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Kafka Stories - 2014
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Discussion - Week Three - Kafka - The Judgment
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I felt the father was definitely cruel; why, I don't know. He probably was the echo of his son's worst self-judgments. And/or knowing his son so well, he knew just how to hurt him most. I think the father was extremely deliberate in the hurt he inflicted.
This is a great little story. Jim, I relate to your reflections. The story is funny, painful, and startling in turns. It kind of has two phases, though they're not distinct. The beginning with all the ratiocination over the possible consequences of communicating with the St. Petersberg friend sets us up to see this as the centerpiece of the story, and it has a kind of typical low-simmering anxiety with thoughts undermining other thoughts. It seemed to be an interesting form of narration too, because as Georg ponders his relationship to his friend and the nature of their communication, he manages to reveal to us the major points of his own story and its important recent events. The whole once there were two friends, and one of them traveled far away to seek success, while another stayed home and labored patiently until the migrant friend fell into difficulties while the stay-at-home friend prospered and, though he had his set backs and sadly lost his aged mother, he finally met a loving and wealthy woman to whom he was engaged...... well, this whole story is related in the midst of his anxious thoughts about his friend.
Anyway, then we enter the father's room and the entire focus of the story shifts dramatically, even though the letter, the friend, the events previously narrated are the raw material of what follows. The father casts everything in a new light... or perhaps several mutually-contradicting new lights, and everything is super-saturated with guilt and remorse.
I was surprised and entertained along the way by the father's strangely changing aspect and various deceptive guises. His shape and proportions are indistinct and... protean? Once described as a giant of a man, we might wonder how literal this is, and then he's easily lifted and carried and tucked in like an infant, yet he easily touches the ceiling with his hand while sitting in bed, and is at times a terrifying overbearing figure.
Regarding Freudianism, I don't want to trivialize it too much by saying that Dad is the superego here. He's uncompromising, severe, infinitely judgmental (as one might expect from the title), irrationally punitive, and his principal weapon is Georg's own guilt.
Meanwhile, here, a man (Georg) whom we would first believe to be very considerate and motivated by his desires to please others, is condemned for his selfishness and lack of consideration. His father/superego sees right through him into what he most fears to be, a heartless self-motivated manipulator who destroys his friends, is wrong in his every act, and is an unfamilial son.
A real poignancy of the story is in the very end when, in his suicide, Georg displays a gymnastic skill that was once the pride of his parents. Though of course there's no one there to appreciate it. So, you've come as far as this, Georg... the shame of it.
P.S., this story leads well into the Metamorphosis, which we'll be reading later in the schedule. But if I might recommend a kind of companion piece... not really related and not quite similar in tone, but it does deal with the judgment of father over son... some folks might enjoy reading "Eleven Sons" (in my collection, it's in the section for "shorter stories").
I honestly had never thought to relate the father to the superego. From that perspective, certain things take on a new light. His changing shape, for one, as well as Georg wanting to move him into the front room. It's certainly an accurate way of depicting the way morality is dealt with. Taking it one step further, can we say that the son also embodies elements of the ego. The first part of the story certainly seems to indicate that he centers on the social ramifications of his decisions.
Mod
Jim, I did not perceive the father as any of the the "qualities" you mentioned. Actually, I'm pondering whether the father actually exists anywhere but in the son'..."
No fair rewriting the story unless you can show the supporting text, LOL!
Okay, to simplify the initial question I asked - Did the father seem to be telling the truth about his correspondence with Georg's friend?
Definitely not an expert in Freud, but there does seem to be a psychosexual aspect in addition to Georg's guilt about his success and abandonment of friend and father. The entire conflict is started by Georg's waffling about telling his friend about his marriage. It is pointedly noted that the friend is resigned to being a permanent bachelor, and it is the friend that the father says would have been a "son after his own heart". The father also mocks Georg's marriage, saying how the fiancé "lifted up her skirts..the nasty creature" (at the same time showing his own, at the very least, genital-adjacent wound).
It seemed to me that Georg had some ambivalence about his marriage, and that may have been a precipitating factor in his guilt trip into the river.
Mod
Aack! I can see daddy's Balzacs!
I'm kind of sorry I mentioned Freud at this point...
From a Judea-Christian perspective, we could also just tally up Georg's sins and see if he deserves the judgment he gets from the father/god. Is he too prideful about his success? Is his arm's length relationship with his father disrespectful, especially since the father is mourning his lost wife? Etc...
Mod
One second the father looms like a giant of a man, (when Georg feels guilty about his engagement and not telling his friend), then, soon after he informs his father about his decision to inform the friend at last, the father becomes feeble. Afterwards the father gnaws at his most inner insecurities..."
I presented your argument to The Committee and to paraphrase their response, "If all he's got is some luke warm borscht about shape shifting and a dark room, tell him 'no sale!'"
The setup for the scene:
"Two years ago his mother had died, since when he and his father had shared the household together…"
"…went out of his room across a small lobby into his father’s room, which he had not entered for months. There was in fact no need for him to enter it, since he saw his father daily at business and they took their midday meal together at an eating house; …they always sat for a while, each with his newspaper, in their common sitting room."
Their conversation and all the actions in the room seem to fit into a normal reality. The father's appearance has the sense of being Georg's emotional response to his father's actions and words.
Your witness...
Mod
Your honor, since the defense refuses to submit textual evidence of any kind and continues to chase philosophical chimeras, the State moves for full prosecution of the Father, being that he was clearly in corpore sano despite evidence of onset dementia, and requests the maximum penalty allowable for second degree manslaughter for his instigation of the Son's leap to his his own death. The State rests....
Mod
I'm laughing more than a ROFL can adequately express!!
I can easily agree with the metaphors about self-doubt in the dark room of one's conscience as Kafka certainly setup this story to deal with the judgment of a father/god/judge and especially one's self-judgment in the form of uncertainty and indecision. I just haven't been able to find evidence of the father being dead/imaginary. Symbolically the father need not exist, but in the world of the story he seems to be in the room and alive. In the stories we've read so far, the narrator tends to have trouble dealing with real-world people who behave in unexpected and surreal ways, and so having the father be alive and acting in a surreal manner would fit that pattern. Anyway, alive or dead, his daddy done him wrong.
BTW, I believe Plato stole that line from Homer J. Simpson who said; "When will we learn?!? Democracy Does. Not. Work!"
Mod
I tend to overthink things. Perhaps, one day, if we ever discuss Vian's Blues for the Black Cat, we can ..."
I have that on my tbr list. Will have to order a copy...
I'd like to take this further. Within context of this story, and in Kafka's stories in general, there is no contradiction between being metaphorical and existing (though metaphorical may be an inapt term, and significant may be better).Next step, what I said above may also be fairly true for all stories which do not define separate categories for real/unreal or existing/non-existing. Until Alice wakes up, we can't say that what happened in wonderland was a dream, we can only say that it seemed quite odd in comparison to our prior experience. (And even when she ostensibly wakes up, we can have room for doubt. How hard is the line between real and unreal, especially when the "real" frame itself is virtually absent from the text and may merely be a metaphor for our closing the book). But returning to the Judgment and its own rules, well in my life outside the book neither Georg nor his father exists, while within the book we need not imagine that either one has a different type of existence from the other (except that Georg has the privilege of narrative focus, as protagonist). Interesting, though, that father can challenge the existence of the Petersberg friend, and interesting too that the sudden fact of Georg's fiancee almost appears like a conjuring trick. But the father's acknowledgment of them gives them back their claims of reality. But what if, rather than saying do you really have this friend in St. Petersberg? the father had instead asked do you really exist? I believe in your friend, but not in you.
Next step, perhaps all I said above is true outside the book too, in our lives and the greater universe. What? doesn't make sense? Well proceed to the next step and let's see.
Final step. Perhaps your superego is also not a metaphor. It is real, it exists, and it has the real power to kill you.
Another suggested side read: Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderon de la Barca
...discreetly changing subjectCurious image with modern relevance:
"...when he was on a business trip to Kiev and ran into a riot, and saw a priest on a balcony who cut a broad cross in blood on the palm of his hand and held the hand up and appealed to the mob."
Ahh, in the days before Russian state media's stridency and the BBC's smugness, propaganda was so visceral!
So he looked kind of like this guy? (click for big)
That camouflage jacket really helps him blend in.
Close-reading question:OK, Georg had told his friend "three times in three fairly widely separated letters" about "the engagement of an unimportant man to an equally unimportant girl, until indeed, quite contrary to his intentions, his friend began to show some interest in this notable event."
Unimportant? Notable? Whose notable is that? I'm curious if there is a translation issue: perhaps in English "notable" has a more objective quality, while maybe the German "equivalent" connotes something more subjective (it's notable because his friend noted it). Anyone have any ideas?
I know it's a weird small point, especially in light of the weirder large point that our self-effacing narrator erased his own engagement to a status lady. Curiously, said fiancee puts how Georg is onto his friends: "Since your friends are like that, Georg, you shouldn't ever have got engaged at all."
Then Georg has a realization about himself that is opposite of everything we know about him: "That's just the kind of man I am" he thinks, "I can't cut myself to another pattern that might make me a more suitable friend for him" but that's all he has done!
In my memory this story was mostly the father's tirade against Georg. I was surprised to find that it makes up the minority of the text, and that there is so much other stuff before that.
Translation question:Anyone have any ideas about why the Muirs chose to say that Georg shares his "mid-day meal" with his father at a local "eating-house," as opposed to, say, lunch in a restaurant?
Ah, but interesting, it still leaves one wondering whether the choice of midday meal was to accommodate the different uses of lunch and dinner in English dialects, or whether German of the time employed a variety of terms and this reflects Kafka's specific language choice... or for that matter whether he leaned towards archaic/traditional language as opposed to any more modern term.Anyway, just one of the trillions of judgment calls required of translators, I figure (and reckon) (and yes, I'm aware that I used the word judgment).
"Mittagessen" is the term used, which translated literally means 'mid-day meal'. A less literal translator would have gone with 'lunch', as that's what an English speaker would say. (Depending on where you live, others would say supper.) The other word is "speisehaus", literally 'eating house', figuratively 'restaurant'.
Mod
Anyone have any ideas about why the Muirs chose to say that Georg shares his "mid-day meal" with his father at a local "eating-house," as opposed to, say, lunch in a restaurant?"
Yes, like the other volks mentioned, probably a style choice for the ambiance of the time and place.
I'm going to start saying "eating-house" instead of restaurant.
Mod
I'm going to go with "manger-maison" to blend with the locals...
Can't change me. I'll call it what I've always called it. A gustation station.
Ah, you went to one of those Oulipian eating-houses. "One Hundred Thousand Billion Recipes."Mince seven ounces of pork.
Stir.
Heat oven to 370 degrees Kelvin.
Insert a fistfull of cloves.
Stir.
When shells are half-open, shake vigorously.
Marinade until golden-blue.
Subtract Turmeric to taste.
Glaze thoroughly.
Remove stems and leaves.
Leave under tap until water runs clear.
Salt and batter.
When prunes have unwrinkled, draw and quarter.
Serve or enjoy.
Mod
Mince seven ounces of pork.
Stir.
Heat oven to 370 degrees Kelvin.
Insert a fistfull of cloves.
Stir.
W..."
I've eaten at that place too!
Zad said: "Remove stems and leaves."Oh, damn, I've been removing the stems and seeds.
Oh, speaking of eating-houses and continuing the straying way off topic, I had a cool experience a few weeks ago.A pal and I were driving around trying to find a cool place to have lunch and mention later with a self-superior tone of voice cuz we're foodie hipster assholes, and surprisingly close to his house was this other house that was no longer a house but a restaurant. Seriously, it was the sort of building a family should be living in, an actual old house, 30s maybe 40s clapboard abode. The kitchen was the kitchen, the living room was now a dining room, the dining room was still a dining room, a bedroom was a dining room, while the bathrooms and other bedroom were all that looked altered much from a home floorplan. It's called Fogon de Edgar, specializing in Colombian food, and I swear it had some of the best restaurant food I have ever had in my life (and I was neither starving nor high). Crunchy empanadas that'll make corn and grease your new gods. And it was an eating house! I would take my Dad there but aside from being dead he's also kind of a dick to me about my friends and gets all in my business with them and makes me feel bad.
Mod
Henry proposed the idea that the narrator's father was dead (message 6 and others above). If your dead dad, while getting in your business about your friends, says something dickish along the lines of how he'd rather have your friend as his son, leave the room immediately and avoid all bridges and bodies of water.....
Thanks for the advice. First time I've ever been glad not to live in Amsterdam.
Hee. If I didn't know better the above would seem like a translation error.I didn't say he's dead; I said he doesn't exist.
And grrrrr don't remind me of Spain. Many years later I still dream of gaybar tapas. You wouldn't belieeeeeeeeeeve.
Mod
Barcelona, Late June, Sunday just after midnight, tapas bar packed with customers, glass of cognac, Cuban cigars, talking art with my professor, emptying plates of primo tapas, we suddenly stopped and looked at eachother and said "Damn! Barcelona is a man's town!"
Is there a Freudian in the house?
Well, that sure was a turnaround in a simple scene of a son seeking fatherly advice. In what might be alternatively titled “Revenge of King Laius”, our narrator’s father stabs deep into his son’s ego and completely destroys his self-confidence in the space of a few short moments, literally driving his son into the drink…
Did you perceive the father as paranoid, demented, and cruel? Or calculating, lucid, and cruel in doling out those punishing revelations?