Social Laws and Isolation in Kafka - Essay Example

Social Laws and Isolation in Kafka Throughout his work Franz Kafka consistently returns to themes of isolation and social laws. Kafka suffered from social anxiety and depression for the majority of his life, and the intense isolation he experienced is clearly relayed into his fiction. There are obvious tensions between Kafka and the social world that are explored in stories such as the Metamorphoses when the main character is transformed into a bug. This essay explores the themes of isolation and social laws in Kafka’s short stories Before the Law, A Country Doctor, and A Hunger Artist. Franz Kafka’s parable Before the Law is an enigmatic contemplation of a man and his relation to social laws and the isolation he faces throughout his existence. The story explains the life of a man who attempts to gain admittance to a pathway referred to as the Law. When the man confronts the doorkeeper about admittance, the doorkeeper responds that he cannot admit him now, but possibly at a later date he will be allowed to pass. The man looks inside of the path and the doorkeeper witnesses him doing so and says to him that he may attempt to enter despite his wishes but that there are many more doorkeepers ahead, the third of which the original doorkeeper believes is so hideous he can’t even look at. The man resigns himself to his current situation and pulls up a stool and sits on it in anticipation of being admitted into the pathway. As the years pass the man gives everything to the doorkeeper attempting to bribe him, but is consistently rebuffed in his attempts to be granted admittance to the pathway. Finally, as the man is about to die, he asks the doorkeeper why other people haven’t attempted to gain admittance to the pathway and the doorkeeper responds, “No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am going to shut it (p. 3).” While the exact definition of what the Law constitutes in this story is vague, one can assume that it represents some form of society or level of existence that the man has been attempting to gain admittance to. In this regard, it represents the life the man wants but cannot attain because of restraining social laws. However hard the man tries to advance his life and existence, he is constantly faced with the inevitable conclusion that he is stuck in his current position. Ultimately, the story is a meditation on the absurdity of existence and the isolation it entails. Not only is the man unable to gain admittance into the doorway, but he must wait in isolation throughout his entire living existence. The significance of the doorkeeper telling the man that this path is created only for him is that it heightens the existential malaise and isolation is experiencing. Even though this is the only path for this human it is shut off to him, brining the absurdity and isolation of social laws full scale. Franza Kafka’s A County Doctor is an enigmatic tale that follows the dream-like journey of a doctor as he attempts to save a girl. The story cannot be read literally and a deeper interpretation reveals intense strands of isolation and rejection of social laws. The overarching challenge the Doctor faces is his constant battle against natural elements. In the opening scene the doctor travels through an intense storm that mysteriously ends once he arrives at the patients farm. He bemoans, “A thick blizzard of snow filled all the wide spaces between him and me.” The doctor’s own horse even dies because of the strains of winter, leaving the doctor without transportation as the story opens. In a moment of symbolic disgust the doctor eventually “kick(s) at the dilapidated door of the yearlong uninhabited pigsty.” Considering Kafka’s Jewish heritage the pigsty symbolizes more than just disgust with the situation, it becomes the very apotheosis of filth and disgustingness, and the doctor lashes out against it in all his frustration. By interspersing the story with this imagery Kafka masterfully develops a paradigm of distress and isolation that become major themes of the story, creating the “Kafkaesque” world for which he is renowned. With the death of his horse, the doctor faces the challenge of finding adequate transportation to his patient. Because of the time of night, the doctor cannot find anyone in the village to lend him a horse. His servant girl, Rose, hurriedly searches the town and returns empty-handed. Here, Kafka is furthering developing the themes of stress and anxiety. He peppers in descriptive statements such as “in my confused distress” and “but it was hopeless” to inhabit the reader with the doctor’s sense of frustration and isolation caused by the impossibility of the situation. Eventually, the doctor enters the stable where “A dim stable lantern was swinging inside from a rope” and “a man, crouching on his hams in that low space, showed an open blue-eyed face.” The stable lantern represents a slight sign of hope, strung up and meagerly flickering through the night’s absurdity. Clearly, as evidenced in the stream-of-consciousness transitions, many critics point to the nightmarish quality of the story. Freud states that dreams are wish-fulfillments, and the result of repressed or frustrated sexual desires, with the anxiety surrounding these desires turning some into nightmares (Brians 30). Considering Kafka worked as an insurance adjuster and despised his working conditions and social surroundings, it’s easy to envision the short story as an extension of his dissatisfaction with these social laws. When examining the distressed and anxious thematic elements of the story and coupling them with the style Kafka employs, the interpretation of the story as a metaphorical nightmare for the social laws and constraints in Kafka’s life is valid. For instance, there is a pre-determined, powerless quality that characters adopt that lends itself to dream-like interpretations. The doctor discusses the groom “As if he knew my thoughts” and Rose as understanding “that her fate was inescapable.” In Kafka’s A Hunger Artist one sees the themes of isolation and social laws played out to extremes. The story follows the career of a man who works for a carnival as a hunger artist. Kafka uses the man as an allegorical example of an individual placed in extreme isolation because of the laws of society. Kafka advances the theme of isolation when talking about how nobody is able to completely determine if the hunger artist actually lives up to his claims, because different people spend shifts watching him. He writes, “…he was therefore bound to be the sole completely satisfied spectator of his own fast (p. 270).” Even as the one thing the hunger artist prides himself on, he is ultimately alone in his appreciation. Later the reader experiences the furthered isolation of the artist as the social rules of society have changed and his hunger act is no longer valued by the spectators. He proudly exclaims to his handlers that he can break a world record, “…a statement that certainly provoked a smile among the other professionals, since it left out of account the change in public opinion, which the hunger artist in his zeal conveniently forgot (p. 274).” Ultimately, the hunger artist finds himself the victim of social laws that under value his talent, as later in life he is cast aside and the validity of his hunger strike questioned, “…it was not the hunger artist who was cheating…but the world was cheating him of his reward.” In conclusion, the themes of isolation and social laws are evident throughout Kafka’s work. In Before the Law the isolation of the character is evident as he waits for years alone on a bench waiting to be permitted admission into the law. In A Country Doctor we see the isolation and rejection of social laws as an allegorical representation of the nightmarish journey the doctor undergoes. When he lashes out against the stable hand we see his rejection of social laws and we follow him on his isolated and incomprehensible journey through the night. Finally, one finds the intense isolation in the hunger artist. While the artist is secluded from society for because of his profession, literally locked in a cage, social laws further isolate him at the end of his life as the novelty of his act has ceased capturing the public’s interest, leaving the artist desperately alone. References Gray, Ronald. Kafka, “Country Doctor”. Web 10 Oct. 2009. http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Doctor.Notes.html. Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. Print. Read More