The Merchant (Kafka)

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The merchant is a story by Franz Kafka that appeared in 1913 as part of the anthology Consideration . It is about the hardships of business life.

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A businessman who runs a small business complains about his professional existence, which gives him a headache. It burdens him that he has to make multiple decisions in advance. He is afraid for his money, which is in the possession of other people, whose circumstances he does not overlook. If the store closes in the evening, he won't be able to recover. He suffers from the idea of ​​actually having to continue working for his business interests.

After a short walk home he is at home and takes the elevator up to his apartment. He suspects that a longer walk home and climbing stairs instead of using the elevator should have a more beneficial effect on him. In the elevator he looks in a mirror and talks to himself.

He speaks of wings that can take him anywhere, a village valley or Paris. He speaks of great emotions and interesting scenes, of beautiful women, bathing children and sailors on an ironclad. Then he mentions an inconspicuous man who is robbed and who then sadly goes his way. Two police officers on horseback appear but do not help.

The merchant's elevator ride is over, he's standing at the door of his apartment and rings the bell for the girl.

Text analysis and interpretation approach

The narrating merchant is subject to multiple pressures. His professional problems do not lie in the reality of his business, but in his thinking, which is always worried about the future. He has to "warn against feared mistakes". He cannot avert the misfortune that “might hit” the people who have his money. Strange fears arise for no reason. He thinks the people who have his money throw a lavish party and others (probably his debtors too) - on the run to America - stop at it. He speaks of the "uninterrupted needs of his business" that actually do not allow for an end to work. When he is forced to rest in the evening, he becomes uncomfortable.

When he goes home, he struggles with the short way home and with the elevator in his house. Why doesn't he make a detour and use the stairs instead of the elevator? He appears to be caught in his daily routine. His self-talk during the elevator ride is aimed at one or more imaginary addressees. At first he is breaking free from his business life. Various interesting motifs come to mind, everything that he was incapable of receiving during his hard day's work. Then the image of a robbery appears and he is back to his own unfortunate existence. The self-talk of the merchant seems to be addressed to those who have robbed without fear of the consequences. Coming home in the evening is joyless. The merchant is tied up in the mill of his profession, even more in the obsession of his pessimistic thinking.

Biographical references

He reminds of the merchants from Kafka's The Married Couple or The Neighbor and the representative Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis . Kafka is familiar with the concerns of this profession through his father Hermann Kafka, a clothing dealer. His father, an energetic, impulsive man, may only have been the godfather of the character. The description of the fears and the fantasies in the elevator make one think of the frequent daydreams of the writer himself. As is often the case with Kafka, the story ends without any real conclusion. A state of limbo remains which expresses the indissoluble imprisonment in an unsatisfactory existence.

expenditure

  • Franz Kafka. All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe , Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Franz Kafka The stories. Published by Roger Herms, original version Fischer Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3 .
  • Franz Kafka: Prints during his lifetime. Edited by Wolf Kittler, Hans-Gerd Koch and Gerhard Neumann . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1996, ISBN 3-10-038152-1 , pp. 21-24.

Secondary literature

Web link

Wikisource: The Merchant  - Sources and full texts