Discussion - Week Eleven - Kafka - The Refusal

[Jim]

This discussion covers the story, The Refusal.


This seems to be related to the earlier story, The Great Wall of China. We again have a remote village, far removed from the capital, with villagers submitting to this unseen government. Also, mention of dynasties, incomprehensible dialects, and silk pajamas.

[Zadignose]

I also felt that it started out resembling Great Wall of China, but I liked it's development a lot more. It's pretty economical in terms of use of language. There are elements of ritual as well as impenetrable bureaucracy. There's also a sort of fatalism to it, in the fact that the petitioners seem to anticipate some kind of accomplishment even though they always stumble into the same awkward conclusion. There's also the anti-intuitive way in which they are relieved by the refusal, in that they can leave the tense situation, and they've gotten the expected result.

I first knew I was going to really enjoy this when it was mentioned that they sometimes enact military maneuvers on the tax collector's veranda! Then, the image of the tax collector's kids standing aloof yet participating in the squabbles of the other kids by shouting down from the veranda, between the rails, also captured my imagination.

Of further note, I liked the detail of the tax collector's two bamboo rods, and the way that--upon his delivering the refusal--he regains his mortal/ordinary status as he abandons the pomp, drops the rods, and falls into his chair to have a smoke.

[Jim]

Zadignose wrote: "I also felt that it started out resembling Great Wall of China, but I liked it's development a lot more. It's pretty economical in terms of use of language. There are elements of ritual as well as ..."

All this...

As you point out, more economical than The Great Wall, but I imagine this was written during a similar time period, and/or was a part of The Great Wall materials, and/or was a spin-off from The Great Wall. (Is there a Kafka scholar in the house?)

I imagine that in Kafka's urban milieu, government did not seem anywhere near so remote/mythical as in this story, but Europe did still have quite a few royal rulers sitting on thrones in his time, removed and remote by protocol and custom; remnants of the Egyptian idea of Pharaoh being a manifestation of god on earth, beyond the reach of mortal understanding (until 1914 when a few anarchists found a way to access a royal couple in Sarajevo). I imagine Kafka would have questioned the authority of Austro-Hungarian royalty and used this examination of China as a way to explore those thoughts by proxy.