The couple

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The couple is a story by Franz Kafka that was written in 1922 and published posthumously . She describes what goes on in a merchant's household and the close ties between an old couple.

content

The narrator, a businessman currently in a bad business situation, visits a previous customer whom he has not heard from for a long time. The customer (called N. or K. depending on the version) is old and sick and can no longer be found in his business premises. Therefore, the narrator goes - unwillingly, however - into the private apartment of K.

The old couple has just returned home and is in the room of their sick son, who is already middle-aged. A competitor of the narrator, another businessman, has also appeared there. The narrator is very dissatisfied with this whole constellation, but he tries to get his business off the ground with K. Suddenly those present recognize a great weakness of old K. and they experience his death.

One tries to teach this to the wife who has previously taken care of her husband and served him. She rushes to him, says that he has fallen asleep, kisses him - and he wakes up. Laying down on the bed of his sick son, the old man now devotes himself to business negotiations with a keen eye. There is no deal with the narrator or the competitor. The depiction of compulsive acts on the part of the narrator and his competitors is also woven into the story . The first always has to go up and down, the second constantly puts his hat up and down.

As he leaves, the narrator says to Mrs. K. that she reminds him of his mother with her healing powers. She does not respond to this, but asks how one judges the appearance of her husband. The story ends with the words: "Oh, what failed business paths there are and you have to carry the burden on".

Text analysis and personal description

The narrator

He is a middle-aged businessman in an unpopular profession that burdens him a lot. At the same time, he is also uncomfortable with human contact with insight into the foreign family. One recognizes in him a "Gregor Samsa" from The Metamorphosis . But he has to carry the burden on, for him there is no - fatal but also “redeeming” - transformation. In the end, he looks for a human connection with Mrs. K., which she does not enter into at all because of the total fixation on her husband. So she rejects him thoughtlessly and rounds off the unsuccessful visit.

The merchant K.

Although old and frail, he is still broad-shouldered, so a handsome man. He is the only one of the men present who has the care of a woman. And that care is total to an almost embarrassing degree. Against him, the narrator, the competitor and especially the sick son appear almost eunuch-like cut off from female affection (and also from self-determination). The old merchant, on the other hand, still determines the business and family processes, strengthened by the vitality of his wife.

Mrs. K., the mother

Your self-sacrificing devotion belongs exclusively to the spouse. She brings him the warmed nightgown while she doesn't even find the time to take off her street clothes for herself. This exemplifies the thoughtless self-abandonment in which she is obviously completely satisfied. For her there is nothing besides her husband, neither the guests nor the son. Most significant is the complete ignorance of the sick son.

The son

His living with his parents and his illness make him inferior; there is also no woman who could give him strength. The fact that his room, even his bed, is used as a matter of course, expresses the disregard for his privacy and his whole person. Or is it an attempt to bring the son into the family? The father continues to occupy the son's area with his business affairs and even symbolically pushes the son aside in bed. The son does not express any displeasure. It is he who first discovers the father's apparent death (perhaps as a wishful dream) and who breaks out into "endless sobs".

Interpretative approach

The symbiotic marriage constellation gives the father enormous strength, a kind of second life. She seems unworthy of the mother, but it is probably her destiny. The narrator and the son are in a comparable situation. The similarity is already established by the same age. Both are ignored by the mother because she only sees the father. The narrator and his competitor are marked with their compulsive acts; they operate in a senseless wheel of their professional existence.

Overall, a scene is shown that seems to be a temporal extension of the family situation from the letter to the father . There are also echoes of the people from The Judgment , especially in the description of the father.

The image of the couple is contrasted with the latent bachelor problem. But one must not seek a seamless connection between Kafka's own life in his family and this story. Because even in the “letter” there are great differences between this literary analysis of life and reality.

reception

  • Dagmar C. Lorenz: “There are no female figures in Kafka's novels and stories as an alleged or actual source of male strength, badges of rank and power. Female power is revealed through the survival of the male character. The status he attains is her achievement. Your concern for him is ultimately the concern of an entrepreneur for his company. "

expenditure

  • All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe , Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • The stories. Published by Roger Hermes, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3 .
  • Legacy writings and fragments 2. Edited by Jost Schillemeit, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 516–524 u. 534-541.

Secondary literature

Web links

Wikisource: The Married Couple  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter-André Alt, p. 325
  2. ^ Bettina von Jagow and Oliver Jahrau's article Lorenz p. 378