Table Of ContentJames Rolleston
Kafka's Narrative Theater
James Rolleston
The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park and London
Kafka's Narrative Theater
The Penn State Series in German Literature
General Editor
Joseph P. Strelka, The Pennsylvania State University
Editorial Board
Stuart Atkins, University of California at Santa Barbara
Peter Demetz, Yale University
Reinhold Grimm, University of Wisconsin
Erich Heller, Northwestern University
Victor Lange, Princeton University
Henry Remak, Indiana University
Walter Sokel, Stanford University
Blake Lee Spahr, University of California at Berkeley
German Baroque Poetry 1618-1723, by Robert M. Browning
War, Weimar, and Literature: The Story of the Neue Merkur,
1914-1926, by Guy Stern
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Rolleston, James, 1939-
Kafka's narrative theater.
(The Penn State series in German literature)
Bibliography: p.
1. Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924. 1. Title.
II. Series.
PT2621.A26Z864 833'.9'12 73-12574
ISBN 0-271-01121-1
© 1974 The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Glenn Ruby
For three ladies
My mother, my w'ije, and my daughter
Contents
.
Acknowledgments
Xl
Introduction
XU1
1 "Description of a Struggle" 1
2 Open Structure: "The Stoker" 18
3 "The Urban World":
The Experience of the Theater 32
4 "The Judgment" 42
5 "The Metamorphosis" 52
6 Closed Structure: The Trial 69
7 Closed Structure:
"In the Penal Colony" 88
8 The Functional and the Arbitrary:
"The Village Schoolteacher" and
"The Great Wall of China' 101
9 Reopened Structure: The Castle 112
10 Historical Structure: "Jo sefine the
Singer, or the Mouse Folk" 130
11 The Making of Kafka's Heroes 140
Notes 145
Sources Consulted 161
Index of Kafka's Works and Characters 167
Index of Names 168
Acknowledgments
This book was conceived and largely written in 1970 and 1971, when
I was the recipient of a Morse Fellowship from Yale University. After
preparatory work in London, I was able to write under ideal circum
stances in the small town of Sharon, Massachusetts, which boasts, in its
town square, the office of a law firm: Kafka, Kaufman, Kafka and
Kafka. That the conditions under which I worked were so unlike those
encountered by Franz Kafka's characters is chiefly due to my wife, Pris
cilla, and her indispensable relatives, Anne and Edwin Hall.
I want to thank above all Joseph Strelka, editor of the Penn State
Series in German Literature, and my teacher and colleague, Peter
Demetz, whose advice and careful reading of the manuscript have
played a vital role in its attaining existence as a book. I also recall with
special pleasure a talk in Prague with his father, Hans Demetz, whose
knowledge of Kafka-lore seems inexhaustible; and valuable discussions
in the garden of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with my former tutor
Ronald Gray. Over the years, too, conversations with Heinrich and
Ingeborg I-Ienel have taught me the need for an approach to Kafka's
works that will do justice to the subtle blend of intellectual and emo
tional elements in his exploration of the human mind.
J.L.R.
New Haven, 1973
·.
xu Kafka's Narrative Theater
Permission to quote from Franz Kafka's writings is acknowledged as follows:
English Language:
The Castle, reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. and Alfred A.
Knopf. Copyright 1930, 1941, 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf Inc. Copyright renewed
© 1958 by Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
"Description of a Struggle," reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc.
from Description of a Struggle. Copyright © 1958 by Schocken Books Inc.
The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-1913, reprinted by permission of Schocken
Books Inc. Copyright © 1948 by Schocken Books Inc.
The Diaries of Franz Kafka. 1914-1923, reprinted by permission of Schocken
Books Inc. Copyright © 1949 by Schocken Books Inc.
"In the Penal Colony," "Josefine, the Singer," ''The Judgment," "The Meta
morphosis," reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. from The Penal
Colony. Copyright © 1948 by Schocken Books Inc.
Letters to Felice, reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. Copyright
© 1973 by Schocken Books Inc.
''The Stoker," reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. from Amerika.
Copyright © 1946 by New Directions.
The Trial, reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. and Alfred A.
Knopf. Copyright 1937, © 1956 by Alfred A. Knopf. Copyright renewed 1965
by Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
"Wedding Preparations in the Country" and aphorisms, reprinted by permis
sion of Schocken Books Inc. from Dearest Father, Stories and Other Writings by
Franz Kafka. Copyright © 1954 by Schocken Books Inc.
German language:
"Beschreibung eines Kampfes," reprinted by permission of Schocken Books
Inc. from Beschreibung eines Kampfes. Copyright © 1946 by Schocken Books
Inc.
Briefe an Felice, reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. Copyright
© 1967 by Schocken Books Inc.
"Der Heizer," reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. from Amerika.
Copyright © 1946 by Schocken Books Inc.
Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande und andere Prosa aus dem Nachlass,
reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. Copyright © 1953 by Schocken
Books Inc.
"In der Strafkolonie," "J osefine, die Sangerin," "Das U rteil," "Die Verwand
lung," reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. from Erziihlungen .. Copy
right © 1946 by Schocken Books Inc.
Der Prozess, reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. Copyright ©
1946 by Schocken Books Inc.
Das Schloss, reprinted by permission of Schocken Books Inc. Copyright ©
1946 by Schocken Books Inc.
Permission to quote from the works listed above has also been granted by
Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., London.
Introduction
In the history of Kafka criticism one of the most significant events was
the enunciation by Friedrich Beissner1 in 1952 of the principle of re
stricted perspective. I(afka the author, while not identical with his hero,
knows no more than the hero does, and compels the reader to share the
hero's obsessions by excluding all other perspectives on events. The
effect of this insight was to focus critical attention on Kafka the literary
craftsman rather than Kafka the anthologist of despair. Such, however,
is the theological tendency in Kafka studies that Beissner's remarks
became themselves elevated into a dogma, producing in the 1960s the
inevitable crop of heretics.2 Indeed, perhaps because Kafka is so radical
a writer, calling into question all categories, ethical and psychological
as well as literary, it seems difficult if not impossible to approach him
critically without a certain predisposition as to his "meaning"; as Jorgen
Kobs notes in a recent overview3 of books on Kafka, many studies de
clare themselves exclusively concerned with Kafka "the artist"-only
to revert to the unending quest for a metaphysical pattern in his works.
While I cannot claim exemption from this rule, the purpose of the
present study is to confront the primary question of how to read Kafka,
how to enter his world without a preconceived idea about what will be
found there. I have adopted a chronological approach to his work that
consciously eschews the impulse to explain the early in terms of the
late, the work in terms of the life, allowing instead the problems of
Kafka as a writer of fictions to emerge in the context of the state of the
art as he found it and his own growing list of contributions to it. As a
corollary to this approach I have resisted the temptation, held out by
the obsessive interconnectedness of Kafka's writings, to formulate a
"key" that would unlock the meaning of everything he said; rather, I
