Description of a fight

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kafka monument by Jaroslav Róna in Prague , depicting the ride mentioned in Part II of the story.

Description of a fight is a three-part story written by Franz Kafka between 1903 and 1907 , which is his first surviving work and which was published posthumously. The first and third parts describe Prague's social and nightlife from the perspective of the narrator and his acquaintance. The middle part can be understood as a fantastic dream sequence with multiple subdivisions .

Kafka wrote two versions of this story. The following deals with the earlier (more fantastic) version.

As early as 1909, Kafka published the passage in Part II, “Conversation with the Prayer Began” as a separate story Conversation with the Prayer . This also applies to talking to the drunk .

content

part One

The story begins with a five-line poem.

At an evening party in Prague, the narrator is initially satisfied and quietly delighted until a casual acquaintance describes his amorous adventures with his loved one that evening. The narrator arranges a walk together to the Laurenziberg . Once he falls and injures his knee. The relationship between the narrator and the acquaintance changes constantly between amicable and distant. This is how the narrator escapes contact with the companion by withdrawing into the following dream world:

Part II Amusements or Evidence That It is Impossible to Live

  1. Ride: The narrator uses the companion as a mount. When the injured himself, he is left to the vultures.
  2. Walk: During a fantasy walk, various natural events and moods and their effect on the narrator are presented.
  3. The thick
    1. Addressing the landscape: a fat man appears and reports that the landscape is disturbing his thoughts.
    2. Started conversation with the prayer: The fat man continues and speaks about a girl, but actually about a prayer in the church who behaves conspicuously.
    3. Story of the prayer: Now again a story from social life, where it comes to the care of a woman. The worshiper tries to play the piano at a party to get attention.
    4. Continued conversation between the fat man and the praying man: The conversation touches on various points without any discernible thread.
  4. Downfall of the fat man: The fat man disappears in a waterfall. The narrator can physically deform himself in a strange way.

Part III

The scene from Part I appears again with the narrator and companion. The companion now doubts that the love for the woman makes sense and considers whether it would not be better to end it. In his irritation , he injures himself with a knife. The narrator tries to help the confused wounded man, but does not succeed. The fate of the wounded companion remains uncertain in the end. The story ends with the picture of the shadow of a branch that "lay as if broken on the slope".

Places and streets from Prague are included in this narrative in a unique way.

An interpretation

A struggle between conflicting life forces is described. The fight is a basic pattern that can be found again and again in literature from ancient times to modern times. The term “description” makes it clear that Kafka tries to observe and order life in the medium of writing.

Part I and Part III

In the narrator and in the companion, two types of nature are represented, which at first seem diametrically opposed. The narrator is the lonely one hidden in himself. The companion is cheerful and has success with women. It depicts the dichotomy between an ascetic, isolated, as it were religious form of the writer's existence and a vital, erotic-sensual approach to the world. In Part III, however, these assignments are reversed. The lonely one now tells about his fiancée. Under the influence of the narrator, the companion develops self-destructive doubts about his love.

Between the two people there is a constant back and forth of closeness and demarcation, euphoria and depression. Everyone is in their own world and often does not listen to the other. You can feel narcissism, but also self-hatred and self-destruction in both people. Kafka seems to be personified in both. On the one hand there is the desire for social recognition and closeness, on the other hand the need for loneliness as a prerequisite for artistic development.

Part II

The characters appearing, the fat one and the one praying, are fantasy figures of the narrator and here, too, the aforementioned dualism appears . The thick can (so to speak reciprocally ) be assigned to the thin narrator, the pleasurable prayer to the fun-loving companion. At the same time, the prayer is also the insecure thin ascetic, here again the reference to Kafka himself.

Especially in this part II with its fantasy sequences the laws of nature are overridden. The narrator shapes his surroundings, but also his own body according to his own ideas. Nature and objects develop an unreal dynamic of their own. This shows the power of the narrator, which unfolds when he lets himself into the fantasy world within himself.

theatre

Staging description of a fight ; Christian von Treskow, premiere 1998 a. a. Berlin.

reception

  • Monika Schmitz-Emans (from von Jagow / Jahraus) mentions on page 288 that the work of Hugo von Hofmannsthal was of considerable importance for Kafka at times and that the critical relationship to the Kafka language also occupied itself. So the so-called Chandos letter from Hofmannsthal finds its equivalent in the piece at hand, in which the narrator “ forgot the true name of things” and “ hastily pours accidental names” over them .

expenditure

  • Franz Kafka: Description of a fight / The two versions / Parallel edition based on the manuscripts . Edited and with an afterword by Max Brod , text edition by Ludwig Dietz . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969, 1989, ISBN 3-596-14300-4 .
  • Franz Kafka: All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe , Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Franz Kafka: Legacy writings and fragments I. Edited by Malcolm Pasley. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, pages 54-169, ISBN 3-10-038148-3 .

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography . Munich: Verlag CH Beck, 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 . P. 146
  2. ↑ sv p. 149
  3. ↑ sv p. 148