A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka - Essay Example

‘Each sentence of Kafka’s says “interpret me”.’ (Theodor Adorno) The case study of ‘A Country Doctor’ INTRODUCTION The short story is written by Franz Kafka, a German writer in 1919. The story was originally written in the German language but later its translation was made in English language. The interpretation in this document is made from the translation by Ian Johnston of Vancouver Island University of Frank Kafka’s story: “A Country Doctor” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). The story is a clear presentation of an individual’s responsibility of making his life either valuable or valueless through his actions. The story depicts a doctor who, indifferent to his environment and profession, lived in some rural area. The indifferent attitude of the doctor was described elaborately by defining conditions of weather, house, horses and many other situations plotted by the author. Doctor was not only indifferent towards his profession, family and the horses but also inhuman caring little about the pain and sufferings of others. The doctor had little knowledge of curing diseases and had never cared for his patients, servants or others. He was exploited by a groom and a family that rang the false alarm to call him at the family’s house. He was engulfed in situation and circumstances which he could have easily handled through his knowledge, skills and humanity. However, he abandoned to the circumstances due to his inability and lack of knowledge. The situation created by his betrayal ultimately ended his life in misery and sufferings. (Lieter 1958 p.340) The story begins with the description of a cold and icy night in which a doctor in the countryside was eager to travel to a house some ten miles away for visiting the patient. The eagerness of doctor was described with the sentence such as: “An urgent journey was facing me” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). The cold and icy weather was described using sentence such as: “A severe snowstorm filled the space between him and me” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). The indifferent and reckless attitude of doctor was described with various incidents, situations and events. (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The careless attitude was described by the incident of death of the doctor’s overexerted horse. This incident was described by the sentence such as: “My own horse had died the previous night, as a result of overexertion in this icy winter” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). The doctor’s indifferent attitude towards the cold weather was described by his eagerness and constantly standing in snowfall searching for the horse that can carry his wagon. This was described using sentence such as: “increasingly covered with snow, becoming all the time more immobile” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). The night time was depicted by description of actions such as lantern swinging and swaying used in the sentences such as: “She was swinging the lantern” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) and “A dim stall lantern on a rope swayed inside” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). The doctor was short tempered. He pretended to be an efficient and caring doctor by showing his rush for reaching the patient. At the heart he knew he loved his position of job merely for the revenue and he cared little about the patient or his servants. This quality of doctor was revealed by describing his rage and anger upon failure to borrow the horse from neighborhood. The rage was depicted by describing an event in which doctor kicked the broken door of the unused filthy abode of pig. This event was depicted as: Distracted and tormented, I kicked my foot against the cracked door of the pig sty which had not been used for years. The door opened and banged to and fro on its hinges (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The doctor was depicted as inhuman by developing a situation in which doctor borrowed the horse and in return left his girl servant in the hands of a brutal groom. The brutality of the groom was described as: But as soon as she was beside him, the groom puts his arms around her and pushes his face against hers. She screams out and runs over to me. On the girl’s cheek were red marks from two rows of teeth. “You brute,” I cry out in fury, “Do you want the whip?” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The inhuman nature of the doctor was exposed by his betrayal to the girl servant Rosa who was left alone for the onslaught from the groom. Doctor knew the wicked intentions of the brutal groom and yet went on the journey betraying the girl servant. The betrayal by doctor was depicted by describing the doctor’s perception about the fate of the girl in sentences such as: I still hear how the door of my house is breaking down and splitting apart under the groom’s onslaught and then my eyes and ears are filled with a roaring sound which overwhelms all my senses at once. But only for a moment (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The doctor reached to the house of the family which called him. He was taken to the patient where he observed the sick room in which it was not possible to even breathe. The author continued to describe doctor’s betrayal by giving account of the doctor’s thoughts as: “Yes,” I think blasphemously, “in such cases the gods do help. They send the missing horse, even add a second one because it’s urgent, and even throw in a groom as bonus.” Now for the first time I think once more of Rosa. What am I doing? How am I saving her? How do I pull her out from under this groom, ten miles away from her, with uncontrollable horses in the front of my carriage? (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The pretention and inefficiency of the doctor was described by building situations that demanded prudence and knowledge. The first such situation was described as: I want to push open the window, but first I’ll look at the sick man. Thin, without fever, not cold, not warm, with empty eyes, without a shirt, the young man under the stuffed quilt heaves himself up, hangs around my throat, and whispers in my ear, “Doctor, let me die.” I look around. No one has heard. The parents stand silently, leaning forward, and wait for my opinion. The sister has brought a stool for my handbag (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5). In the second situation doctor’s confused and shocking face was described in which the patient’s family was annoyed eagerly helping the doctor to become comfortable. The description was done as: I allow the sister, who thinks I am in a daze because of the heat, to take off my fur coat. A glass of rum is prepared for me. The old man claps me on the shoulder; the sacrifice of his treasure justifies this familiarity. I shake my head. In the narrow circle of the old man’s thinking I was not well: that’s the only reason I refuse to drink. The mother stands by the bed and entices me over. I follow and, as a horse neighs loudly at the ceiling, lay my head on the young man’s chest, which trembles under my wet beard (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) In the third situation the judgment of the doctor regarding patient was described which indicated the extent of his incompetency and inefficiency. It was described as: That confirms what I know: the young man is healthy. His circulation is a little off, saturated with coffee by his caring mother, but he’s healthy and best pushed out of bed with a shove. I’m no improver of the world and let him lie there. I am employed by the district and do my duty to the full, right to the point where it’s almost too much (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The doctor tried to leave after initial examination and judgment which annoyed the family and their annoyance was described as: But as I am closing up by hand bag and calling for my fur coat, the family is standing together, the father sniffing the glass of rum in his hand, the mother, probably disappointed in me—what more do these people expect?-tearfully biting her lips, and the sister flapping a very bloody hand towel, I am somehow ready, in the circumstances, to concede that young man is perhaps nonetheless sick. I go to him (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The doctor after coming back to the patient due to family’s disappointment re-examined him only to know that there is a serious wound in the patient’s hip having worms. This sickness of the patient was described as: He smiles up at me, as if I was bringing him the most nourishing kind of soup—ah, now both horses are whinnying, the noise is probably supposed to come from higher regions in order to illuminate my examination— and now I find out that, yes indeed, the young man is ill. On his right side, in the region of the hip, a wound the size of the palm of one’s hand has opened up. Rose coloured, in many different shadings, dark in the depths, brighter on the edges, delicately grained, with uneven patches of blood, open to the light like a mine. That’s what it looks like from a distance. Close up a complication is apparent. Who can look at that without whistling softly? Worms, as thick and long as my little fingers, themselves rose coloured and also spattered with blood, are wriggling their white bodies with many limbs from their stronghold in the inner of the wound towards the light. Poor young man there’s no helping you. I have found out your great wound. You are dying from this flower on your side (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The doctor’s reexamination of the patient and finding of wound on the hip made everyone happy and a tide of hope ran through the entire family and people gathered there. This tide of hope and happiness was described as: The family is happy; they see me doing something. The sister says that to the mother, the mother tells the father, the father tells a few guests who are coming in on tip toe through the moonlight of the open door, balancing themselves with outstretched arms (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The author described the general belief of the people of this region that the doctor is supposed to cure the patient otherwise his life would be sacrificed to save the patient’s life. This situation was described as: “Will you save me?” whispers the young man, sobbing, quite blinded by the life inside his wound. That’s how people are in my region. Always demanding the impossible from the doctor. They have lost the old faith. The priest sits at home and tears his religious robes to pieces, one after the other. But the doctor is supposed to achieve everything with his delicate surgeon’s hand. Well, it’s what they like to think. I have not offered myself. If they use me for sacred purposes, I let that happen to me as well. What more do I want, an old country doctor, robbed of my servant girl! The climax of the story was the sacrifice of the country doctor which involved not only the family of the house but the people from entire neighborhood. He was striped off his clothes and locked in the patient’s room. This event was depicted as: And they come, the family and the village elders, and are taking my clothes off. A choir of school children with the teacher at the head stands in front of the house and sings an extremely simple melody with the words Take his clothes off, then he’ll heal, and if he doesn’t cure, then kill him. It’s only a doctor; it’s only a doctor. Then I am stripped of my clothes and, with my fingers in my beard and my head tilted to one side, I look at the people quietly. I am completely calm and clear about everything and stay that way, too, although it is not helping me at all, for they are now taking me by the head and feet and dragging me into the bed. They lay me against the wall on the side of wound. Then they all go out of the room. The door is shut. The singing stops (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) The doctor repeatedly thought about the fate of his servant girl Rosa and his betrayal to her. The patient on the other hand showed his lack of trust in the doctor by saying following: “Do you know,” I hear someone saying in my ear, “my confidence in you is very small. You were shaken out from somewhere. You don’t come on your own feet. Instead of helping, you give me less room on my deathbed. The best thing would be if I scratch your eyes out” (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) Doctor foreseeing the danger escaped from the patient’s room only to find himself stuck-up naked in the cold and icy weather. He soon realized that he could no longer reach his house and that he would die on his way as neither the wagon nor the horses supported his journey. No person was ready to help him either. Instead they all chanted slogans for his death. He blamed others for betraying him although he knew in the corner of his heart that it was he who betrayed others and that is why his fate is so fearful. The end of the story was depicted by the author as under:- But now it was time to think about my escape. The horses were still standing loyally in place. Clothes, fur coat, and bag were quickly snatched up. I didn’t want to delay by getting dressed; if the horses rushed as they had on the journey out, I should, in fact, be springing out of that bed into my own, as it were. One horse obediently pulled back from the window. I threw the bundle into the carriage. The fur coat flew too far and was caught on a hook by only one arm. Good enough. I swung myself up onto the horse. The reins dragging loosely, one horse barely harnessed to the other, the carriage swaying behind, last of all the fur coat in the snow. “Giddy up,” I said, but there was no giddying up about it. We dragged through the snowy desert like old men; for a long time the fresh but inaccurate singing of the children resounded behind us: Enjoy yourselves, you patients. The doctor’s laid in bed with you. I’ll never come home at this rate. My flourishing practice is lost. A successor is robbing me, but to no avail, for he cannot replace me. In my house the disgusting groom is wreaking havoc. Rosa is his victim. I will not think it through. Naked, abandoned to the frost of this unhappy age, with an earthly carriage and unearthly horses, I drive around by myself, an old man. My fur coat hangs behind the wagon, but I cannot reach it, and no one from the nimble rabble of patients lifts a finger. Betrayed! Betrayed! Once one responds to a false alarm on the night bell, there’s no making it good again—not ever (Kafka 1919, pp. 1-5) References Kafka, F. 1919, A Country Doctor, trans. I. Johnston, Kurt Wolf, Germany Leiter, Louis H. "A Problem in Analysis: Franz Kafka's 'A Country Doctor'." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1958: 337-347. Read More