Blumfeld, an older bachelor

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Blumfeld, an older bachelor, is an unfinished story by Franz Kafka . It was written in 1915 and published posthumously . Kafka's story deals with the bizarre difficulties faced by a bachelor in his private and professional life. The collision of an eccentric with reality is portrayed in an ironic tone .

Summary

Blumfeld, an older bachelor, goes up to his room on the sixth floor one evening. The thought of a dog as a companion crossed his mind. Because of the expected inconvenience, he discards this thought.

Celluloid balls with a diameter of 40 mm

When he enters his room, two small celluloid balls ( table tennis balls ) await him , which jump up and down on their own, even while Blumfeld goes about his other activities. You always stay just behind him and don't let yourself be shaken off. At first he tries to catch them, which he also succeeds in with one, but he finds it “too degrading to take such measures against two small balls” and gives up catching them again, albeit with the ulterior motive that he “certainly and indeed was in the very near future ”will destroy. In order not to be disturbed too much, he muffles the jumps that they perform under his bed during the night with two carpets that he puts under. After a restless night for Blumfeld, the operator comes in the morning to do his housework. When Blumfeld has to go to work, he locks the balls in his closet. Since he doesn't want to find it when he returns, he decides to give it to the boy of his waitress, who is too stupid to understand what Blumfeld wants. Finally, two little girls from the house promise to get the balls in his room.

Now you can see Blumfeld in his job as an employee in a linen factory, who processes and pays homeworkers. After Blumfeld's long struggles, he was assigned two interns to support him. But he is dissatisfied and unhappy with the helpers who are still very childish. There are various bizarre scenes at work that Blumfeld finds difficult to control. The unfinished narrative breaks off suddenly.

Cinematic feature

Here Kafka offers a grotesque reflex of cinematic chase scenes. The comical effect of the scene of Blumfeld chasing the balls arises from the transfer of a cinematic dramaturgy of persecution to the struggle between man and thing. With Blumfeld's slapstick-like body language, Kafka's sequence releases its special bizarre effect.

Text analysis

The bachelor theme that often appears in Franz Kafka's work - see also The unhappiness of the bachelor from contemplation or wedding preparations in the country - reflects his own situation with the fear of ties and family. At the same time, self-hatred about this life situation is expressed in the present narrative. Blumfeld does not want to be equated with the female counterpart - the old maid.

His reflections on the subject of dogs and his dealings with children are cumbersome and, in their subtle awkwardness, almost tormenting the reader. The two mysterious balls that come into peculiar interaction with him are like an embarrassing blemish that is difficult to shake off. There may be a play on words because Blumfeld imagines being received “with a big bark”, but then sees “two small, white, blue-striped celluloid balls” after unlocking the door. Or should the bouncing objects associate female breasts? It is characteristic that two small, clever girls promise to free him from the balls. The idiosyncratic balls are also reminiscent of the strange creature Odradek from The Care of the House Father . Rounded off by the image of the ugly, unpleasant operator who takes care of the Blumfeld's private affairs, a life emerges for him that is somewhere between poor, desolate and ridiculous.

His professional existence is no less distressing and unsuccessful. He cannot cope with the growth of his work, but neither with his two interns who have been assigned to help him. Here, as in the novel Das Schloss, you meet the couple of two useless helpers who make life difficult for the surveyor there. Blumfeld attributes the inability of the interns to their childhood and wonders whether they are not even still of compulsory schooling. The interns and the balls seem to mock Blumfeld in their uncontrollable manner.

Just as Blumfeld was unable to deal adequately with children in his private sphere, he cannot do it in his professional life either. There are grotesque scenes in the fight for a broom, the interns seem to be afraid of the supposed blows by Blumfeld, which leads to clear slapstick elements. He is not able to express his understanding of their childliness to them and at the same time to lead them as a superior, as would be appropriate. His bachelorhood is based on Blumfeld's behavior in private as well as in the professional environment, without having to address a disturbed relationship with women at all.

reception

  • Monika Schmitz-Emans (v. Jagow / Jahraus) p. 281 sees the close connection between Kafka and Gustave Flaubert , to whom he feels related by blood, and the stimulation of his bachelor stories (Bouvard and Pecuchet) and his letters.
  • Dagmar C. Lorenz (v. Jagow / Jahraus) p. 375: “The text takes Kafka's own dilemma of desiring intimacy and fending off possible partners out of fear of the same, to extremes. Even a dog means too much commitment, commitment, community. The longed-for freedom, however, is a freedom to nothing. "
  • Volker Drüke (2016) sees it in a similar way to Dagmar Lorenz, but also specifically goes into the celluloid balls jumping up and down: “A wonderfully clear image for closeness and distance, for attention and distance - an image that was created at Blumfeld's and Kafka's request responded to fellowship and solitude. This ambivalence in interpersonal relationships and the feeling of in-between life were Franz Kafka's 'fate'. "(P. 106)
  • In 1990, Kafka's “older bachelor” gave the Hamburg band Blumfeld its name .

Web links

expenditure

  • All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Legacy Writings and Fragments 1. Edited by Malcolm Pasley. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-10-038148-3 , pp. 310-313, 229-266.
  • The stories. Original version. Edited by Roger Hermes. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3 .
  • Description of a fight and other writings from the estate in the version of the manuscript. After the critical edition edited by Hans-Gerd Koch. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-18111-7 , pp. 180-208.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alt Kafka / Sohn p. 438.
  2. ↑ Quoted from the Koch edition (2008), p. 184.
  3. ↑ p. 186.
  4. ↑ Alt Kafka / Film pp. 86/88
  5. ↑ Stach, pp. 491-493.
  6. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka. The Eternal Son , p. 439.
  7. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka. The Eternal Son , p. 439.