymous
with it. It is this which gives the life of the individual
its awesome profundity; it is this which makes the ex
perience of the individual the concern of poetry. Kafka,
in the same passage just quoted, says: "Gibt es aber ein
grbsseres Geheimnis als die Wahrheit? Dichtung ist inmer
nur elne Expedition nach der Wahrheit.1 '
One must remember, of course, that this individual
awareness of existence does not correspond to the limited
particular that Kafka has been shown elsewhere as reject
ing. On the contrary, the truth of the individual is that
illusive quality that links him with the universal, while
the limited particular is an accident of history, as
transitory as dogma or Institutions.
Kafka, further, saw in his own failure a proof of
the negative condition of the age, an era in which both
Christianity and Judaism represent failure. Brod believed
that Kafka had accepted Judaism some three or four years
before the acquaintance with Janouch began; it is clear
that such was not the case. (His late acceptance of Zion
ism, therefore, seems to have been a matter of pragmatism;
an answer for the verminous condition of the Jew in central
Europe, as he described it to Milena.) He writes, at about
the same time, a fairly long passage that substantiates
both Janouch and the aphorisms given above:
215
Es 1st nicht TrKgheit, bbser Wille, Ungeschick-
lickeit--wenn auch von alledem etwas dabel 1st, well
"das Ungeziefer aus dem Nichts geboren wird"--welche
mir alles misslingen oder nicht elranal misslingen
las sen . . . sondem es ist der Mangel des Bodens,
der Luft, des Gebotes. Diese zu schaffen 1st meine
Aufgabe. . . . Es ist sogar die ursprUnglichste Auf'
gabe oder zumlndest ihr Abglanz, so wie man belm
Ersteigen einer luftdtlnnen Htthe plbtzlich in den
Schein der femen Sonne treten kann. ... Ob aller-
dings in solchem Ausmass, weiss ich nicht. Ich habe
von den Erfordemissen des Lebens gar nlchts mit-
gebracht, so viel ich weiss, sondem nur die allge-
meine menschliche Schwftche. Mit dieser . . . habe ich
das Negative melner Zeit, die mir ja sehr nahe ist,
die ich nie zu bek&npfen, sondem gewissermassen zu
vertreten das Recht habe, krSftig aufgenommen. An dem
geringen Positiven sowie an dem Sussersten, zum Posi-
tiven umkippenden Negativen, hatte ich keinen ererbten
Anteil. Ich bin nicht von der allerdlngs schon schwer
sinkenden Hand des Christentums ins Leben gefUhrt
worden wie Kierkegaard und habe nicht den letzten
Zipfel des davonfllegenden jttdischen Gebetmantels noch
gefangen wie die Zionisten. Ich bin Ende oder Anfang.^
The extreme negative, which collapses into the positive, is
the dogma of nihilism; the positive is the failing hand of
Christianity and the departing prayer shawl of Judaism.
He represents neither, for truth is the poetic exploration
of the self, as he told Janouch. Brod, too, reluctantly
verifies this attitude in several passages of the biography.
The only quarrel, according to Brod, that they ever had
was over this matter; he recorded it in his own diary under
the date of August 23, 1913: "Geschpr&ch tiber Gemein-
schaftsgefUhle. Kafka sagt, er habe kelnes, well seine
^"Das vierte Oktavheft," Hochzeitsvorbereituneen.
pp. 120-121.
216
Kraft nur eben ftlr ihn hinreiche. Debatte im Boote."^
The reference occurs in a discussion of Brod's attempts to
convince Kafka to accept Zionism, and so refers to the
Jewish community. That Kafka did not accept his heritage
in such a sense is shown in a description of his reaction
to a Jewish religious service that he attended several
years later; his comment afterwards was: "Genau genommen
war es etwa so wie bei einem wilden afrikanischen Volks*
stamm. Krasser Aberglaube.Brod somewhat superfluously
adds that while the statement was not insultingly said, it
certainly indicated renunciation. Later, he quotes the
aphorism by Kafka in which the necessity of a faith in
something indestructible, however concealed, is declared.
The aphorism ends with another rejection of faith of the
orthodox kind. "Eine der Ausdrucksmttglichkeiten dieses
Verborgenbleibens 1st der Glaube an einen persbnllchen
Gott."7
If religious beliefs are a means of concealing the
hidden faith in an indestructible principle, a view that
echoes the notebook entry asserting that the existence of
^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 138.
6Ibid.. p. 188.
7Ibid.. p. 210. While Brod cannot help recognizing
these views as a rejection of traditional belief, he falls
to see that the implications of the last quotation equally
deny a personal religion, the very point that Brod seeks
to establish.
217
religions is proof of the impossibility of achieving good
ness, there should be an indication of this attitude in the
stories. There is, although Kafka's avoidance of the par
ticular circumstance means that such references are both
infrequent and disguised. The linking of the cathedral and
the court, and the priest who delivers the sermon on sub
mission, in Der Prozess. are the most immediate examples
that come to mind; any Interpretation of that novel must
take these religious references into account. A shorter,
but more explicit correlation, exists in "Ein Landarzt."
"Wirst du mich retten?" fltlstert schluchzend der
Junge, ganz geblendet durch das Leben in seiner
Wunde. So sind die Leute in meiner Gegend. Immer
das Unmbgliche vom Arzt verlangen. Den alten Glauben
haben sie verloren; der Ffarrer sitzt zu Hause und
zerzupft die Messgewttnder, eines nach dem andera;
aber der Arzt soil alles leisten mit seiner zarten
chirurgischen Hand. Nun, wie es beliebt; ich habe
mich nicht angeboten; verbraucht ihr mich zu
heillgen Zwecken lasse ich auch das mir geschehen;
was will ich Besseres, alter Landarzt, meines
DienstmMdchens beraubt!8
The passage suggests the displacing of religion by science,
but it also suggests the impotence of religion. The priest
sits at home and unravels, one after another, the vestments
of the mass. Science is being misused for sacred ends, but
that does not mean that religion is capable of salvation;
it is the "impossible" that is being asked. If science is
a perverted institution here, the priest himself idly sits
^ErzHhlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 138.
218
plucking at the threads of the garment that symbolizes his
function. (As an Austrian German, alienated from his
Jewish heritage, Kafka uses Catholicism instinctively as
an objectified symbol for religion.)
A fragmentary tale that is somewhat unusual in its
subject matter is that of the sensual priest. The story
opens with a group of children playing in front of a
church, shouting indecent expressions at each other. We
are told that they cannot understand them, of course; they
only suck at them "wie S&uglinge am Lutscher." The priest
comes out, anxious to silence the cries that can be heard
even inside the church, but they ignore him. Then--
Wie aus beginnendem Schlaf greift der Geistliche
nach dem n&chsten Kind, einem kleinen MMdchen, knttpft
ihr vorn oben das Kleidchen ein wenig auf— sie
schl> ihm daftlr im Scherz leicht auf die Wange--
erblickt dort irgendein Zelchen, das er nicht erwartet
oder vielleicht sogar erwartet hat, ruft Ah! stdsst
das Kind fort, ruft Pfui und spuckt aus und macht ein
grosses Kreuz in die Luft und will eilig in die Kirche
zurtlck. ^
As he turns back into the church, he bumps against a young
woman who looks like a gypsy: "sie ist blossftlssig, hat
einen weissgemusterten roten Rock, eine weisse, hemdartige,
vorn nachl&ssig offene Bluse und wild verschlungene braune
Haare." He asks her who she is, his voice still trembling
from agitation after his encounter with the children.
^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 328.
219
She addresses him by his first name, says she Is his wife,
and presses herself against his chest. He stands silently,
listening to the beating of her heart.
The indecent cries of the children are the result
of ignorance; they relish them instinctively, it would
appear. As such, they are indecent only to the informed
listener, the priest. They are the sounds of sensual
nature, heard even in the church. The priest's futile
attempt to silence them results only in his being entranced
by them. His opening of the child's blouse is done as
though he were half asleep. The child's slap is playful,
whether it is meant as encouragement or rebuke is an open
question. However, what he sees inside her blouse— pre
sumably her young breasts— brings him out of his trance;
he pushes her away with an exclamation realizing that he
has been the victim of his instincts. The large sign of
the Cross, made in the air, is a conventional symbol of
exorcism or the Invocation of God's aid against the devil.
However, it is not effective in this case. One of Kafka's
devices, the bringing forth of a physical manifestation of
the protagonist's thoughts, is now employed. The exotic
young woman is the priest's sensual desire personified.
Her gypsy appearance, the red shirt, bare feet, and tousled
hair all imply a sensual nature, and the blouse left open
at the front corresponds to his recent behavior with the
220
child outside. Kafka further takes advantage of his pro
tagonist^ calling by having the woman identify herself as
wife, a far more effective word for a Catholic priest than
the possibly transitory lapse from celibacy that the word
mistress would convey. The story suggests that the church
denies the nature of its human representatives, that the
priest and presumably the institution is living a lie in
so doing. Further, it calls to mind those other figures
who deny the body, the soaring dogs and the HungerkUnstler.
This incomplete view of the human condition may be one of
Kafka's reasons for denying the validity of institutional
religion.
In looking at Kafka's conception of the law, we
tread on dangerous ground, for the word has a shifting
meaning in his work. Generally speaking, however, he uses
the word in two senses. The first of these can be divided,
again, into two possibilities: the nature of things in the
universe, and that elusive truth or harmony which one tries
to discover. Opposed to these more or less private uses,
there is the generally accepted definition which Includes
all institutions, cultural traditions and mores. As I have
suggested earlier, Kafka did not believe in law in the
institutional sense; although the images and concepts
attached to it were frequently in his stories. His telling
Janouch that as a lawyer he was necessarily tied to evil,
221
his description of the letter to his father as a lawyer1s
trick, his account in the Tagebticher where he tells of
being impressed by Doktor R. who proved that the court
could not be defended; above all, the whole structure of
detail in Per Prozess. all of these things testify to
Kafka's attitude towards the law profession itself. How
ever, if we distinguish the symbolic occurrence of advo
cates, the profession as such is not very often used in an
important sense in the shorter pieces. An obvious excep
tion would be the story of Doctor Bucephalus, "Der neue
Advokat," where the mythic animal hero is reduced to the
characteristic profession of an age in which glory is im
possible.
More often, of course, Kafka uses the word law in
a literal sense to indicate the force of cultural institu
tions, the violation of which represents symbolic guilt.
The protagonist of Das Schloss is distinctive for his
attempt to use any method, except the right one whatever
that may be, to gain access to the Castle. A fragment
written in 1920, which Brod has identified as a preliminary
study for Das Schloss. gives fairly explicit identification
of the "guilt" as being a violation of cultural tradition.
Willst du in eine fremde F ami lie eingeftihrt
werden, suchst du einen gemeinsamen Bekannten und
bittest ihn urn die Gef&lligkeit. Findest du keinen,
geduldest du dich und wartest auf die gUnstige
Gelegenheit.
222
Das 1st alles selbstverstttndlich, nur K. versteht
es nicht. Er hat es sich in der letzten Zeit in den
Kopf gesetzt, in die Familie unseres Gutsherm ein-
zudringen, versucht es aber nicht auf den gesellschaft-
lichen Wegen, sondem ganz geradeaus. Vielleicht
scheint ihm der (lbliche Weg zu langwierig und das ist
richtig, aber der Weg, den er zu gehen versucht, ist
ja unmOglich.10
Cultural modes represent a rigid pattern that reflects the
necessity imposed upon one by the inflexible nature of the
universe. The customs, institutions and social traditions
are the arbitrary patterns of human society, and in them
Kafka sees the glimmer of deterministic Law. However, for
the Kafkian protagonist, this parallel simply suggests over
and over again the confinement of a senseless necessity.
Opposed to it is one's individual will, that of the victim
who continues to struggle until he no longer has strength
because his own nature forces him to do so. As Kafka
writes on another occasion: "Es ist ein Mandat. Ich kann
meiner Natur nach nur ein Mandat Ubemehmen, das niemand
mir gegeben hat. In diesem Widersprueh, immer nur in einem
Widerspruch kann ich leben."^ K. in the fragment cited
above becomes an alien because he does not follow the pre
vailing cultural pattern; he attempts to assault the house
of the lord directly. It is the sin of presumption in two
senses: it declares him superior to the communal tradition,
10Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 298.
11Ibid., p. 302.
223
and it implies an equality with the superior identity. It
is the sin for which the Fat Man and the Supplicant are
destroyed in Beschreibung eines Kampfes; they assault the
universe. The traditional modes of access may never be
discovered, but one must wait for them or offend the in
finite. The lesson is that of "Vor dem Gesetz." Only the
force of one's own nature compels him towards disobedience;
the mandate is clear enough for it exists in all aspects of
experience.
Two of Kafka's major short stories are based upon
his view of institutions: "Josefine, die S&ngerin, oder
das Volk der MMuse" and "Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer."
Often the story of Josefine has been read, like "Ein
Hungerkttnstler," as an allegory of the neglect of the
artist by the society, sometimes equated with Kafka him-
1 0
self as an artist. Others see Josefine as representing
the dwindling role of divine revelation. Tauber, for
example, tells us:
In dem Widerspruch zwischen der Behauptung
Joseflnens, das Volk durch ihren Gesang zu retten
und der Meinung des Volks, dass es sich immer selbst
gerettet habe, zeigt sich das Hinschwinden eines in
aer geschichtlichen Wirklichkeit noch m&chtigen
Bezugs zum gttttlichen. Zwar wird in Zeiten der Not
f
ebetet— aber ohne wahrhaften Glauben an ein Eingrei-
en Gottes. Es bleibt nur eine vage Piet&t tlbrig.13
12See Carl R. Woodring, "Josephine the Singer, or
the Mouse Folk," Franz Kafka Today, pp. 71-75.
^Tauber, p. 186.
224
Along with the still more common Interpretation of the
story as an allegory of the condition of the Jews In the
modem world, 1 believe that both of these Interpretations
again represent a specific application of what Is In fact
a more universal concern. The relationship of Josefine to
the community Is the basic theme of the story, of course,
and I would suggest that as such she represents the whole
body of cultural beliefs and traditions of the community.
That the community Itself Is not simply the Jews, but man
kind as It Is related to the forces of the universe, Is
fairly decisive from Kafka's constant use of vermin In this
way, as discussed earlier. To the extent that one may
Include both art and religious prophecy In the traditions
of the human community, both of these Interpretations
represent partial truth.
Kafka's repeated use of private symbols of theme
and situation has been pointed out at considerable length
in the course of this study. If he uses music as a symbol
in anything like the way that It was used in "Forschungen
eines Hundes," the song of Josefine corresponds neatly with
that compelling music that forced the young dog back Into
the community that he had foresaken in his search for per
sonal revelation. The difference is that in "Josefine"
there Is no searching protagonist; the story is that of
the community in the form of its doubts, reservations,
225
and indecisiveness regarding Josefine. That this skepti
cism is an underlying quality in the community does not
lessen the effect of Josefine*s song. The story begins:
Unsere S&ngerin heisst Josefine. Wer sie nicht
gehOrt hat, kennt nicht die Macht des Gesanges. Es
gibt niemanden, den ihr Gesang nicht fortreisst, was
um so hUher zu bewerten ist, als unser Geschlecht im
ganzen Musik nicht liebt.^
The instinct of the individual in the community, like that
of the young dog in "Forschungen" is to deny the music,
but it carries one away by its power. It is not even be
cause the music is beautiful, for it is not. In fact, in
intimate conversation, one sometimes admits that it is not
particularly good singing at all; that is, as a private
individual one may deny that which one pays tribute to in
public. Compared with the music of the ancients, it
certainly seems to be inferior.
Ist es denn Uberhaupt Gesang? Trotz unserer
Unmusikalit&t haben wir GesangsUberlieferungen; in
den alten Zeiten unseres Volkes gab es Gesang; Sagen
erzMhlen davon, und sogar Lieder sind erhalten, die
freilich niemand mehr singen kann. Eine Ahnung
dessen, was Gesang ist, haben wir also, und dieser
Ahnung nun entsprlcht Josefinens Kunst eigentlich
nicht. Ist es denn Uberhaupt Gesang? Ist es nicht
vielleicht doch nur ein Pfeifen?15
The modern cultural myth has the same relationship to the
ancient myth as Doctor Bucephalus*s former glory has to
• ^Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 240
^ Ibid., pp. 241-242.
226
his modern profession of advocate. Just as he becomes a
lawyer because of the necessity of conforming to the
accepted values of the culture in which he now exists, the
community must accept Josefine's singing by the undeniable
fact of its influence over them. Perhaps their own
piping--their private beliefs?--is as good as, or superior
to hers, but she has declared hers as the only true song
and compelled their belief.
Eine Nuss aufknacken ist wahrhaftig keine Kunst,
deshalb wird es auch niemand wagen, ein Publikum
zusanmenzurufen und vor ihm, um es zu unterhalten,
Ntlsse knacken. Tut er es dennoch und gelingt seine
Absicht, dann kann es sich eben doch nicht nur inn
blosses NUsseknacken handeln.1”
The piping here seems to be equated with thought, or more
precisely, speculative thought, as against Josefine's
assertion of her art as dogma. We are told that piping is
an instinctive thing with the nation, but that no one dares
do it in her presence. Even the "opposition" (in whom some
critics see the philistines of art), accord her respect and
even admiration, a point which makes it difficult to accept
her song as either ignored art or unacknowledged revela
tion. The song of Josefine, however equivocal, is com
pelling among the mouse folk.
Jedenfalls leugnet sie also jeden Zusammenhang
zwischen ihrer Kunst und dem Pfeifen. Ftlr die,
welche gegenteiliger Meinung sind, hat sie nur
^Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 242.
227
Verachtung und wahrscheinlich uneingestandenen Hass.
Das ist nicht gewtthnliche Eitelkeit, denn diese
Opposition, zu der auch ich halb gehdre, bewundert
sie gewiss nicht weniger als es die Menge tut, aber
Josefine will nicht nur bewundert, sondem genau in
der von ihr bestimnten Art bewundert sein, an
Bewunderung allein liegt ihr nichts. Und wenn man
vor ihr sitzt, versteht man sie; Opposition treibt
man nur in der Feme; wenn man vor ihr sitzt. weiss
man: was sie hier pfeift, ist kein Pfeifen.l'
Every disturbance is welcome to Josefine. Whatever
intrudes from the outside as though it would hinder her
song, she overcomes with the slightest effort, or even per
haps without effort, merely by confronting it, "die Menge
zu erwecken, sie zwar nicht Verst&ndnis, aber ahnungsvollen
Respekt zu lehren." For this reason, she welcomes the
crises which form so great a part of coraminity life. The
nation, as is mankind, constantly is confronted with
threats to its existence. "Unser Leben ist sehr unruhig,
jeder Tag bringt tiberraschungen, Be&ngstigungen, Hoffnungen
und Schrecken . . .," and at these times of crisis,
Josefine spreads her arms wide and brings them all to
gether. The opposition at such times begins by murmuring
against her, but "Schon tauchen auch wir in das Gefilhl der
Menge, die warm, Leib an Leib, scheu at mend horcht."^® In
moments of stress, the individual judgment is suspended,
^ Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 243.
18Ibid., p. 245.
228
submerged in the security of the collective identity. It
is then that Josefine sings most powerfully. Her singing,
she believes, is what will save them, and if it does not
drive away the evil, it will at least give the nation the
strength to bear their misfortune. Skeptical as some of
them are, it is just at such times that they are most
attentive.
Dieses Pfeifen, das sich erhebt, wo alien andera
Schweigen auferlegt ist, kommt fast wie eine Botschaft
des Volkes zu dem einzelnen; das dtlnne Pfeifen Jose-
finens mitte in den schweren Entscheidungen ist fast
wie die armselige Existenz unseres Volkes mitten im
Tumult der feindlichen Welt.1"
Yet, she does not save them and she does not give them
strength; when they surmount the crisis it is because of
their own swiftness and energy. In fact, and this is the
central irony of the relationship of the nation to their
"singer," when Josefine compels them to come together in
such a way during times of danger, she actually makes them
more vulnerable. Entranced by the concert, they are
trapped by the enemy, and frequently many of them die as
a result. However, it is noted that "Josefine, die alles
verschuldet, ja, durch ihr Pfeifen den Feind vielleicht
angelockt hatte, immer im Besitz des sichersten Pl&tzchens
war und unter dem Schutze ihres Anhanges sehr still und
eiligst als erste v e r s c h w a n d . " 2 ®
^Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 249.
20Ibid., p. 153.
229
The communal acceptance, the relinquishing of ques
tioning by the opposition, is inevitable in time of danger
but it doe8 not save the nation. By the very fact of their
acquiescence to the symbol of communal despotism, which
betrays them in the name of saving them, their own strength
becomes ineffective. Further, the piping of Josefine's
song--the arbitrary communal belief--is what attracts the
enemy.
One of the most difficult points of interpretation
in the story is Josefine's demand that she be exempted from
all duties as a privileged being. If she does represent,
separately and collectively, the range of traditions and
beliefs to which the people are subjected, this final
reluctance to grant her demand would appear to be an ulti
mate point of acceptance that the community will not grant.
Religion, art, law, philosophy, even such abstracts as
national Identity or patriotism, all might be viewed as by
their nature seeking to create a privileged character for
themselves, attempting to declare their supremacy over the
individual life. The priest, the poet and the judge are
alike in declaring their function to be that of serving the
abstract principle. In fact, Josefine has her adherents in
support of her claim for such a privileged position.
Further, the narrator tells us, Josefine is not lazy; even
if her claim is granted, she will work as hard as ever
230
. . was sie anstrebt, ist also nur die ttffentliche,
eindeutige, die Zeiten Uberdauemde, (lber alles bisher
Bekannte sich weit erhebende Anerkennung ihrer Runst. "2*-
What Josefine seeks, therefore, is not simply privilege,
which she already has, but the permanent and never-changing
acceptance of her superiority. The communal tradition, at
any one time, declares Itself the only truth. Josefine's
attempt to punish the nation--cutting short her songs, and
not bringing forth the highest notes--are abstract punish
ments for failure to accept her absolute dogma as absolute.
There are skeptics who say such measures are really an
illusion on her part; that there is no change. The latest
word on Josefine is that she has disappeared--indicative,
perhaps, of the twentieth century loss of cultural tradi
tion. Church, Art, Law--all have been cited as losing
their hold over the "nation"; Kafka himself, as noted in an
earlier quote, believed his "failure" was due to the lack
of a significant personal tradition. ("Es 1st der Mangel
des Bodens, der Luft, des Gebotes.") This presents us with
another paradox: if traditions and institutional principles
reflect the necessity of a universal law through their own
orthodoxy, how can they fail to maintain themselves? The
answer, apparently, is that the transitory or the self-
destructive is part of the universal order of things.
Ol
Erzlhlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 255.
231
Josefine is described, near the end of the story, as fail
ing by her own nature, which is linked with an inevitable
destiny:
Sonderbar, wie falsch sie rechnet, die Kluge, so
falsch, dass man glauben sollte, sie rechne gar nicht,
sondem werde nur welter getrieben von ihrem Schicksal,
das in unserer Welt nur ein sehr trauriges werden
kann. Selbst entzieht sie sich dem Gesang, selbst
zerstbrt sie die Macht, die sie tiber die Gemttter er-
worben hat. Wie konnte sie nur diese Macht erwerben,
da sie diese GemUter so wenig k e n n t . ^ 2
The traditions of the community are not eternal, then; they
are episodes in the history of the people, parallels to the
universal laws of failure and necessity. It is difficult,
certainly, to reconcile the final view of Josefine with
anything like the appreciative view of either religion or
art that critics have so often ascribed to Kafka in this
story.
The most important work in which institutions are
analyzed symbolically is "Beim Bau der Chineslschen Mauer."
China Itself is a natural thematic symbol. Its vastness,
and remoteness, the anonymous swarm of its millions, as it
appears to the European mind, provide a situation analogous
to human life as Kafka saw it. The Emperor is exalted to
so remote a height that he literally becomes God; the
people exist only in relationship to the organization of
the state, devoid of all personal ambitions, desires or
22
ErzKhlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 259.
232
accomplishments. The decree o£ the Emperor is parallel to
"the Law," there is no thought of questioning it, and it
determines the entire course of life. The wall itself
begins as a barrier against the unknown, against the vague,
constant, never actually perceived threat of "the bar
barians." As such, it seems to be equivalent in one sense
to the entire task of civilization, in more particular ways
to the bodies of institutional belief such as law, reli
gion, social behavior, and other value systems. The bar
barians that threaten always, though one has never actually
seen them, suggest death in an immediate sense, and less
directly all of the other dangers against which institu
tions seek to provide a defense. Generally speaking, these
dangers are those of individual experience, death being the
most obvious example since it is countered by the continu
ing life of the community, but fear, hunger, sensuality,
and the other occasions for social control all represent
individual consciousness and individual morality. The
enormous task of constructing the wall goes on and on, we
are told, even though it is probably valueless because of
the personal limitations of the workers. Thus, the com
munal need and the individual will are at variance. "Wie
kann aber eine Mauer schdtzen, die nicht zusammenh&ngend
gebaut ist. Ja, eine solche Mauer kann nicht nur nicht
233
schiltzen, der Bau selbst ist in fortwtthrender Gefahr."^
Nevertheless, the building of the wall in detached
pieces is the only way in which it could be built, for the
workers can only remain at the task for a limited time
before they become disheartened. Then, they are given a
vacation that includes a festive celebration. This is par
ticularly necessary in the case of the subordinate super
visors, the general run of educated citizens, who are
recruited and trained for the construction.
Es waren Maurer, die viel liber den Bau nachgedacht
hatten und nicht aufhttrten, dartiber nachzudenken, die
sich mit dem ersten Stein, den sie in den Boden ein-
senken liessen, dem Bau verwachsen flihlten. Solche
Maurer trieb aber natlirlich, neben der Begierde, grilnd-
lichste Arbeit zu leisten, auch die Ungeduld, den Bau
in seiner Vollkommenheit endlich erstehen zu sehen.
. . . Deshalb wtthlte man das System des Teilbaues.
Fllnfhundert Meter konnten etwa in fllnf Jahren fer-
tiggestellt werden, dann waren freilich die Fllhrer in
der Regel zu erschOpft, hatten alles Vertrauen zu sich,
zum Bau, zur Welt v e rloren.24
In short, the flaws of the system are built into it, by
decree of the high command, as a parallel to the weaknesses
of the people themselves. It is the will of the Emperor
that the wall be built, and the high command— almost
equally as remote— interprets and carries out that will.
If the logical implications of this are followed, then one
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 67-68.
^ Ibid., pp. 69-70.
234
must presume that the Emperor (or God) willed an imperfect
thing. There are obvious religious connotations in such
a situation, with the addition of Kafka's own contribution:
is the imperfection of the institution due really to the
limitations of the people, or is the reverse true? No
answer is intended, of course, for each is due to the
other. If the people could see a complete structure, which
they cannot, they would be happy; if they could be happy,
which they cannot, they would be able to complete the
structure. Kafka gives considerable emphasis to this im
plied relationship of the command with divinity and their
decrees with scripture.
In der Stube der FUhrerschaft--wo sie war und wer
dort sass, weiss und wusste niemand, den ich fragte--
in dieser Stube kreisten wohl alle menschlichen
Gedanken und WUnsche und in Gegenkreisen alle men
schlichen Ziele und ErfUllungen. Durch das Fenster
aber fiel der Abglanz der gBttlichen Weiten auf die
PlUne zeichnenden Httnde der Fdhrerschaft.
Und deshalb will es dem unbestechlichen Betrachter
nicht eingehen, dass die FUhrerschaft, wenn sie es
emstlich gewollt htttte, nicht auch jene Schwierig-
keiten hfltte Uberwinden ktJnnen, die einem zusammen-
h&ngenden Mauerbau entgegenstanden. Bleibt also nur
die Folgerung, dass die FUhrerschaft den Teilbau
beabsicntigte. Aber der Teilbau war nur ein Notbehelf
und unzweckm&ssig. Bleibt die Folgerung, dass die
FUhrerschaft etwas Unzweckm&ssiges wollte.--Sonderbare
Folgerung! . . . Darnels war es geheimer Grundsatz
Vieler, und sogar der Besten: Suche mit alien deinen
KrUften die Anordnungen der FUhrerschaft zu verstehen,
aber nur bis zu einer bestimmten Grenze, dann hUre mit
dem Nachdenken auf.25
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 75.
235
Kafka, then, uses a double set of symbols: the Imperial
bureaucracy engaged in its interminable construction of
the wall, and the elements of orthodox religion that
parallel it. Both lead to a third: the familiar Kafkian
analysis of man's relationship to the infinite. Kafka
makes this quite explicit in the following sentence:
"Vielmehr bestand die FUhrerschaft wohl seit jeher und der
Beschluss des Mauerbaues gleichfalls.
The remoteness of the Emperor suggests the am
biguity of divine nature or universal principle, as well as
the alienation between the people and these ultimate con
cepts. This is expressed in the parable of the dying
Emperor sending his message to a distant subject, so far
from the palace that the messenger will run all his life
and never reach him; he will exhaust himself in the unend
ing labyrinths of the palace and should he ever get free
of that structure, the huge mass of the capital city will
still lie before him. "Du aber sitzt an Deinem Fenster
und ertr&umst sie Die, wenn der Abend kommt."27 The mes
sage of the Emperor is myth, the dreaming desire of man
kind. Revelation can never come to man, for the world is
too remote from the ultimate reality; God and man--truth
^ B e s c h r e i b u n g eines Kampfes, p. 78.
2 7 I b i d .
236
and the self--are separated by an Insurmountable distance.
"Wenn man aus solchen Erscheinungen folgem wollte, dass
wir im Grunde gar keinen Kaiser haben, wftre man von der
Wahrheit nicht weit entfemt."^®
Yet, the complete organization of the state exists,
and everyone's life is controlled by it. The high command
exists, has always existed, and the results of its decrees
are to be seen in all the activity of life. The contra
diction, of course, that is implied here is that which
exists between institutionalism and the final truth that it
reflects, claims to represent, and by means of which it
controls every aspect of life. Actually, says Kafka, the
great wall is not intended simply to hold back external
danger. At least one great scholar has suggested it as the
only suitable base for a new Tower of Babel. He maintains
that the original Tower actually fell because the founda
tion was too weak. The wall, representing security from
the unknown, is to provide a basis for spiritual elevation.
To the degree that the wall approximates religious ortho
doxy, it promises to enable one to reach up to heaven.
Yet, the original guilt involved in the building of that
Biblical structure was, of course, presumption. One is
not worthy or fit to reach after heaven, the very act
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 80.
237
of attempting to do so represents Kafka's familiar sin of
direct assault. The Tower of Babel reference in this story
is clarified by an aphorism in "Betrachtungen liber Stlnde,
Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg," which reads: "Wenn es
mttglich gewesen wflre, den Turm von Bable zu erbauen, ohne
ihn zu erklettem, es wBre erlaubt worden."2^ One can only
achieve in the name of denial, one can build a Tower to
heaven if he does not presume to mount upward by means of
it. Not through one's own strength, not by assaulting the
door that leads to the Law, but by waiting for the message
from the Emperor that by all logic will never reach you,
this is the lesson which one must learn in life. (Not
just, of course, but necessary, as Josef K. is told.)
Further, the wall upon which the new Tower of Babel
is to be built is not even completed; it stands as a series
of isolated pieces, many of them already in disrepair. It
would hold nothing. Yet the plans for the Tower have
already been drawn, before the base is finished; and if the
truth is told, it never will be finished, that is obvious.
But, if it were, the wall by its very design could not hold
such a Tower, anyway, for it did not even form a circle--
the perfect form— but only a sort of quarter or half
circle, turned in one direction. Whatever institutional
2^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 41.
238
interpretation we give the wall, it ends in the same thing;
Kafka maintains that it is a basis of ego upon which ulti
mate reconciliation cannot be built. Yet, driven by his
nature, man builds walls and attempts to build new Towers.
One of the shorter stories that is concerned with
the Tower of Babel theme is "Das Stadtwappen." It provides
a clue to the ending of the story of the Chinese Wall, and
so deserves a glance before we complete our discussion of
the more important work. The story begins with an expla
nation of the thorough preparations made by a certain city
in their project of building the Babylonian Tower. Every
one is convinced that one cannot build too slowly for such
an important structure:
Man argumentierte nttmlich so: Das Wesentliche des
ganzen Untemehmens ist der Gedanke, einen bis in
den Himmel reichenden Turn zu bauen. Neben diesem
Gedanken ist alles andere nebensBchlich. Der Gedanke,
einmal in seiner Grttsse gefasst, kann nicht mehr
verschwinden; solange es Menschen gibt, wird auch der
starke Wunsch da sein, den Turm zu Ende zu bauen.30
Because of this, there is no reason to be concerned about
the future; in fact, with the increase in knowledge, there
is every likelihood that in the future the building will be
much more easily completed than it would be today. There
fore, they occupy themselves with the preliminaries, the
plans and the foundation. It is, of course, this which
^^Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 93.
239
defeats them. If later generations find the work not to
their liking, they will only tear it down and begin over.
The concept of material progress, Kafka suggests, nullifies
the spiritual end. Instead of reaching for heaven, they
build churches and monasteries, law courts and judges'
chambers. This secularization becomes an end in itself,
and the plans for building the Tower become still more
delayed.
Solche Gedankenn l&hmten die Kr&fte, und mehr als
urn den Turmbau ktimmerte man sich vim den Bau der
Arbeiterstadt. Jede Landsmannschaft wollte das
sch&nste Quartier haben, dadurch ergaben sich Strei-
tigkeiten, die sich bis zu blutigen KMmpfen steigerten.
. . . Doch verbrachte man die Zeit nicht nur mit
KHmpfen, in den Pausen verschbnerte man die Stadt,
wodurch man allerdings neuen Neid und neue K&npfe
hervorrief. So verging die Zeit der ersten Generation,
aber keine der folgenden war anders, nur die Kunst-
fertigkeit steigerte sich iranerfort void damit die
Kampfsucht.31
The community desire for salvation that originally united
them becomes the cause of individual greed and pain. In
the legends and songs of the city--its art--there grows a
death wish; the community myth "ist erfUllt von der
Sehnsucht nach einem prophezeiten Tag, an welchem die Stadt
von einer Riesenfaust in ftinf kurz aufeinanderfolgenden
32
SchlBgen zerschmettert werden wird." The expectation of
heaven reached through the united will of the community
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 93-94
•^Ibid., p. 94.
240
is transformed into the desire for an apocalyptic day of
judgment, a desire for punishment for their sin. For this
reason, the city's coat of arms shows a closed fist,
symbolic of both greed and force.
The story, of course, is a moral parable of fairly
simple structure. Its connection with the "Chinesische
Mauer'4 lies in the parallel reason why the Tower cannot be
built. According to the aphorism quoted earlier, one might
build the Tower only if he did not ascend it, that is, if
he did not assert himself in an act of individual will.
The Tower in "Das Stadtwappen" will never be built because
that exercise of individual will does occur. However, in
that story, it is conceived of as a generic dream; in the
beginning it is assumed that it will always be the in
spiring dream of mankind. Apparently, then, the united
concern of the nation might have made it possible; if each
had worked not to climb it himself but for the sake of the
Tower itself--that is, the heavenly end--it would have been
standing long ago. There is a repetition here of a central
point made in "Forschungen eines Hundes.4 4 There, the young
dog thinks that if all the dogs in the community were to
crunch on the bones together*"they need not even crunch
so long as they had the willingness to do so— the bones
would fall open and reveal the sweet marrow of their own
accord. However, he thinks bitterly, he would want this
241
to happen only so he could dismiss the other dogs and lap
up the marrow himself. This sin of the presumptive ego,
duplicated at higher levels in nation, sect, and institu
tional identity, throws the town into conflict in "Das
Stadtwappen"; it is what isolates mankind from whatever
remote Truth exists.
In turning back to the conclusion of "Beim Bau der
Chinsesichen Mauer," one discovers that the faulty base for
the Tower of Babel exists for a similar reason. The wall
is defective because the high command so willed it. It
accepts the weaknesses of the members of the community and
so allows the wall to be defective, full of gaps, useless
as a barrier, yet an occupation that absorbs their entire
lives in a vain task. The reason for this, Kafka suggests,
is their lack of unified faith in the Emperor.
Tinner wieder muss ich sagen: Es gibt vielleicht
kein kaisertreueres Volk als das unsrige im Stiden,
aber die Treue kommt dem Kaiser nicht zugute. Zwar
steht auf der kleinen S&ule am Dorfausgang der heilige
Drache und blUst huldigend seit Menschengedenken den
feurigen Atem genau in die Richtung von Peking--aber
Peking selbst 1st den Leuten im Dorf viel fremder als
das jenseitige Leben. . . . Uohl aber darf ich
vielleicht auf Grund der vielen Schriften, die ich
Uber diesen Gegenstand gelesen habe, sowle auf Grund
meiner elgenen Beobachtungen . . . auf Grund alles
dessen darf ich vielleicht sagen, dass die Auffassung,
die hinsichtlich des Kaisers nerrcht, immer wieder und
(lberall einen gewissen und gemelnsamen Grundzug mit
der Auffassung in meiner Heimat zeigt. . . . Zwar ist
sie in der Hauptsache von der Regierung verschuldet.
. . . Andererseits aber liegt doch auch darin eine
SchwKche der Vorstellungs-oaer Glaubenskraft beim
VoIke, welches nicht dazu gelangt, das Kaisertum aus
242
der Pekinger Versunkenheit in aller Lebendigkeit und
Gegenw&rtigkeit an seine Untertanenbrust zu ziehen,
die doch nichts besseres will, als einmal diese
Bertlhrung zu fllhlen und an ihr zu v e r g e h e n . ”
The paradox here is that the very absence of a complete
common faith has come to be the basis of community life.
It Is with this thought that the story ends: "Un so auf-
f&lliger ist es, dass gerade diese Schw&che eines der
wichtigsten Einigungsmittel unseres Volkes zu sein scheint;
ja, wenn man sich im Ausdruck soweit vorwagen darf, gera-
dezu der Boden, auf dem wir leben.1 '34 One must conclude,
therefore, that it is equivalent to the institutionalism
under which they live and which directs them in their
futile task.
The story appears, in this statement, to be one of
the most traditional works that Kafka wrote. The lack of
community faith is far from an original theme. It is, of
course, natural that in a work dealing with human institu
tions, Kafka should use the spontaneous evocation of faith
as a contrast to the failure of orthodoxy. However, the
real Kafkian touch is in the inevitability of failure;
there is no parable here of a community which achieves
salvation through idealized, selfless love. The human
33Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 80-82.
34Ibid., p. 82.
243
breast yearns for the touch of God, but it is defeated by
its own nature. Kafka gives no answers, and his real
search is always through the twisted dilemma presented by
desire and actuality. It is through the self that all
experience flows, and the search always leads back there.
CHAPTER VIII
GUILT, SUFFERING AND DEATH: KAFKA*S
ULTIMATE QUESTIONS
If one wishes to make visible the abstract--or
universal, to use a more ambiguous but more accurate liter
ary term--how does one do it? For Kafka, and perhaps for
all artists, it is by tracing its occurrence in the circum
stances of everyday life, in reality. Never, however, does
reality exist for its own sake in a work by Kafka. The
disguise of familiarity is stripped away and that which is
significant is starkly outlined. In the "Brief an den
Vater," he said that all of his writing had been about his
father. While it may have been appropriate to that rela
tionship, Kafka was incapable of allowing it to remain
merely that. Such a particular significance would localize
it and so remove it from the realm of art in any final
sense. The personal relationship, rather, has been raised
to that of universal abstraction. While the idea of the
father as Godhead may have been part of Kafka's personal
tragedy, it became in his art a magnificently effective
symbol. Generally, this transmutation of the personal
seems to have occurred all through Kafka's life. He had
244
245
the artistic vision to see in his own circumstances not
simply a limited incident but the immensity of every man’s
need.
The psychologists have been right in pointing to
Kafka’s particular views on sex and womanhood as signifi-
cant. The reason for the significance, however, does not
stop with the fact of the occurrence. In investigating
Kafka's ultimate questions, the meanings to him of marriage
and its antithesis, bachelorhood, are important for the
peculiar symbolic characteristics with which they become
loaded. As we have already seen, Kafka considered the
basic instinct of man to be that of uniting with his kind,
and the basic tragedy of man that of his inevitable isola
tion. Through the relationship of man and woman there
seemed to be a flickering possibility of resolving these
contradictory situations.
Because of his three unsuccessful engagements to
marry, Kafka has often been viewed as a person who was
afraid of the necessity for physical relationship with the
opposite sex that marriage involves. Indeed, he has some
times been viewed as still more abnormal in his propensi
ties. The situation, however, was not that simple and
certainly not so abnormal as many critics seem to believe.
Kafka engaged in intimate relationships with women all
during his adult life; in fact, a careful reading of his
246
personal writings indicates that his experience might even
be regarded as extensive. There is no doubt, for instance,
that he was intimate in this sense with both of the women
to whom he was formally engaged.^* That the relationship
with Milena did not remain platonic is now a matter of
public record in the volume of letters; and the last year,
when he set up a household with Dora Dymant, was undoubtedly
the happiest in his life. Beyond these relationships,
there seems to have been a great many others of a more
transitory nature.
Kafka has left a record of the circumstances of
his first sexual experience, or what he many years later
identified as the first in a letter to Milena.^ The account
is part of his attempt to explain the paradox of what he
calls "strach-touha," using the Czechisch words for "fear-
desire." He was twenty at the time, studying for his first
State examination and possibly at odd moments writing the
first draft of Beschreibung eines Kampfes. The girl worked
in a shop across the way, and he made an appointment
^On several occasions he went on trips of a weekend
or longer alone with Felice Bauer; and in the Tagebtlcher
(p. 460) in speaking of her he refers to the absence of
"sweetness" that he had earlier experienced in two differ
ent relationships, both vacation idylls of his youth, that
had resulted in physical intimacy. A reference to his
intimate experience with his second fiancee, J.W., can be
found in the same source, p. 540.
^Briefe an Milena, p. 180.
247
to meet her at eight that evening. When the time came, he
found that a prior claim superseded his own, and he fol
lowed the couple all evening until the other man left her
at her door. Then he picked her up, and they subsequently
spent the night in a hotel. "Das alles war, schon vor dem
Hotel, reizend, aufregend und abscheullch, im Hotel war es
nicht anders." He was happy, afterwards, he said, because
of the relief from the demands of his own body and because
it had not been more horrible. In other words, his first
encounter with sex was both somewhat sordid and somewhat
fascinating; moreover, he was conscious of himself as
having taken by stealth a woman on whom a prior claim
existed. Each of these things recurs time and again in
both his life and his writings.
Brod, too, is a source of information on Kafka's
intimate life. He tells of it somewhat facetiously ("Wie
viele Abende verbrachten wir gemeinsam in Theatern,
Kabaretts, femer auch in Weinstuben bei schOnen Mfldchen"
but demonstrates his perceptivity in noting that the ex
periences were extremely meaningful to Kafka:
Diese unklaren und, man kann es wohl auch in
seinem Sinn--vomehmlich in seinem Sinn— so nennen:
3
Briefe an Milena, p. 181.
^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 142.
248
unreinen Frauenangelegenheiten haben in seinen drei
grossen Romanen und anderwttrts in seinem Werk viele
Spuren.5
An affair that Brod recalls particularly was Kafka's in
fatuation with a barmaid from the Trocadero by the name of
Hansi. She is apparently the model for such characters as
Frieda and Pepi in Das Schloss: Kafka is said to have
remarked bitterly that whole cavalry regiments had ridden
on her body. Despite this remark he was sufficiently
trapped by his love— or lust--to pay her rent,** and a
letter to Brod exists in which Kafka complains that Hansi
is too indifferent to his activities to be really in love
with him. ^ Kafka was then about twenty-five years old, and
the relationship with women seems to have already taken on
its characteristically ambiguous nature, a mixture of
redemption and debasement, the possibility of freeing one
from guilt and of reasserting one's guilt. Three early
experiences, one with a French governess (perhaps imagi
nary), one with a young Swiss girl in Riva, and another
with an older woman in Zuckmantel were cherished all his
^Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 143.
6Ibid.
^Ibid., p. 145. "Sie liebt mich und es fMllt ihr
nicht ein, zu fragen, mit warn ich in Stechowitz gewesen
bin, was ich so mache, warum ich an einem Woe hen tag einen
Ausflug nicht machen kann und so weiter."
249
life for the "sweetness" of the relationship.® Except for
his last romance, Kafka seems never again to have found
intimacy with women to be satisfying in anything more than
a physical sense.
These youthful Idylls stand in contrast to another
aspect of Kafka's attitude towards women. The contradic
tion of elevation and debasement is paralleled by the con
tradiction of sweetheart and mother image in the sexual
object. In the letters which Kafka was writing to Brod at
this time, he speaks about a melancholy visit to an old
prostitute; and in the TagebUcher entry of November 19,
1913, he tells of his perverse compulsion towards this
type:
Ich gehe absichtlich durch die Gassen, wo Dimen
sind. . . . Ich will nur die dicken flltem, mit
veralteten, aber gewissermassen durch verschiedene
Beh&nge Uppigen Kleider. Eine Frau kennt mich
wahrscheinlich schon. Ich traf sie heute nachmittag,
sie war noch nicht in Berufskleidung, die Haare lagen
noch am Kopf an, sie hatte keinen Hut, eine Arbeits-
bluse wie KBchinnen, und trug irgendeinen Ballen,
vielleicht zur WKscherin. Kein Mensch h&tte etwas
Reizendes an ihr gefunden, nur ich. . . . Ich sah
zweimal nach ihr zurtlck, sie fasste auch den Blick,
aber dann lief ich ihr eigentlich davon.9
At the end of this account, he comments on it: "Die Un-
sicherheit geht gewiss von den Gedanken an F. aus." There
is an obvious connection here to Kafka's interest in older
®Brod. Franz Kafka, p. 146. See, also, Tasebtlcher.
pp. 500, 502-503, 505.------ ----------
^Tagebticher, p. 330.
250
actresses, such as Frau Tschissik and Frau Klug. Kafka
regarded their attraction for him as something perverse in
himself, and explained it as an attempt to make womanhood
inaccessible, a means of denying the availability of the
object at the same time that he asserted his love for it.
They are mother figures, and symbolize the pervasive but
forbidden elements of sexuality in the mother-figure for
the presumptuous son. The implications of this Tagebilcher
passage are a fairly decisive link between woman as sexual
object and as mother-figure:
Ich, ein junger Mensch, den man allgemein ftlr
achtzehn Jahre alt h<, erkl&rt vor den AbendgMsten
des Cafe Savoy, im Kreis der herumstehenden Kellner,
vor der Tischrunde der Schauspleler, einer dreissig-
j&hrigen Frau, die kaum jemand auch nur ftlr htlbsch
halt, die zwei Kinder von zehn und acht Jahren hat,
deren Mann neben ihr sitzt, die ein Muster von
Ehrbarkeit und Sparsamkeit ist--erkiart dieser Frau
seine Liebe, der er ganz verfalien 1st, und— jetzt
kommt das eigentlich Merkwtlrdigere, das allerdings
nlemand mehr bemerkt hlltte--verzichtete sogleich auf
die Frau, so wie er selbst dann auf sie verzichten
wtlrde, wenn sie jung und ledig wttre.10
The demands of the body were complicated, then, by
the problem that the assertion of the self involved in such
a relationship confirmed guilt, for it was the proper pre
rogative of the father or Godhead. All sex, in some vague
sense, was mother violation, the presumption of asserting
^Tagebticher, p. 148. Kafka also referred to
Milena in many of his letters to her as "Mutter Milena";
she, of course, was then younger than he was but, as Brod
and Willy Haas suggest, was quite domineering.
251
equality with the father figure. The real offense, of
course, was against him, for the mother's importance was
primarily that of her relationship to the father. Unlike
most psychologically complicated persons, then, Kafka was
not mother-oriented as such. The "Brief an den Vater" is
filled with suggestions of this unwitting role of pawn
between the father and the son. In fact, the male-female
relationship by which one might eventually be redeemed
from guilt is the most outrageous offense against the
father figure. The climax of "Das Urteil" comes about
because of the son deciding to marry; the vileness of sex
where the son is involved is brought out in the passage
where the father lifts his nightgown and obscenely mocks
the girl's luring of the youth. This fictional incident
has a nearly exact parallel in "Brief an den Vater," when
Kafka speaks of the father's mockery on hearing of the
engagement to J.W.
Du sagtest zu mir etwa: "Sie hat wahrscheinlich
irgendeine ausgesuchte Bluse angezogen, wie das die
Prager Jtldinnen verstehn, und daraufhin hast Du Dich
nattlrlich entschlossen, sie zu heiraten. Und zwar
mttglichst rasch, in einer Woehe, morgen, heute. . . .
Gibt es da keine anderen Mttglichkeiten? Wenn Du Dich
davor fllrchtest, werde ich selbst mit Dir hingehn."
Du sprachst ausfUhrlicher und deutlicher, aber ich
kann mich an die Einzelheiten nicht mehr erinnem,
vielleicht wurde mir auch ein wenig nebelhaft vor
den Augen, fast interessierte mich mehr die Mutter,
wie sie, zwar vollstttndig mit Dir einverstanden,
252
immerhin etwas vom Tisch nahm und damlt aus dem
Zimmer ging.H
This is not the only reference to the father's advice that
he frequent houses of prostitution instead of getting
married, and the mother's apparent agreement here is per
haps part of the reason why Kafka elsewhere referred to her
as the "beater" for his father's stalking of him. The
mother is allied with the father, and therefore part of
the conspiracy of guilt. Marriage is equated with sexual
equality, the positive aspect of sex is denied to him;
while the negative aspect of sex, debasement, is urged upon
him as the only thing fit for him. Kafka realized this
problem in its fullest Implications:
Hier beim Heiratsversuch trifft in meinen
Beziehungen zu Dir zweierlei schelnbar Entgegen-
gesetztes so stark wie nirgends sonst zusammen. Die
Heirat 1st gewiss die Bttrgschaft ftir die schttrfste
Selbstbefreiung und Unabhttngigkeit. Ich htttte eine
Famllle, das Httchste, was man meiner Meinung nach
erreichen kann, also auch das Httchste, das Du erreicht
hast, ich wttre Dir ebenbttrtig, alle alte und ewig
neue Schande und Tyrannei wttre bloss noch Geschichte.
Das wttre allerdings mttrchenhaft, aber darin liegt
eben schon das Fragwtlrdige. Es 1st zu viel, so viel
kann nicht erreicht werden. Es 1st so, wie wenn
^Hochzeltsyorbereitungen. pp. 213-214. The pas
sage in "Das Urteii" reads: "'well sie die Rttcke gehoben
hat,' fing der Vater zu flttten an, 'well sie die Rttcke
gehoben hat, die wlderliche Gans . . . well sie die Rficke
so und so und so gehoben hat, hast du dich an sie herange-
macht, und damit du an ihr ohne StOrung dich befrledlgen
kannst, hast du unserer Mutter Andenken geschttndet, den
Freund verraten und deinen Vater ins Bett gesteckt, damit
er sich nicht rtthren kann.*" Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa.
p. 63.
253
einer gefangen ware und er hatte nicht nur die
Absicht zu filehen, was viellciht erreichbar ware,
sondera auch noch und zwar gleichzeitig die Absicht,
das GefMngnis in ein Lustschloss ftlr sich umzu-
bauen.
... So wie wir aber sind, ist mir das Heiraten
dadurch verschlossen, dass es gerade Dein eigenstes
Gebiet ist.12
Marriage, then, is both the only chance to free one's self
from guilt and the firmest proof of guilt. The sexual
violation involved in marriage is an offense against the
mother, as the father implies in his denunciation of the
son in "Das Urteil." This personal experience of Kafka,
like all his experiences, refines into a personal symbol
ism for the stories. As he once said to Janovich, love and
filth are intermingled; the element of hope--love--is
neutralized by the vileness of sensuality. The paradox
touches even here.
"Es ist schwer . . . Der Weg zur Liebe ftthrt immer
durch Schmutz und Elend. Die Verachtung des Weges
kbnnte aber leicht zum Verlust des Zieles fdhren. Man
muss daher die verschiedenen Wegerschelnungen demUtlg
hinnehmen. Nur so kommt man an das Ziel heran--
vlelleicht."*3
In 1913, pondering the question of marrying Felice Bauer,
he defined his own situation in the very same way: "Der
Coitus als Bestrafung des Glllckes des Belsammenseins.
1 9
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, pp. 216-217
13
Janouch, p. 112.
254
MBglichst asketisch leben, asketischer als ein Junggeselle,
das 1st die einzige MBglichkeit ftlr mich, die Ehe zu
ertragen.At the same time, he identifies his situation
with that of Georg Bendemann in "Das Urteil" and confirms
the importance of the fiancee in that story in the sense
discussed earlier. "Folgerungen aus dem ’Urteil* ftlr
meinen Fall. Ich verdanke die Geschichte auf Unwegen ihr.
Georg geht aber an der Braut zugrunde."^ The assertion of
one's ego is what he saw implicit in any attempt to cul
minate a love relationship. In writing to Milena almost
a decade later, he speaks of his "usual" fear ("ach, es
gentlgt die tlbliche") that desire is nothing more than an
obscenity compulsion. It is that, he tells her, which
makes him fear a meeting with her in Gmtlnd--where, in fact,
they subsequently met and the actual break between them
occurred, on the very grounds that he had feared. This
obscenity compulsion is the external manifestation of an
inner vileness, the essential guilt.
Mein Kttrper, oft jahrelang still, wurde dann
wieder geschtlttelt bis zum Nicht-ertragen-kOnnen von
dieser Sehnsucht nach einer kleinen, nach einer ganz
bestimmten Abscheulichkeit, nach etwas leicht Wider-
lichem, Peinlichem, Schmutzigem noch in dem Besten,
waB es hier ftlr mich gab, war etwas davon, irgendein
kleiner schlechter Geruch, etwas Schwefel, etwas
^TaeebUcher. p. 315
15Ibld.
HOlie. Dleser Trleb hatte etwas vom ewigen Juden,
sinnlos gezogen, sinnlos wandemd durch eine sinnlos
schmutzige Welt.1®
The wandering Jew here has no religious implications, or
at least no orthodox ones, but it does represent an arche
typal concept of basic guilt. If love is the redemptive
element, it occurs in the midst of sensuality, the proof
that the punishment for guilt--death--is deserved. It is
the presumption of vermin, the offense of asserting the
corrupt body against the iranense infinity of the Godhead.
The creative parallel to this view exists most
clearly in a short story that is found among the "Frag-
mente.” Untitled, it begins with the sentence: "Ich war
bei den Toten zu Gast." The setting is a large vault con
taining several coffins but with room remaining for addi
tional ones: "Zwei Sttrge waren offen, es sah in ihnen aus
wie in zerwUhlten Betten, die eben verlassen worden
slnd."1^ This sets the mood for the piece, which is a
mixture of the humorously bizarre and the sensual. At a
desk sits a custodian, a powerful man who ignores the pro
tagonist even when addressed by him. The heroine of the
story is a voluptuous girl dressed as a cleaning woman,
a sister, of course, to the promiscuous cleaning woman in
^Briefe an Milena, p. 182.
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 259.
256
Der Prozess. The protagonist tries to persuade the girl,
who is becoming increasingly more intimate, to throw away
her broom. However, she insists upon keeping her job of
physical labor (cleaning the house of the dead), insists
that the bodily exertion involved is no trouble, and sug
gests that her primary allegiance is to the manager of the
establishment, from whom she derives certain benefits that
she does not intend to relinquish.
"Nein, bitte," sagte sie, "lass mich ihn behalten.
Das 8 mir das Auskehren hier keine Mtlhe mac hen kann,
siehst du doch ein, nicht? Nun also, aber ich habe
doch gewisse Vorteile davon, auf die ich nicht ver-
zichten will."*-8
In short, her position is ambiguous in the exact sense as
that of the charwoman of the Court, or Leni the housekeeper
of the lawyer in Der Prozess, of that of Frieda or Pepi in
Das Schloss. Leading him among rows of coffins, the clean
ing girl takes the protagonist to her own coffin. "Er war
mit schttnen spitzenbesetzten Kissen ausgestattet. Das
MMdchen setzte sich hlnein und lockte mich hinunter,
weniger mit dem winkenaen Zeigefinger als mit dem B l i c k . " ^
However, he tells her that his real purpose down here among
the coffins is to speak to someone, and he asks her if she
will help him to find the person for whom he is searching.
18
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 261.
19Ibid., p. 262.
257
She tries to dissuade him from his search, and the last
lines of the story decisively link her sensuality with
death: "Dann suchte sie unter dem Kissen und zog ein Hemd
heraus. 'Das ist mein Totenhemd,' sagte sie und reichte
es mir empor, 'ich trage es aber nicht.'"20 Love in
Kafka's stories is always love in a coffin; the barroom
floor seduction of Frieda in Das Schloss or the animal-like
grappling with Leni in Der Prozess are simply more dis
guised and even more expressive versions of the seduction
that seeks to prevent him from reaching the master that he
is seeking; the woman herself is a servant of the higher
authority who uses her body to prove the protagonist's
unworthiness. In a personal comment on a friend's rela
tionship with women, Kafka once summarized his view in this
fashion:
Die Frauen slnd Falken, die den Menschen von alien
Selten belauern, urn ihn in das Nur-Endliche zu relssen.
Sie verlieren ihre GefMhrlichkeit, wenn man in eine
Falle freiwillig hineinspringt. Uberwindet man aber
dlese durch GewOhnung. so ttffnen sich wieder alle
weibllchen Fangeisen.21
As with the fact of one's existence, if one could
take the sensuality of the self for granted, there would be
no danger in it. The view is a highly developed love-death
conception. If it were nothing else, the statement of
on
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 262.
21
Janouch, p. 109.
258
the stories would be interesting; however, the real tension
comes from the added element of necessity, the absolute
need for the relationship in order to burst through it to
22
a point of freedom. Womanhood is a trap, but it is the
only way one can come to grips with life. An aphorism in
"Das vierte Oktavheft" expresses the need in this way:
"Die Frau, noch schttrfer ausgedrtlckt vielleicht, die Ehe
ist der Repr&sentant des Lebens, mit dem du dich auseinan-
23
dersetzen sollst." This is true not only because of the
social involvement that it presumes, but because woman, as
the trap, is also the representative of the higher
authority. If one could overcome or avoid the assertion
of guilt that sensuality establishes, one might through the
agency of woman reach that ultimate authority which she
serves and so be reconciled with it.
Kafka, therefore, cannot accept the answer of
renunciation that the love-death dilemma has suggested to
so many others. Renunciation is suicide: "Zttllbat und
Selbstmord stehn auf tthnlicher Erkenntnisstufe, Selbstmord
22Compare the story beginning: "Worauf beruht deine
Macht?” in Hochzeitsyorbereitungen. p. 376. The central
character analyzes his power, andattributes it to his two
wives, women who are rather dirty, lazy, and sensual. The
sensuality, again, is one of fumbling on the carpet. The
story shifts until in the end it is revealed that the man
is a victim, that his apparent power is not what it had
seemed to be.
2~ * Hochzeit8vorbereitungen, p. 118.
259
und M&rtyrertod kelneswegs, vielleicht Ehe und MBrtyrer-
tod."^ Marriage may be a martyr's death, but there is no
other way. Rotpeter, after his degrading human perform
ance, returns to his half-crazed chimpanzee mate as a
return to the security of his foresaken animal nature; he
is kept in an unsatisfactory balance by it, but that is the
only balance that is possible once he became humanized.
The well-known list of the advantages and disadvantages of
marrying, written out in neat parallel columns, that Kafka
left in his personal papers is only one of the infinite
number of references to the subject. The nature of guilt
is man's vileness, the fact of it is his fragmented exist
ence, his isolation from the human community.^ The
thought of being married suggests a vision of power to
gether with a sense of despair. The bachelor, as such,
continually reasserts the guilt of the Isolate self. In
Kafka's first published book, Betrachtung, this despair is
already present in the piece "Das Ungltlck des Junggesellen,"
where he details the sense of isolation, then concludes
with the cry: "So wlrd es sein, nur dass man auch in Wirk-
lichkeit heute und sp&ter selbst dastehen wird, mit einem
^Hochzei18vorbereitungen. p. 87.
^See among other references, Hochzeitsvorbereitun-
gen. p. 238; Tagebticher, pp. 150, 180-181. "
260
K&rper und einem wirklichen Kopf, also auch einer Stim,
um mit der Hand an sie zu schlagen." The condition Is
not simply theoretical; It Is agonizingly real.
The dilemma of marriage provides the basic theme of
"Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande," where in either
manuscript the action is confined essentially to a dramati
zation of the mental dilemma of the protagonist. Eduard
Raban is trying to bring himself to his marriage, both
actually and in mind. It is not, of course, a marriage
that he is unwilling to accept; it is rather that there are
extreme difficulties in bringing one's self to it. The
difficulties impose themselves; they are not dramatic so
much as they are the tedious circumstances of everyday
life. One will not catch the train, it will go in the
wrong direction, the chance encounter with a stranger will
change everything, the bus will never start, the darkness
and rain obscure the destination. Finally, of course, one
has no secure claim upon the woman, and one is helpless to
assert such a claim:
Der Wirt konmt nicht, ihm liegt nichts an Glisten,
er ist wahrscheinlich ein unfreundlicher Mann. Oder
welss er, dass ich Bettys BrButigam bin und glbt ihm
das elnen Grund, nicht um mich zu konmen? Dazu wUrde
es auch passen, dass mich am Bahnhof der Kutscher
so lange warten Hess. Betty hat ja Ofters erzlhlt,
^Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 35.
261
wie viel sie von ltisternen MMnnem zu leiden hatte und
wie sie ihr DrUngen zurtlckweisen musste, vielleicht
ist das auch hier. . . .27
The lecherous advances of others towards the betrothed
suggest the protagonist's helplessness in making woman
hood --the instrument of reconciliation-“his own. This is
the most extreme paradox of all those advanced by Kafka.
One violates the law of the unknown Godhead by seeking to
take for one's self the source of life--woman. Since one
proves his guilt by seeking redemption, the very approach
to the woman is always an act of overt vileness, which
woman herself must view with disgust even though she is the
reason for the manifestation of vileness in him. One is
guilty for not marrying, and displays that guilt by seeking
to marry.
This paradox is the occasion for the story "Eine
Klelne Frau," which was originally grouped in the volume
named after Ein Hungerktinstler. As in so many of the
tales, no action occurs, it is simply an account of the
antipathy with which the woman regards the protagonist.
Ich habe oft dartiber nachgedacht, warum ich sie
denn so ftrgere; mag sein, dass alles an mir ihrem
Schdnheitsslnn, ihrem Gerechtigkeitsgeftlhl, ihren
Gewohnheiten, ihren uberlieferungen, ihren Hoffnungen
widerspricht, es gibt derartige einander wider*
sprechende Naturen, aber warum leidet sie so sehr
darunter? Es besteht ja gar keine Beziehung zwischen
27Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 32
262
uns, die sie zwingen wtirde, durch mich zu leiden.
Sie mUsste sich nur entschliessen, mich als vOllig
Fremden anzusehen. . . . 28
There is no actual personal relationship between them; she
regards him not as an individual but as man. He offends
her by the fact of his existence, both because he does not
approach her and because he might by his male nature
presume to do so. To this extent, the story is an amusing
study of the perversity of woman, but it is not there that
Kafka puts the emphasis of his story. Rather, he assumes
that there is an underlying validity in the woman's point
of view. The guilt of the man towards womanhood, as
exemplified in this angry stranger, is his real concern.
The protagonist causes her to suffer by the fact of his
existence; whether he has no choice in the matter does not
eliminate the guilt. She need not feel it but she does,
and--more important--he feels her suffering and sees it as
a judgment. Thus, the guilt of the individual becomes
analyzed in a parable based on the absurdity of it. As
usual, the argument ends by reversing itself.
Die bffentlichkeit wird nicht ihre Rolle tiber-
nehmen; die Offentlichkeit wird niemals so unendlich
viel an mir auszusetzen haben, auch wenn sie mich
unter ihre stMrkste Lupe nlnmt. . . . Wenn ich aber
auch nicht durch besondere Brauchbarkeit ausgezeichnet
sein sollte, werde ich doch auch gewiss nicht gegen-
teilig auf fallen; nur ftlr sie, ftlr ihre fast weiss
^Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 221.
263
strahlenden Augen bin ich so, niemanden andern wird
sie davon tiberzeugen kttnnen. Also kfJnnte ich in
dieser Hinsicht vbllig beruhigt sein? Nein, doch
nicht; denn wenn es wirklich bekannt wird, dass ich
sie geradezu krank mache durch mein Benehmen, und
einige Aufpasser, eben die fleissigsten Nachrichten-
Uberbringer, sind schon nahe daran, es zu durchschauen
oder sie stellen sich wenigstens so, als durchschauten
sie es, und es kommt die Welt und wird mir die Frage
stellen, warum ich denn die arme kleine Frau durch
meine Unverbesserlichkeit quBle und ob ich sie etwa
bis in den Tod zu treiben beabsichtige und wann ich
endlich die Vemunft und das einfache mens chi iche
Mitgeftihl haben werde, damit aufzuhBren--wenn mich die
Welt so fragen wird, es wird schwer sein, ihr zu
antworten.2"
While he denies that he is anything to her, he admits that
his guilt is somehow not to be denied. The little woman
is, in his own life, Felice Bauer, J.W., Milena, and all
the others with whom he found himself contemplating a
partnership for life. His use of the stranger here is an
assertion that, logically, there is no reason why the
various women should have considered him obligated to
marry, but the anonymity does not prove his point. In
fact, he refutes himself. As he says on several occasions
in the Tagebtlcher regarding the two women to whom he was
formally engaged, he has brought the women to this point in
the relationship and so is guilty against them. Either
choice is guilt, but his failure to marry is the guilt of
weakness and he considers himself as earning the contempt
of women because of it.
^ ErzMhlungen und kleine Prosa, pp. 222-223.
264
This inability to hold the respect of women and his
helplessness in making the woman his own against the
lecherous advance of brute personalities is a major part
of the novels and a symbolic situation frequently encoun
tered in the stories. Klara iollunder, in Amerika. who is
fondled by the elderly Herr Green and who keeps the
athletic young tutor Mack in her private bedroom, wrestles
with Karl Rossmann and almost strangles him, treating him
throughout with contempt and jeering laughter. (Brunelda,
the mistress of the brutal Delamarche, is a near parallel
to the female monster enveloping the stove, described
earlier.) In "Blumfeld," the elderly bachelor's position,
ironically, is that of supervising a group of women. The
assistants, like those in Das Schloss, are supposed to help
him in his duties but actually confide in and conspire with
the women, apparently against Blumfeld. In "Ein Landarzt,"
the brutal groom seizes Rosa and violates her while the
doctor is whirled helplessly away by the powerful horses,
a punishment for his own failure towards the girl:
Mein Pferd ist verendet, und da ist niemand im
Dorf, der mir seines leiht. Aus dem Schweinestall
muss ich mein Gespann ziehen. . . . So ist es . . .
mit Hilfe meiner Nachtglocke martert mich der ganze
Bezirk, aber dass ich diesmal auch noch Rosa hingeben
musste, dieses schttne MSdchen, das jahrelang, von mir
kaum beachtet, in meinem Haus lebte. . . .’o
3fl
ErzMhlunaen und kleine Prosa. p. 137.
265
That was his failure, and he symbolically presented her to
the groom when he told her to harness the powerful beasts.
("'Hilf ihm,' sagte ich, und das willige M&dchen eilte,
31
dem Knecht das Geschirr des Wagens zu reichen.") It ex
plains also why, at the end of the story, his symbolic
death having been enacted in the bed with the wounded boy,
the horses are no longer powerful but beasts weary as him
self, trudging hopelessly through the darkness. It is a
story in which defeat, occasioned by the failure of the
male to assert himself and so save himself, is a beginning
point. The groom that rips Rosa from the doctor's para
lyzed fingers is the father that asserts his power to drive
the fiancee from Georg Bendc-rann in MDas Urteil."
One finds the same situation in the story of a man
attending the theatre with his wife. Just as an actor in
the play raises his dagger against his wife (a rather
obvious symbol, as we shall see subsequently), the couple
realize that there is a thin man lying on the balustrade
against which they are leaning. He tells the protagonist
that he is an admirer of the wife and means to have her.
The protagonist tries to roll him off the balustrade but is
unable to do so; the man laughs contemptuously: "Lass das,
du kleiner Dummer, entkr&fte dich nicht vorzeitig, der
^^ErzBhlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 135.
266
Kampf beginnt erst und wird allerdings damit enden, dass
o 9
deine Frau meine Sehnsucht erftillt."J^ The protagonist,
unable to dislodge his antagonist, decides to take his
knife and cut open the padding on the balustrade so that
the man will drop over the edge. "Aber nun konnte ich mein
Messer nicht finden." He is about to dash off to look for
it when his wife, rummaging in her purse, brings out a
tiny, mother-of-pearl knife that is useless. The story,
read in the light of our previous discussion, obviously
needs no further interpretation. The protagonist here is
unable to hold the woman and is guilty towards her because
of his weakness. The authority figure is always the master
of the women in one's life in the tales of Kafka.
The dilemma of guilt, finally, is responsible for
the element of horror in these stories. Brod has pointed
out that the nature of horror is always reluctant in
Kafka's work; even in a story such as "In der Strafkolonie"
this is true. It is the worst form of horror and certainly
the most profound; horror for its own sake always remains
external. There is no external reality in these stories,
just as there was none in his life. The report that
Kafka wrote for the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute
in 1909 and which Brod salvaged as an example of style
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 312.
267
is a good example. Brief, technical and precise, the
report has as its subject an industrial spindle used in
cutting. However, the final impact of the report is that
of a sense of horror as to the brutality of the device, not
simply because it is dangerous but because it is insensi
tive to the human pain that is so important a part of it.33
Brod also includes a letter from Kafka in the Biography,
citing it for its humour, in which Kafka describes the
world from his desk.
In meinen vier Bezirkshauptmannschaften fallen--
von meinen Ubrigen Arbeiten abgesehen--wie betrunken
Leute von den Gertlsten herunter, in die Maschinen
hinein, alle Balken kippen um, alle Bttschungen lockem
sich, alle Leitem rutschen aus, was man hinaufgibt,
das stfirzt hinunter, was man hinuntergibt, darllber
stdrzt man selbst. Und man bekommt Kopfschmerzen von
diesen jungen Mttdchen in den Porzellanfabriken, die
unaufhdrlich mit Tilrmen von Geschirr sich auf die
Treppen werfen.^^
The letter is humorous, but more significantly it is a per
ception of a hostile world, where the inanimate rises up
to assault the individual. It reminds us of the view of
external nature that we get in a story such as "Beschrei-
bung eines Kampfes," a world in which the individual lives
in terror because all things are informed of his guilt and
rise against him. In the "Brief an den Vater," Kafka says
33Brod, Franz Kafka, p. 103.
34Ibid., p. 108.
268
that he traces his fear back to the experience in early
childhood when his father, annoyed by his asking for water
during the night, locked him out o * \ an ouer1 . balcony. His
complete and irrevocable insignificance-‘his verminous
nature— was, he says, established in him at this time. The
family became a microcosm of human dilemma, with the father
as supreme judge and himself as the accused. In writing
years later to Milena, he echoed the thought, telling how
when he was a child he once committed a minor offense.
When it went unnoticed by adults, he began to view his
guilt as ambiguous. Then he realized that neither the
guilt nor knowledge of it were necessarily doubtful. Per
haps he was just too unimportant--which compounded the
guilt. Indifference, therefore, is just further proof of
verminous guilt. °
The thought leads Kafka to that most basic of con
tradictions, original sin, with the difference added that
he saw the full implications of the contradiction. Guilt
and Innocence are interjoined, not opposing. In the trial
that life represents, it is futile and irrelevant to prove
one's innocence, for if one were to do so, it would not
1C
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 167. This personal
experience is, of course, the origin of the similar ex
perience of Karl Rossmann at the hands of Delamarche in
Amerika.
^Briefe an Milena, p. 232.
269
negate the guilt. Just as love and filth are intermixed,
so are guilt and innocence. This is the meaning of that
passage in the Tagebilcher. where he speaks of the innocent
Rossmann and the guilty K., executed without distinction in
the end, the guilty one pushed down more gently perhaps.^
Whatever mercy might exist, exists for the guilty for he
has suffered more. Innocence is irrelevant, to be equated
with ignorance. The guilt is not a loss of innocence but
exists without relationship, for its own sake.
Bel einem gewissen Stande der Selbsterkenntnis und
bei sonstigen ftlr die Beobachtung gUnstigen Begleit-
umst&nden wird es regelmttssig gescnehn milssen, dass
man sich abscheullch findet. Jeder Masstab des Guten—
mbgen die Meinungen darttber noch so verschieden sein--
wird zu gross erscheinen. Der Schmutz, den man finden
wird, wird um seiner selbst willen da sein, man wird
erkennen, dass man triefend von dieser Belastung auf
die Welt gekommen ist und durch sie unkenntlich oder
allzu gut erkennbar wieder abgehn wird. Dieser
Schmutz wird der unterste Boden sein, den man finden
wird, der unterste Boden vird nicht etwa Lava ent-
halten, sondem Schmutz.™
The filth is guilt, is the nature of man as vermin, is the
grossness of the purely sensual, is--finally--the mortality
into which we are bom. Birth established it, life proves
it, and death confirms it. Even the positive is proof of
it, even love and happiness. As Kafka wrote in the midst
of his romance with J.W., "Leld und Freude, Schuld und
^Tagebilcher, p. 480
38Ibid.. p. 462.
270
Unschuld wie zwei unlOsbar ineinander versehr&nkte H&nde,
man mUsste sie durchschneiden durch Fleisch, Blut und
Knochen.
This curious blend of filth and innocence existed
everywhere for him; even in describing what would be objec
tive experience for anyone else. But there is no objec
tivity for Kafka; his Tagebticher portrait of the wonder
working rabbi, for instance, gives equal attention to the
physically dirty old man and the purity of his tempera
ment.^ The mixture of innocence and guilt, purity and
filth is what we see in the sick child in "Ein Landarzt."
The boy is both healthy and dying. At first glance by the
doctor, the boy seems healthy enough, but on closer examin
ation he proves to be sick unto death, bearing an incurable
wound in which disgusting maggots feed. The doctor cannot
cure him, despite the boy's whispered entreaty; he himself
is put into the bed, for his own situation is no different.
He lies there helplessly, incapable of curing the boy or
himself for no cure is possible. The only alternative is
^ TagebUcher, p. 539.
^Ibid.. pp. 478-479. "Schmutzig und rein,
EigentUmlichkeit intensiv denkender Menschen. Kratzt sich
am Bartansatz, schneuzt durch die Hand auf den Fussboden,
greift mit den Fingem in die Speisen— wenn er aber ein
Weilchen die Hand auf dem Tisch liegen lMsst, sieht man das
Weiss der Haut, wie man ein ilhnliches Weiss nur in Vor-
stellungen der Kindheit gesehn zu haben glaubt. Damals
allerdings waren auch die Eltem rein."
271
a clandestine retreat back to his own house, a disgraceful
escape through the window, but the security of his own room
is now far away. His guilt towards Rosa brings him, via
the powerful beasts, to see the vile wound and suffer the
humiliation of being placed in the sufferer's bed; from now
on, he will plod wearily through the cold darkness,
alienated from the security of his retreat by the knowledge
of his own guilt. He becomes, to use Kafka's own descrip
tion of himself, a wandering Jew whose expiation is eternal,
for no redemption--no cure— exists.^ Guilt is manifest,
the contesting of it with innocence is irrelevant. Kafka
from the beginning assumes that "meine Schuld zweifellos
1st, wenn auch nicht so gross, wie sie der Vater dar-
/ o
stellt," contrasting the universal with the particular.
We must, however distasteful, accept the flat statement in
the story "In der Strafkolonie," made by the young officer
in charge of the machine, as being in accordance with
Kafka's own view— "Der Grundsatz, nach dem ich entscheide,
1st: Die Schuld 1st inwner zweifellos."^
As his affair with Milena dimmed, Kafka began to
^Again, the story reflects the inadequacy of read
ing Kafka as an author concerned with the persecution of
Jewry in any final sense; it is persecuted mankind that
the Wandering Jew most significantly embodies.
^ Tagebttcher, pp. 449-450.
^ Erztthlunaen und kleine Prosa. p. 187.
272
seek ways out of it, and it is possible that she did the
same; however, the most obvious way--the guilt of the
relationship--he stubbornly refused to consider. Guilt, as
he put it, is not a matter of argument like a mathematical
proposition.
Aber eine der unsinnigsten Sachen auf diesem
Erdenrund 1st die erste Behandlung der Schuldfrage,
so scheint es mir wenigstens . . . dass man dartiber
verhandeln zu ktJnnen glaubt, wie fiber irgendeine
gewbhnliche rechnerische Angelegenheit, die so klar
1st, dass sie Konsequenzen fflr das t&gliche Verhalten
erglbt, das verstehe ich gar nicht. Gewiss bist du
schuld, aber dann ist auch Dein Mann schuld and dann
wieder Du und dann wieder er, wie eben bei einem
menschlichen Zusammenleben es nicht anders sein kann,
und die Schuld h&uft sich an in unendlicher Reihe bis
zur grauen Erbstlnde. . . . ^
On another occasion, Kafka specifically stated his belief
that guilt--or, rather, sin--was synonymous with death.
Mortality is the toll that the universe collects, he said,
giving his own version of the Biblical warning that death
is the wages for sin. "Die Stlnde ist die Wurzel jeder
Krankheit. Das ist der Grund der Sterblichkeit."^ when
we carry this view to the fictional victims in the stories,
it implies that the old commander of "In der Strafkolonie"
is a Jehovah of Mosaic justice, that "Das Urteil" is not
simply an account of a faithful son persecuted by his
^Briefe an Milena, pp. 216-217.
^Janouch, p. 88.
273
insane father, and that "Die Verwandlung" is a metamor
phosis into true rather than distorted form. The guilt
exists by virtue of the fact that one is alive. God, or
the parents, or all three of these in one, assert the
guilt of the protagonist by giving him life. Gregor of
"Die Verwandlung" is trapped in his job--in life--because
of the debt that the parents have incurred with his
superior. They are responsible for his guilt in giving
him life, that is, mortality; but the guilt nonetheless is
his own and he cannot evade it. As we have seen earlier,
self-consciousness--the awareness of one's distinct
identity, as isolated from the anonymous mass--is the de
structive element, and Gregor is turned into the verminous
image of himself. It becomes a detailed acceptance of his
verminous nature--his helplessness, his befouling of the
universe by the mere fact of his existence, his betrayal of
his parents and sister. Beyond that is the more explicit
guilt of presumption; by coming into life, growing into
manhood and, ironically, by taking over his father's debt
to the supervisor, Gregor displaces the father. The
punishment that proves the guilt— his death— restores the
vitality of the authority figure.
Since guilt is proved by the existence of the
punishment, the one possibility that seems to be left to us
274
is that of the choice or opportunity of evading this knowl
edge. If one could retain the innocence or ignorance of
the child, the happiness of the young dog in "Forschungen"
before he first hears the awesome music, then the proof of
guilt--mortality--would not operate as proof. However,
this solace is denied us, for instruction exists in a form
that cannot be avoided. Suffering is the means whereby we
learn the truth of death. The story "In der Strafkolonie"
is an illustration of this point. The prisoner is an
ignorant, vile sensualist who is unaware of "the sentence"
against him. There is no opportunity for defense because
there is no defense, only the struggling attempt at ration
alization that any such attempted defense would be. The
ignorant prisoner will learn the sentence only by means of
his body; that is, by suffering. The lesson of suffering,
the sentence, is, of course, "Ehre deinen VorgesetztenJ
It is the punishment for presumption; the message that
suffering brings to us is to submit, to accept the final
inevitability which, as with the machine, is the death in
which the suffering ends.
However, in this story, the customary ambiguity
apparently exists. The machine fails, due to a certain
lack of faith, and the officer— who is faithful--places
^ErzMhlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 186.
275
himself under it to receive a sentence: "Sei gerecht!"
It might seem that this is a refutation of the punishment
he has imposed upon others. However, the officer does not,
even in the end, believe himself wrong; his sentence does
not have to be that of learning to submit through suffer
ing. He believes in this truth totally; his personal sen
tence, therefore, is to recognize the same fate for him
self. Guilt, including his own, is never to be doubted.
The symbol of his guilt is his failure to maintain the
machine, and as with all guilt there are no extenuating
circumstances. The failure of the new commander to approve
replacement parts cannot be offered as defense, for there
is no defense for guilt. The failure of the machine itself
is not refutation of either the machine or the officer, but
final proof of the guilt exemplified by failure. Even
then, it goes directly to the final lesson--death. Perhaps
the officer, who already accepts the truth of suffering,
does not need to learn it.
In the description of the machine's function that
the officer tells the explorer, the climax is that of the
prisoner's ecstatic knowledge as he learns his sentence of
submission with his body. The face of the sufferer lights
up as the lesson of suffering is finally memorized by every
nerve of the body. One knows for the first time a truth--
submission— and a reality--death. It is the sixth hour
of ecstasy:
276
"Verstand geht dent Blbdesten auf. Um die Augen
beginnt es. Von hier aus verbreitet es sich. Ein
Anblick, der einen verftlhren kttnnte, sich mit unter
die Egge zu legen. Es geschieht ja weiter niches,
der Mann f&ngt bloss an, die Schrift zu entziffem,
er spitze den Mund, als horche er.”^7
For the witnesses, the experience is a revelation of
Justice achieved: “Wie nahmen wir alle den Ausdruck der
Verklflrung von dem gemarterten Gesicht, wie hielten wir
unsere Wangen in den Schein dieser endlich erreichten und
schon vergehenden Gerechtigkeit."48 The protagonist of the
story is repelled by it, but he pays what is in effect a
visit of tribute to the old commander's grave. In one
sense, the story is a parable of Justice in the old Mosaic
form, in disrepute today, when humanitarianism denies its
validity. The explorer is conditioned by this contemporary
attitude--for the first half of the story he is one of the
most commonplace and least subjective of all Kafka's
characters— but this is not his final view. The experience
is a vision for him, too; he has a glimpse behind the
facade of humanistic rationale to the primitive truth of
the old commander, the doctrine of suffering and death as
revelation. It is a primal world that he views, a world
that is not really gone, only denied. What the commander
^ Erztthlungen und kleine Pros a, pp. 192-193.
48Ibid., p. 197.
277
stood for is not really dead, only no longer honored. A
legend exists that he will return, like Barbarossa or the
second coming of Christ; and he has, it is whispered, still
many secret disciples. One of them, it must be concluded,
was Franz Kafka. That suffering teaches one to submit is
the bitter conclusion he himself draws in the last chapter
of Der Prozess. Josef K. is walking along with his execu
tioners :
Aber K. lag auch nichts daran, ob es bestimnt
FrMulein BUrstner war, bloss die Wertlosigkeit seines
Widerstandes kam ihm gleich zum Bewusstsein. Es war
nichts Heldenhaftes, wenn er widerstand, wenn er
jetzt den Herren Schwierigkeiten bereitete, wenn er
jetzt in der Abwehr noch den letzten Schein des Lebens
zu geniessen versuchte. . . . "Ich wollte immer mit
zwanzig Httnden in die Welt hineinfahren und ilber-
dies zu einem nicht zu billigenden Zweck. Das war
unrichtig. Soli ich nun zeigen, dass nicht einmal der
einj&hrige Prozess mich belehren konnte? Soil ich
als ein begriffsstlitziger Mensch abgehen? Soil man
mir nachsagen dtlrfen, dass ich am Anfang des Prozesses
ihn beenden wollte und jetzt, an seinem Ende, ihn
wieder beginnen will? Ich will nicht, dass man das
sagt. Ich bin dankbar dafiir, dass man mir auf diesem
Weg diese halbstummen, verstttndnislosen Herren mit-
gegeben hat und dass man es mir ttberlassen hat, mir
selbst das Notwendlge zu sagen.
As one might expect, Kafka had two views on this
theme of recognizing the lesson of life and accepting
death. In discussing the religious writings of India with
Janouch, he spoke of them as both seductive and horrible.
Actually, they have a distinct relevance to his own dilemma,
LQ
Per Prozess, pp. 268-269.
278
in that they apparently answer his own need. By rejecting
life, they gain ascendency over the elements of life.
"fAlle diese Yogis und Zauberer beherrschen das naturver-
haftete Leben nicht durch gldhende Liebe zur Freiheit,
sondern durch einen unausgesprochenen, eisigen Hass des
Lebens.*"-^ If one expects nothing from the world, there
is no investment to be lost. This is seductive in that
through the hatred of life, one achieves a form of freedom.
The answer that is suggested is the acceptance of death.
By relinquishing in this fashion, one bribes the universe,
pays for one's guilt and so should be reconciled. In other
words, death-infatuation becomes a possible answer. Kafka
on certain occasions inferred that this relinquishment had
a strong attraction to him personally, and once went so
far as to say: M,Ich habe zu allem ja gesagt. So wird das
Leid zum Zauber und der Tod--der ist nur ein Bestandteil
des silssen Lebens.'"■**■ Both the Tagebttcher and Brod
testify to a suicide intent in 1914, when Kafka was forced
to spend his time at his father's factory, and he sometimes
tried to provide a rationale for accepting death. "Dem Tod
also wttrde ich mich anvertrauen. Rest eines Glaubens.
52
Rttckkehr zum Vater. Grosser VersOhnungstag." As the last
^Ojanouch, p. 49.
51Ibid., p. 108.
^Tagebttcher. p. 534.
279
word suggests, atonement and reconciliation are one in this
conception.
As we have already seen in the discussion of "In
der Strafkolonie," then, death-infatuation provides one of
the important building blocks of meaning in some of the
major stories. Generally, it comes in this fashion; that
is, as the culmination of suffering. Georg Bendemann,
sentenced to death by drowning by his father, grasps at
the railing to leap over, "wie ein Hungriger die Nahrung."
This form of death--drowning--is the same as that used in
Beschreibung eines Kampfes as a symbol of engulfment of the
presumptuous individual by the universe. As a symbol it
has distinctive merit, but it is too final in one sense.
Kafka generally preferred the knife as a more suggestive
and more subtly significant symbol of death-infatuation.
In the first place, it implies a sacrificial death; also,
it is a more personal mode of execution, more deliberate
and more clearly a stroke of fate.
Fairly early in the TagebUcher, one encounters a
passage that recalls the sixth hour ecstasy of "In der
Strafkolonie." It was written on November 2, 1911. "Heute
frtih zum erstenmal seit langer Zelt wieder die Freude an
der Vorstellung eines in meinem Herzen gedrehten Messers."^
^ Tagebttcher, p. 137.
280
One certainly cannot ignore this personal note in view of
the ending of Der Prozess. In a fragment that seems to be
related to that novel, although it has never been collected
with it by Brod, one sees the knife-death as the climax of
a "Sonderbarer Gerichtsgebrauch.Then, too, in speaking
of his love to Milena, Kafka used the same image of the
knife as painful ecstasy (the suffering that teaches the
necessity of death): "Liebe ist, dass Du mir das Messer
bist, mit dem ich in mir wUhle."^ This is his old con
cept, expressed through the knife symbol, of the repulsive
attraction, the love-death theme of guilt and redemption
interwoven.
The most obvious of the short stories that involve
this ecstasy of the knife in the heart is "Ein Brudermord."
Schmar, the murderer (the alienated man) destroys Wese, the
married man (the man redeemed from alienation). Meanwhile
Pallas (a synonym for God), the rich man, watches without
making any attempt to interfere. However, he promptly
accuses Schmar of the crime afterward. Schmar kills Wese
with the cry that he--Wese--will never see Julia (J.W.?)
again; that is, he has been cut off from the redemptive
(or the sensual) figure. The murder is an ecstatic rite
for Schmar:
• ^Tagebticher, pp. 509-510.
55Briefe an Milena, p. 225.
281
"Getan," sagt Schmar und wlrft das Messer, den
UberflUssigen blutigen Ballast, gegen die n&chste
Hausfront. "Seligkeit des Mordes! Erlelchterung,
BeflUgelung durch das Fllessen des fremden Blutes!
Wese, alter Nachtschatten, Freund, Bierbankgenosse,
versickert im dunklen Strassengrund. Warum bist du
nicht elnfach elne mlt Blut gefUllte Blase, dass
ich micht auf dich setzte und du verschwtlndest ganz
und gar."
The title of the story declares that a condition of
brotherhood or, abstractly, self-identification exists
between the murderer and the victim. This is supported by
Schmar's cries of endearment to Wese--"Freund, Bierbank
genosse." The murder, then, is a killing of the self, or
of one aspect of the self; the essential difference between
the two is that Wese is married, Schmar is a bachelor. One
can read the story as the destruction of one's only possi
bility of happiness, of the identification with the physi
cal that woman always evokes, or of the token murder of the
self in the friend as death-infatuation. The latter view
is supported by Schmar's waiting happily afterward to be
taken into custody so that he may pay for the murder.
Pallas is, so to speak, a passive accomplice in the murder,
although he cries out against Schmar as an eye witness to
the crime after it is done. The relationship between them
is clearly shown in the moment when they confront each
other. Pallas is a malicious God, who approves the deed
-^Erztthlungen und kleine Prosa. p. 163.
282
as proof of Schmar*s guilt, while Schmar, perhaps, commits
the murder partly in compliance with Pallas's wishes.
Pallas, alles Gift durcheinanderwtirgend in seinetn
Leib, steht in seiner zweiflilgelig aufspringenden
Haustlir. "Schmar! Schmar! ales bemerkt, nichts
Ubersehen." Pallas und Schmar prtlfen einander, Pallas
befriedigt1 s, Schmar kommt zu keinem Ende.”
Pallas approves the verification of the guilt, while Schmar
remains undecided as to its result. Whether his death wish
has accomplished its purpose remains ambiguous. The knife
in the body of the victim produces the ecstasy that Kafka
described in his Tagebilcher, but one does not know whether
self-destruction is final atonement.
The fascination of the knife in one's body was
used as a unit of meaning as early as Beschreibung eines
Kampfes, where it provides an important part of the final
statement. In the first section of the story, the pro
tagonist anticipates Kafka's TagebUcher note. He is walk
ing along with his new acquaintance after leaving the
party. The other man comments on the time, and abruptly
the protagonist decides that the man is trying to send him
away, although for some reason he believes it necessary
^ Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 164. Charles
Neider, The Frozen Sea, explains the story thus: '"Fratri
cide' is a blood-curdling description of murder. Its
symbolic meaning is plain: in this world there is no
brotherhood and man murders man literally and spiritually,
out of sheer lust of killing," p. 81. There is, of course,
no symbolic meaning at all in such a reading.
283
to stay with him. Nothing happens, but the protagonist
thinks:
Jetzt kam offenbar der Mord. Ich werde bei ihm
bleiben und er wird das Messer, dessen Griff er in
def Tasche schon halt, an seinem Rock in die Htthe
ftihren und dann gegen mich. Es ist unwahrscheinlich,
dass er sich wundem wird, wie einfach die Sache
ist, aber vielleicht doch, wer kann das wissen.
Ich werde nicht schreien, ich werde ihn nur
anschauen. solange die Augen es aushalten. "Nun?"
sagte er.58
Only later, with the approach of a policeman, does the pro
tagonist feel fear, thinking to himself that his end has
come whether he is stabbed or runs away--a typical Kafkian
choice. He does run, though from a realistic view, it is
obviously unnecessary.
This anticipated stabbing is balanced at the end of
the story when, after a long absence, he is rejoined by the
new acquaintance. The man tells the protagonist that his
apparently passionate love life is a doubtful thing, that
he fears the excitement of it. He confides, in other
words, his inability to achieve salvation and admits that
he has the gravest apprehensions about himself. The pro
tagonist tells him that he will have to kill himself, and
the acquaintance answers heatedly: "Sie leben aber. Sie
tttten sich nicht. Niemand liebt Sie. Sie erreichen
nichts. Den n&chsten Augenblick kbnnen Sie nicht
CO
Beschreibung eines Kampfes, pp. 21-22.
284
beherrschen. . . . Lieben kttnnen Sie nicht, nichts erregt
SQ
Sie ausser Angst.However, the protagonist smiles and,
leaning over, whispers: "Ich bin verlobt, ich gestehe es."
With these words, he completely vanquishes the acquaint*
ance. The other man, unable to realize the salvation o£
love for a woman, is defeated symbolically by the pro
tagonist's engagement. Taking a knife from his pocket, he
plunges it into his arm in a token suicide, directing
against himself the death that the protagonist has antici
pated early in the novel. Excluded, like Schmar, from
redemptive love, he sees death as the alternative, in this
story, too, there is a common identification of the charac
ters. As mentioned in our earlier discussion of Beschrei
bung. the protagonist seems to be all of the characters
simultaneously. Now, after the acquaintance stabs himself,
the protagonist hastens to give h_m aid and says: "Du
Lieber, Lieber, . . . meinetwegen hast du dich v e r l e t z t . " ^
Yet, it was he who had a few moments earlier told the
acquaintance that he would have to kill himself because of
his inability to love.
In general, the act of suicide or death-infatuation
is tied always to one's guilt as manifest in the basic
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 63.
60Ibld.. p. 65.
285
nature. The obligation of the man who accepts his ver
minous identity is to destroy himself and so no longer con
tinue to inconvenience or befoul the world. The story "Ein
Traum" (the protagonist here is named Josef K.) is based
solely on the theme of that obligation. Walking through a
cemetery, Josef K. finds an open grave. An artist is
working on a tomb stone, writing in golden letters "Hier
ruht. ..." Josef K. waits eagerly for the man to con
tinue, but he stops and finally looks helplessly at Josef K.
Infected by the man's unhappiness, K. too begins to feel
miserable, for the artist's sake. Finally the artist can
wait no longer, and stamping angrily on the loose mound
beside the grave, he inscribes a large J.
Endlich verstand ihn K.; ihn abzubitten war keine
Zeit mehr; mit alien Fingera grub er in die Erde, die
fast kelnen Wlderstand leistete; alles schien vorbe-
reitet; nur zum Scheln war eine dUnne Erdkruste auf-
gerichtet; gleich hinter ihr bffnete sich mit
abschtlssigen Wttnden ein grosses Loch, in das K., von
einer sanften Strttmung auf den Rticken gedreht,
versank.°1
Enchanted by the sight, he watches his name grow in great
flourishes across the stone. The story is completely ex
plained on the surface; one must fill the waiting grave,
the impending death sentence that cannot be avoided. To
delay is to inconvenience the world.
^Erzllhlungen und kleine Prosa, p. 166.
286
While this death-infatuation is one view that Kafka
frequently utilized in his work, it is no more final than
any other theme. Opposed to it, by Kafka himself, is the
concept of death as a defeat, not an answer to the search
for self-reality. The seductiveness of Indian religious
writings, for example, he counters with the contention that
pessimism itself is sin.^ jjy believing in mortality as
such, we sin and so prove again our guilt. To surrender
ourselves to death is to accept that which is inacceptable,
to grant ultimate validity to the incomprehensible. In the
Tagebileher one finds the following rejection of a voluntary
relinquishing of life:
Sterben hiesse nichts anderes, als ein Nichts dem
Nichts hinzugeben, aber das wttre dem Gefllhl unmbglich,
denn wie kttnnte man sich auch nur als Nichts mit
Bewusst8ein dem Nichts hingeben und nicht nur einem
leeren Nichts, sondem einem brausenden Nichts, dessen
Nichtigkeit nur in seiner Unfassbarkeit besteht.63
One must struggle, therefore. There is no easy solution,
and that eliminates the validity of the death-wish. As
Kafka suggests in the above quotation, the only referents
of the self or of the infinite are those of the conscious
self, and it is in the realm of life that the search goes
on. One can evade the dilemma neither by death nor by
obtuseness; if one pretends not to care, then it would seem
^^Janouch, p. 74.
^ Tageblicher. p. 337.
287
as though he might escape, at least temporarily, as
Josef K. tries to do in Der Prozess. However, one does
care, and so one must turn to accept the call of authority
when the enigmatic words of judgment are uttered, as in the
Cathedral chapter of that novel. The short story f,Die
Truppenaushebung,tells of the man who attempts will
fully to evade the call. He is whipped (as with the beasts
of the forests), must hand the instrument of his punishment
to the figure of authority, and even then will not be among
those who are chosen to serve. Finally, one has no control
over events ("Und wenn man wirklich die Ereignisse einmal
durch sein Wort beeinflusst, so wird daraus nur Schaden
entstehen . . . one's only definite role can be that
of humility. However, this is not so futile as it might
seem for it provides one with a link to mankind, which is
perhaps the end desired. Aphorism 106 of "Betrachtungen
Uber SUnde, Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg" is one of
Kafka's few expressions of genuine hope:
Die Demut gibt jedem, auch dem einsam Verzwei-
felnden, das st&rkste Verhtiltnis zum Mitmenschen,
und zwar sofort, allerdings nur bei vOlliger und
andauender Demut. Sie kann das deshalb, well sie
die wahre Gebetsprache ist, gleichzeitig Anbetung
und festeste Verbindung. Das VerhMltnis zum Mit
menschen ist das Verh<nis des Strebens; aus dem
Gebet wird die Kraft fUr das Streben g e h o l t . ° 6
^Beschreibung eines Kampfes, p. 327.
^ Briefe an Milena, p. 255.
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 53.
288
It Is no final answer; it is not even hope, but it is a
source of hope. The very absence of that final definition
in death means that one cannot accept it. One may not be
permitted freedom, but the question of freedom exists.
"Atlas konnte die Meinung haben, er dUrfe, wenn er wolle,
die Erde fallen lassen und sich wegschleichen; mehr als
diese Meinung aber war ihm nicht erlaubt,"^ writes Kafka,
and the statement refutes despair even as it suggests it.
The man waiting in front of his door in "Vor dem Gesetz"
does not see possibility denied up to the moment of his
death.
Guilt is not to be questioned, and so there is no
probability of exoneration from it. However, as Titorelli
tells Josef K. in Der Prozess. this does not exhaust the
logical possibilities. One of the lessons that Rotpeter
gives his former masters in "Ein Bericht fUr eine Akademie"
is that while one may lose all hope of freedom, one can
still search for a way out. Not exoneration, then, but
indefinite postponement or ostensible acquittal--"die Ver-
schleppung und die scheinbare Freisprechung," as Titorelli
phrases it. Rotpeter and Bucephalus cram their individual
identities into the accepted social image as a way out.
Schmar destroys himself, the animal of the burrow pulls
^ Hochzeitsvorbereitungen. p. 107.
289
his moss covering over his head, the Hungerktlnstler and the
soaring dogs deny their own physical existence, the young
dog of "Forschungen" ends with a study of religion on
purely appreciative grounds, for he haa no hope of finding
answer in it. In all of these attempts, one is thrown back
to the inescapable self, finally; even Rotpeter cannot lose
himself in the desired anonymity of the community. One
stands alone, and this in itself is enough to make death
seductive. However, one searches for an answer in life
and, failing to escape the isolation of self, his search
becomes an attempt to find someone who will intercede. If
one cannot escape through the individual personality in
which one is trapped, perhaps he can at least find in
definite postponement through advocates.
For the Kafkian protagonist, all life is a search
for advocates, every building is a law court, every inci
dent a preliminary hearing in the great legal procedure.
One never knows if he has advocates, for the face of the
world appears either hostile or indifferent always. The
short story "FUrsprecher" is an almost perfect summary of
the situation of the protagonists in Der Prozess and Das
Schloss:
Wenn es aber kein Gericht war, warum forschte ich
dann hier nach einem FUrsprecher? Weil ich Uberall
einen FUrsprecher suchte, Uberall ist er ntttig, ja
man braucht ihn weniger bei Gericht als anderswo, denn
das Gericht spricht sein Urteil nach dem Gesetz,
sollte man annehmen. Sollte man annehmen, dass es
290
hiebei ungerecht oder leichtfertig vorgehe, wSre ja
kein Leben mbglich, man muss zum Gericht das Zutrauen
haben, dass es der Majestttt des Gesetzes freien Raum
gibt, denn das ist seine einzige Aufgabe, im Gesetz
selbst aber ist alles Anklage, FUrspruch und Urteil,
das selbstUndige Sicheinmischen eines Menschen hier
wttre Frevel. Anders aber verh< es sich mit dem
Tatbestand eines Urteils, dieser grUndet sich auf
Erhebungen hier und dort, bei Verwandten und Fremden,
bei Freunden und Feinden, in der Familie und in der
tiffentlichkeit, in Stadt und Dorf, kurz Uberall.
Hier ist es dringend nOtig, FUrsprecher zu haben,
FUrsprecher in Mengen, die besten FUrsprecher, einen
eng neben dem andem, eine lebende Mauer. . . .
Deshalb bin ich ja hier, ich sammle FUrsprecher.®®
Because every moment goes into the making of the
verdict and every contact involves a witness for or against
one, not a moment can be lost. There is no possibility of
pause or rest; "Die dir zugemessene Zeit ist so kurz, dass
du, wenn du eine Sekunde verlierst, schon dein ganzes Leben
verloren hast, denn es ist nicht l&nger, es ist imner nur
so lang, wie die Zeit die du verlierst."^9 Goethe wrote
everything, said Kafka, and he might have used the irre
trievable moment as an example of his point. One cannot
linger on a moment, for this is the acceptance of death,
succumbing to the great incomprehensible Nothingness. No
moment lost, no moment of error, can ever be redeemed. The
story "FUrsprecher" ends with this sentence, which links it
to "Der Jflger Gracchus"--"Solange du nicht zu steigen
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes. pp. 137-138.
69Ibid., p. 139.
291
aufhbrst, hOren die Stufen nicht auf, unter delnen stei-
genden Ftlssen wachsen sie aufwarts."^® Gracchus, gone
astray In a moment that can never be made right, climbs up
and down his stairs eternally.
The long fragment entitled "Uhterstaatsanwalt," Is
a variation of the themes of the advocate and the judge.
The story Is fairly objective, and pulls together the two
figures In a speculative view of what It Is that the Indi
vidual really wants to achieve with respect to his fellow-
raan. As with the young dog of "Forschungen," if one is
honest he must admit that he does not want the bones to
crack open for others but for himself. The assistant
public prosecutor is every man as the lowly advocate who
really aspires to take over the control of justice--i.e.
presumption or the sin of asserting equality with ultimate
authority. The assistant prosecutor sees his superiors as
stupid; he regards with prejudice and even hatred those
whom he might prosecute if he only had the opportunity.
In short, a lowly figure himself, he aspires to power not
simply for the sake of his own freedom, but so that he
might assert himself over others. This, Kafka suggests, is
one of the aspects of manifest guilt; in acting as advocate
of one*8 self, is one not really searching for power beyond
^ Beschreibung eines Kampfes. p. 139.
292
the personal need, Is one not using his role as victim in
a deceptive way?
One view, then, is mau js advocate of himself and
life as a search for advocates. Another is the figure of
the eternal wanderer, or searcher, in a more self-contained
way, as has been noted earlier. The servant searching for
work, who cannot get called, in "Die Prtlfung," K. the
surveyor in Das Schloss, the K. of the fragmentary story
who tries to gain direct access to the lord of the manor,
all are searching for self-definition. The story of
Gracchus is that of the eternal wanderer--"Mein Kahn ist
ohne Steuer, er f&hrt mit dem Wind, der in den untersten
Regionen des Todes bl£st"--and the guilt of the Landarzt
leaves him a wanderer, without hope in cold, everlasting
darkness--"Nackt, dem Froste dieses ungltlckseligsten
Zeitalters ausgesetzt, mit irdischem Wagen, unirdlschen
Pferden, treibe ich mich alter Mann uuiher." A third figure
is that one who tries to save himself by disaffiliating
from life: the counterpart to the Searcher is the Dreamer
who ignores the crucial question. The soaring dogs of
"Forschungen" are those engrossed with the theoretical, the
abstract, the spiritual. The trapeze artist of "Erstes
Leid" is in love with his alienation. His gymnastics,
hanging in the air, are those of the saint-like figure,
perhaps, but they are not those of real life. He wishes
293
to create (in his desire for a second trapeze bar) a com
plete existence in the air, just as the Hungerktlnstler
wishes to fast on forever and is nauseated when food is
forced upon him. KafkaTs judgment upon those who seek to
escape through this form of relinquishment is that they are
the most complete of egoists; they seek to have all judg
ments against them suspended, to achieve both freedom from
all prohibitions and honor for having observed all of
them.^ However (the inevitable however) they thus avoid
that guilt which comes of struggle. We increase our guilt
by placing others within its framework; Kafka's guilt
towards Felice Bauer, for example, was that of involving
her in his tragic dilemma by attempting to escape it
through her and thus bringing unhappiness upon her.^ The
various accusations directed against the protagonists by
women in the stories has an underlying validity. On the
other hand, we are guilty towards others if we do not in
volve them, by our failure to save ourselves. This is the
guilt of the Landarzt who, in ignoring Rosa, condemns
occasion wit as an artist as being
an attempt to practice the same deception. This condemna
tion of himself shows the unendingly restless exploration
of his own identity, but certainly no one was ever less of
a soaring dog. See Tagebtlcher, pp. 534-535.
72See Tagebtlcher. pp. 461, 531-532, 534-535; and
Brod, Franz Kafka, pp. 200-202.
pp. 334-335. On
294
himself and leaves her as a helpless victim of the brutal
groom.
What answer is there, then? Practically speaking,
there can be none, for answer is eliminated on every hand
by the conditions of life. Everything exists in a rela
tionship of tension with its contradiction. By virtue of
the existence of question a final answer is eliminated, for
if a final answer were existent, the question would not be.
Yet, according to the doctrine of paradox, the question
evokes the possibility of answer.
Answer, therefore, is potential or theoretical but
it can never be brought out of that ambiguous condition and
made final. The attempt to make it practical destroys it.
The paradox of life is that of the Tower of Babel; answer
is possible only if one does not try to make it functional.
"Theoretisch gibt es eine vollkonmene Glllcksmttglichkeit:
An das Unzerstttrbare in sich glauben und nicht zu ihm
streben," wrote Kafka in his "Betrachti- lgen (iber Stinde,
Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg."73 The permanent faith
in something indestructible that he saw as a necessity for
existence is the glimmer of light inside the door in "Vor
dem Gesetz." One cannot be satisfied with it, one must
continue to struggle; but even the struggle would be
^^Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, p. 47.
295
impossible without that dim and ambiguous glow. We are
sustained, somehow, until the moment of death.
A recent critic has said that Kafka is:
... a weak person without the strength to make a
complete denial, and antagonistic tendencies coexist
in his soul. He both denies and affirms without daring
to make a choice; he lives in anguish.74
For anyone who has lived fully in the dramatic world of
Franz Kafka, such a judgment seems an incredible imperti
nence; beyond it stands the spectre of Hermann Kafka, pick
ing his teeth and addressing his son as vermin. To accept
an answer is not an act of courage; on the contrary, it is
V.
V
an escape, for by it one relinquishes the question. \
Certainly such a view as that quoted above ignores the very
substance of Kafka's conception. It attempts to push his
protagonists into a place of security, whether it is denial
or affirmation, when Kafka's entire structure is built upon
the impossibility of such a choice. Either choice is as
doubtful as the other, for both are true and so both are
false; this reality, finally, is what Kafka has revealed to
us. The whole weight of decision, in any ultimate sense,
is thrown upon the reader, just as the weight of decision
rests on Josef K. in Der Prozess. The reader, reaching
^Rene Dauvin, "The Trial: Its Meaning,” Franz
Kafka Today, p. 150.
296
the end of the story, may make a decision, but like
Josef K. he remains in doubt as to its final truth. If we
go to Kafka in search of a logical statement of defined
reality, we must conclude that Kafka has not provided us
with one. However, it is exactly here that his greatness--
and his courage--lies.
No writer has ever revealed a greater desire for
answer, and few have had so completely resisted the tempt
ation to escape by means of one. Kafka's road is the
loneliest path that man can take: that of looking at every
condition of existence without running from it, of pushing
aside the curtain of ostensible explanation and gazing
fully at the Medusa of one's own reality.
Every reader brings to a work his own vital ele
ments of experience and belief. Kafka creates in his art
an atmosphere of possibility of the most comprehensive
sort, and even the positivist at times finds verification
there. The works can be important in their significance
towards religion, or the state, or Freudian family
relationships; the mistake is to think that any of these
define Kafka, for his own profound search established the
impossibility of such limits. Our own attitudes towards
Kafka's "guilt" may lead us into the belief that the guilt
is particular. We tend to objectify all negative elements,
297
to place them outside ourselves. We may grant the univer
sality of Kafka's work, but simultaneously we believe that
the guilt is true of a particular person or circumstance,
not an inevitable aspect of the human condition. To do so
would be to accuse ourselves with an indictment that could
not be evaded--an indictment that Kafka had the courage or
curse to recognize. But, though we struggle finally
against accepting the generic as the personal, this is the
burden which Kafka took upon himself and which he offers
to us. His total concern was with the dilemma that life
presents, and the result is one of the most thorough ex
plorations of that dilemma that literature has to offer.
To seek additional justification for the existence of his
art is unnecessary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources:
Kafka, Franz. Amerika. Hrsg. Max Brod. Dritte Ausgabe.
New York: Schocken Books, 1946.
_______. Beschreibung eines Kampfes. Hrsg. Max Brod.
Zweite Ausgabe. New York: Schocken Books, 1946.
______. Briefe 1902-1924. Hrsg. Max Brod. New York:
Schocken Books, 1458.
______. Briefe an Milena. Hrsg. Willy Haas. New York:
Schocken Books, 1952.
______. Erz&hlungen und kleine Prosa. Hrsg. Max Brod.
Dritte Ausgabe. New York: Schocken Books, 1946.
_______. Hochzeitsyorbereitungen auf dem Lande. Hrsg.
Max Brod. New York: Schocken Books, 1453.
______ . Per Prozess. Hrsg. Max Brod. New York: Schocken
Books, 1946.
______ . Das Schloss. Hrsg. Max Brod. New York: Schocken
Books, 1946.
_______. Tagebttcher. Hrsg. Max Brod. New York: Schocken
Books, 1949.
Secondary Sources:
Anders, GUnther. Kafka, Pro und Contra. MUnchen: C. H.
Beck, 1951.
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Creator Collins, Hildegard Platzer (author)

Core Title A Study Of The Relationships Between Technique And Theme In The Shorter Works Of Kafka

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program German

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format dissertations (aat)

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor [illegible] (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Hesse, Everett W. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-252310

Unique identifier UC11358540

Identifier 6203722.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-252310 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6203722.pdf

Dmrecord 252310

Document Type Dissertation

Format dissertations (aat)

Rights Collins, Hildegard Platzer

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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