The missing one

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Along with Das Schloss and Der Trial, Der Verschollene is one of the three unfinished novels by Franz Kafka , written between 1911 and 1914 and published posthumously in 1927 by his friend and editor Max Brod . In the early editions, the novel was published under the title of " America " determined by Brod .

During Kafka's lifetime, the first, independent chapter, Der Heizer, was published by Kurt Wolff Verlag in 1913 .

Publisher's cover of the first edition in 1927

Summary

The 17-year-old Karl Roßmann is sent to the USA by his parents because he was "seduced" by a maid and she has now had a child from him. In the Port of New York arrived, he hits on the ship a rich uncle who takes him to her and whose wealth Karl now lives. But the uncle soon disowned the boy when Karl accepted an invitation from one of his uncle's business friends to visit the country house without authorization. Karl, who is put on the street by his uncle without speaking, meets two tramps, a French and an Irish, who take care of him, always to the disadvantage of Karl. Because of the Irishman, he loses a job as a lift boy in a huge hotel with oppressive working conditions. He is then employed against his will as a servant in an apartment that the two vagrants share with the fat older singer Brunelda and exploited.

The action stops at this point. The Critical Kafka Edition then cites two text fragments, the second of which is the well-known "Natural Theater of Oklahoma". In the first text fragment, Karl Brunelda pushes Brunelda in a wheelchair through the streets of the city to "Company No. 25". In the second, presumed by some to be the final chapter, Karl discovers a poster for a theater in Oklahoma (Kafka wrote "Oklahama" throughout) that promises employment to all. After a meticulous questioning, Karl is accepted by the theater's advertisers, admittedly only "for low technical work". This part of the text ends with the long train ride to Oklahoma, where Karl “grasps the greatness of America” for the first time.

Emergence

Franz Kafka had already tried his hand at a novel as a 15-year-old student, some of which was supposed to be set in America. Only at the end of 1911 did he take up the subject again with the beginning of the novel The Lost One . This project occupied him with long interruptions; At the end of 1912 he stopped working on the short story The Metamorphosis . In 1914 he finally put the fragment of the novel aside unfinished. As early as January 1913 he wrote to Felice Bauer : “My novel! The evening before last I declared myself completely defeated by him. It is falling apart, I can no longer hold it ... "

Kafka received suggestions for his work from Arthur Holitscher's travel book America Today and Tomorrow from 1912. In addition to important motifs, the spelling “Oklahama” goes back to a misprint at Holitscher: he signs a photograph with “Idyll from Oklahama”, the one Shows lynching scene in which the corpse of a hanged black man is surrounded by indifferent white Americans. The elimination of unpopular minorities in the form of the hanging of the black and the transfer to the social descent of Karl is manifested here in the adoption of the caption from Holitscher's book. Parallels to Charles Dickens ' novel David Copperfield can also be demonstrated, which Kafka admitted to himself in his diary on October 8, 1917. In this context he even referred to Karl Roßmann as “distant relatives of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist”.

The title Der Verschollene hides the actual history of Karl Roßmann, which represents a deliberate repudiation by his parents as an apparently unloved son who was driven out of the house. In this respect, the title deceives the readership about the true circumstances. Such strategies appear more frequently in the novel, because the story of Karl also contains a multitude of perspective distortions and shifts.

Kafka uses two relevant USA stereotypes. Karl is on his way to the end, so to speak “on the road again”, and the direction is from New York in the east to the mountains in the west, so “going west”.

Edition history

During Kafka's lifetime, only the first, independent chapter, Der Heizer, was published by Kurt Wolff in 1913. Together with the stories The Judgment and The Metamorphosis , also written in 1912, Kafka wanted the stoker to be combined into a trilogy, The Sons .

In 1927, three years after Kafka's death, Max Brod published the entire fragment of the novel under the title "America". For the headings and subdivisions of the first six chapters there is an authentic list of the author, the rest of the arrangement of the text fragments was done by Brod quite arbitrarily. This also applies to the title chosen by Brod "The natural theater of Oklahoma", the chronologically last part of the text. The editor justified his approach with alleged statements by Kafka that he wanted the novel to end in a conciliatory manner.

Later editions were published according to entries in Kafka's diaries and letters under the title “Der Verschollene”. This title has become generally accepted in literary studies today.

Content of the individual chapters

1. The stoker : Karl Rossmann, who was shipped to America by his parents because he had impregnated a maid, arrives at the port of New York on an ocean liner. When disembarking, he joins a ship's stoker who is offended in his professional honor. In the captain's cabin, where there is a discussion, a gentleman identifies himself as Karl's rich uncle Jakob and moves him to leave the ship and live with him.

2. The uncle : The uncle grants Karl a life of wealth, but also in strict fulfillment of his duties. Karl is learning the English language intensively, as well as playing the piano and riding. He experiences his uncle's business and the traffic in New York. The uncle is satisfied with Karl's progress and introduces Karl to his business friends Green and Pollunder. The latter invites Karl to his estate, where his daughter is. He wants to redeem this invitation the next day and picks up Karl. The uncle raises various concerns without prohibiting the visit directly.

3. A country house near New York : Arriving at the country house, Karl meets his daughter Clara. It turns out that Mr. Green is also visiting here at the same time. Karl can't do much with his daughter. An aggressive scramble ensues, in the course of which the very sporty daughter Karl really beats up. Karl becomes increasingly aware that he is making this visit against the declared will of his uncle and now asks to be allowed to go home again immediately. The other guest, Mr Green, explains that he should stay because he has an important letter to hand over to him at midnight. So that's how it happens. The letter is from his uncle, a man of iron principle who rejects Karl once and for all. Karl leaves the country house and is completely on his own again.

4. Way to Ramses : Karl meets Delamarche and Robinson in an inn. The two keep Karl's few possessions harmless. In search of work, the three walk a little way together. One evening Karl is assigned to get food from the Hotel Occidental. The head cook there is very caring towards Karl and offers him accommodation and work. Karl goes back to his cronies. There he gets very angry because they broke into his suitcase and now the photo of his parents has disappeared. So he accepts the head cook's offer and separates from the two shady companions.

5. Hotel Occidental : Karl becomes a lift boy in the hotel and initially gets along well with his work, whereby he gets to know the diverse work hierarchies. The head cook takes care of Karl. In her secretary Therese he finds an equal interlocutor; Therese tells him about the harrowing death of her mother as a construction worker. Karl lives in the big and restless dormitory of the lift boys. The liftboys often represent one another and leave their workplaces without permission without being noticed.

6. The Robinson case : Suddenly Robinson shows up at Karl's hotel and invites him to join him and Delamarche again. Karl firmly refuses. Robinson suddenly turns out to be badly beaten, probably drunk, can no longer go away and vomits in a disgusting manner. Karl wants to put it down somewhere and puts it in a bed in the dormitory. The head waiter and the hotel porter notice that Karl has left his elevator for this and Karl is to be dismissed for this. Strangely unpleasant interviews and physical abuse follow. The situation turns completely against Karl when the report of the drunk in the dormitory arrives. Even the head cook's intervention is pointless for him. He is chased out with Robinson.

7. An asylum : Robinson compels Karl to come with him to a high-rise building where he lives with Delamarche and the overweight and domineering singer Brunelda in a totally overcrowded room. Karl is supposed to work there as a servant, which he strongly refuses. When he tries to steal away, he is brutally beaten and has to stay. From the balcony of the room, Karl meets a student who often studies at night. From there he sees the goings-on of a political candidacy. Karl dreams of escaping this situation and getting a job as an office clerk.

Fragments that can be found in Kafka's handwriting in their last recognizable state also deal with the life of Karl in the orbit of the singer. There is a scene with the shapeless and awkward Brunelda washing. The fragment “Brunelda's Departure” shows Karl alone with the singer, whom he pushes through the city on a cart under a cover to an establishment No. 25, which is probably a brothel.

The Oklahoma Nature Theater: Lured by a poster for the Oklahoma Great Theater, which is recruiting workers at the racetrack, Karl goes there. The poster is for those who want to become an artist, but everyone else is welcome too. On the racetrack, women in angelic costumes greet the newcomers with trumpets. They are then classified according to their skills and occupations. Karl is referred several times by the engineer down to his true status as a European middle school student. All applicants receive good hospitality upon admission. Then it's on to Oklahoma. Karl met a lift boy from the hotel again. All travel together on the train through the vastness of America. The chapter ends with the description of the rugged mountain world.

Guesses about the end of the novel

There is uncertainty about the planned further course and the end of the novel. According to Max Brod, Kafka should have planned that Karl would not only find support and a job in the theater, but even his parents and home. This is contradicted by Franz Kafka's diary note from September 30, 1915, according to which Roßmann is threatened with a death similar to that of Josef K., the hero from The Trial : “Roßmann and K., the innocent and the guilty, ultimately both murdered indiscriminately, the innocent with a lighter hand, more pushed aside than knocked down ”.

Text analysis

Karl Rossmann's fate

The fragment of the novel is characterized by the search for belonging and the repetition of the protagonist's expulsion. Arrived as a displaced person by his parents, he is driven away by his uncle and then from the hotel. Ultimately, the obvious end of the unloved service at Brunelda also falls into this category. Each of three chapters (or chapter fragments) can be assigned a separate mode of expulsion (1–3 uncle, 4–6 hotel, 7 and 2 fragments Brunelda). At the end of each mode, Karl is left to his own devices again, each time in an increasingly worse situation.

Karl is an outcast son, but in fact also a father, although he never allows himself to be made aware of this fact; never once does he think of his distant son. The fact that he is not able to do this and thus negates himself as a father could be due to the fact that he always experienced the opposite of his parents and not a lonely father, as he would be, because a connection with the mother of the child on his side Does not exist.

In the final chapter, it seems that Karl finally finds a place of belonging in the Oklahoma theater. It is true that there are again embarrassing questions about his legitimacy, but everything turns out well and nobody presses Karl. But the place, the racecourse, whose bookmaker's booths and display boards are integrated into the selection process, associates something semi-silky. With the trumpeting angels and devils there is a bizarre and irrational element. The fact that everyone is accepted creates an arbitrariness that negates any personal pursuit.

Depiction of the new world

In the novel, work and traffic represent the central elements of American city life. Karl experiences the working world in his uncle's gigantic office and in the huge Hotel Occidental. These worlds are anonymized, strictly hierarchical and in individual cases inhuman. The traffic is seen as a pulsating flow of indelible energy. Kafka, an early cinema enthusiast , chose a film-like narrative form, especially for these descriptions or for the description of an escape scene .

shape

The narrative perspective is spatially and temporally consistent with that of the protagonist. However, the whole wealth of descriptions and information that is presented does not seem to penetrate Karl's consciousness, let alone that he “feels the power of the orders hidden behind it”, as Reiner Stach puts it. Especially in the first chapters he moves more in his own world, often in the form of wishful ideas.

The representation of the forms of movement in modern traffic is a central object. The processes of shipping traffic in the port of New York (first chapter) and the floods of traffic in the street canyons (second chapter) are only perceived by the protagonist's eyes from a reduced perspective. This makes it clear that he is not yet able to fully grasp the new perceptual stimuli. He is exposed to sensory impressions that he can hardly cope with. The cinematographic vision is particularly evident in the seemingly grotesque escape scene depicting Karl's departure from the hotel (chapter seven). Kafka describes the situation from a camera-like perspective by transforming reality into a sequence of moving images. And here, too, the external stimuli penetrate the fleeing protagonist in such a disorderly manner that he cannot reflect them. Already Max Brod writes in the afterword to the first edition that the descriptions "are irresistibly reminiscent of Chaplin films".

In the first chapter (captain's cabin) and in the third chapter (Landhaus Pollunder), Karl begins to make lengthy, naive, well-meaning speeches. This does not happen in the further course of the novel. Its interior is also less and less presented. Only at the end of the seventh chapter does Karl lose himself again in the idea of ​​how he - who has just been brutally beaten in Brunelda's whore household - would use all his strength in a possible future office job. This depiction, marked by derision, once again shows Karl's entire naivete. Otherwise, only brief question and answer sentences are increasingly exchanged in the course of the novel. There is no longer any room for leisurely, cumbersome speeches and deliberations. If Karl thinks in the penultimate paragraph of the final chapter that he has only now understood the "greatness of America", this may indicate a first stage in a development process, in which, however, the reader has no further part.

Interpretative approaches

One position reads: In contrast to the common "America" ​​cliché of the successful career of the able immigrant, Kafka's first novel shows a harrowing permanent social decline of a benevolent and naive boy. The homeless Karl, who is characterized by a great sense of justice, finds no place abroad, in an impersonal world of cold authorities and hierarchies. The idea of ​​the world theater in Oklahoma, in which angels and devils are portrayed and which takes everyone in, can also be seen as a metaphor for the realm of death, which is intended for everyone. Furthermore, the novel impressively shows that in the American dream not only diligence and virtue count, but above all relationships with powerful people enable an individual to advance in society.

The novel fragment can be seen as a kind of Bildungsroman , but not in the traditional sense, since the hero does not experience any progressive development. Rather, the focus is on the conflict between the son and the father's world (represented by the different father figures of the fragment). The loser is always the son. According to Albert Camus , author of The Myth of Sisyphus , Karl Roßmann is "a modern Sisyphus who forever rolls the rock of belonging in vain".

Quotes

  • When the seventeen-year-old Karl Rossmann, who had been sent to America by his poor parents because a maid had seduced him and had a child, drove into the port of New York in the slow ship, he saw the statue that had long been observed the goddess of freedom as in a suddenly stronger sunlight. Her arm with the sword rose up like it had recently, and the open air waved around her figure.
  • In the harbor: a movement without end, a restlessness, transferred from the restless element to the helpless people and their works.
  • The uncle: "[...] At that time I had a small shop in the harbor district and if five boxes were unloaded there a day, it was a lot and I went home inflated. Today I have the third largest warehouses in the port and that shop is the dining room and the equipment room of the sixty-fifth group of my pack carriers. "
  • "So you are free then?" She asked. "Yes, I am free," said Karl and nothing seemed more worthless to him.
  • They drove for two days and two nights. Only now did Karl understand the greatness of America.

reception

  • Kindler's literary dictionary (p. 54) points to the connection with the mass emigration of Eastern Jewish refugees to America. Karl Roßmann was sent as a punitive action by his family. He is not a survivor who just got away, but - as Kafka's title suggests - someone who has disappeared. And whoever is missing can be declared dead after a certain period of time.
  • Ries (p. 103 ff.) In the Lost , the central metaphor of a cyclical structure of failure is the labyrinth. It can be found in the successive stations (ship, uncle's house, Pollunder's country house, hotel) during Karl's stay in America. Charles' introduction to sexuality is a particular theme. The prostitute eroticism in Brunelda's environment is characterized by embarrassment and crook.
  • Alt (p. 347 ff.) Emphasizes the portrayal of modern times with its permanent circulation of goods, which creates hierarchies that are exemplified in working life.
  • Stach (p. 199) speaks of Kafka's clairvoyance when depicting hectic and oppressive working conditions in which hunted (anonymous) individuals move long before the introduction of the assembly line and the invention of industrial robots. Horror lurks behind the resulting comedy of these images.
  • Plachta (p. 451 f.): The “Theater of Oklahama” chapter concluding the novel creates a sharp contrast to the rest of the events. Karl's social decline seems to be slowed, the hitherto drastic reality of the novel dissolves into a harmonious social utopia ... In Kafka research, however, the assessment of this chapter fluctuates between saving the protagonist and ultimately fatal outcome.

Theater, film and art

literature

expenditure

  • America. K. Wolff , Munich, 1927. (The first edition was published posthumously by Max Brod.)
  • America. Published by Max Brod, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-59-612661-4 .
  • America. Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, 2004, ISBN 3-937793-35-6 .
  • The novels. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1963.
  • The missing one. Edited by Jost Schillemeit, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
  • The missing one. Vitalis, Prague, 2010. (With an afterword by Anthony Northey) ISBN 978-3-89919-166-0 .
  • America: Sven Regener reads Franz Kafka. (Audiobook), Roof Music, 2014, ISBN 978-3-86484-103-3 .
  • Der Verschollene (audio book), Der Audio Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-7424-0213-4 .

Secondary literature

  • Peter-André Alt : Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-57535-8 .
  • Peter-André Alt: Kafka and the film. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58748-1 ISBN 3-406-53441-4 .
  • Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Franz Kafka (= text and criticism Sonderband ). Berlin 1994.
  • Ralph P. Chrimmann: Franz Kafka. Attempt at a cultural-philosophical interpretation. Kovač, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-8300-1275-6 .
  • Melissa de Bruyker: The resonant silence: the rhetoric of the narrated world in Kafka's Der Verschollene, Schnitzler's Therese and Walser's robber novel , Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-3689-7 (Dissertation University of Gent 2006, 377 Pages).
  • Manfred Engel: outer world and inner world. Subjectivity draft and modern novel poetics in Robert Walser's "Jakob von Gunten" and Franz Kafka's "Der Verschollene". In: Yearbook of the German Schiller Society 30 (1986), pp. 533-570.
  • Manfred Engel : The missing one. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd Auerochs (Hrsg.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , pp. 175-191.
  • Wolfgang Jahn: Style and worldview in Kafka's novel “Der Verschollene” <“America”> 1961, DNB 481100806 (Dissertation University of Tübingen, Philosophical Faculty, 1961, 211 pages).
  • Rainer von Kügelgen: A Parzival of Misfortune or: How Karl Großmann turns the “Land of the Free” into a penal colony - comments on Kafka's “The Lost One”. Lecture at the Colloquium Functional Pragmatics, Hamburg, January 23, 2010.
  • Margarete Susmann: The Job Problem with Franz Kafka . In: Heinz Politzer (Ed.): Franz Kafka . Scientific Book Society Darmstadt 1973.
  • Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler , Norbert Winkler (ed.): The diversity in Kafka's life and work . Vitalis 2005, ISBN 3-89919-066-1 .
  • Wiebrecht Ries : Kafka as an introduction . Junius, Hamburg 1993. ISBN 3-88506-886-9 .
  • Reiner Stach Kafka. The years of decisions . Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-16187-8 .
  • Bettina von Jagow , Oliver Jahraus : Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6 .
  • Benno Wagner: Odysseus in America. List and sacrifice in Horkheimer, Adorno and Kafka. In: Manfred Gangl, Gérard Raulet (Hrsg.): Beyond instrumental reason. Critical Studies on the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1998, 207-224.

Web links

Example interpretations:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the novel from 1963 Karl is 16 years old, in later editions, e.g. B. from 2002, Karl is introduced at the age of 17. In the novel chapter "In the Hotel Occidental" he describes himself as being 16 (age in first edition?)
  2. ^ For example, the paperback edition following the critical Kafka edition (1983) Franz Kafka: Der Verschollene; Roman, in the version of the manuscript , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-18120-9 , p. 341; "The text reproduction [of the critical Kafka edition] follows the handwriting of the author in its last recognizable state", Editorische Note, ibid., P. 321
  3. ↑ Literary Knowledge Franz Kafka Carsten Schlingmann p. 27
  4. ↑ a b c d e Bodo Plachta: Der Heizer / Der Verschollene from: Bettina von Jagow and Oliver Jahrhaus Kafka Handbook Life - Work - Effect ed. 2008 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6 , pp. 438-455
  5. ^ "Franz Kafka Diaries" u. a. Malcolm Pasley Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag ISBN 3-596-15700-5 , p. 840
  6. ↑ Peter-André Alt, p. 344.
  7. ↑ a b c d Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The eternal son. A biography . Munich: Verlag CH Beck, 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 . Pp. 346-365
  8. ↑ Editor's note in the paperback edition following the critical Kafka edition (1983) Franz Kafka: Der Verschollene; Roman, in the version of the manuscript , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt aM, 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-18120-9 , p. 321
  9. ↑ This title comes from Max Brod and cannot be found in Kafka's handwriting; see. Jost Schillemeit: Follow-up note in the paperback edition following the critical Kafka edition (1983) Franz Kafka: Der Verschollene; Roman, in the version of the manuscript , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt aM, 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-18120-9 , p. 326
  10. ^ "Franz Kafka Diaries" u. a. Malcolm Pasley Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag ISBN 3-596-15700-5 , p. 757
  11. ↑ a b “The diversity in Kafka's life and work”, Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler and Norbert Winkler, pp. 11–15
  12. ^ Statement by Peter-Andre Alt
  13. ↑ Reiner Stach: Kafka. The years of decisions. S. Fischer Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-596-16187-8 , p. 196.
  14. ↑ Peter-André Alt : Kafka and the Film Beck Verlag 2009 ISBN 978-3-406-58748-1 , p. 65
  15. ^ Peter-André Alt : Kafka and the Film Beck Verlag 2009 ISBN 978-3-406-58748-1 , p. 81
  16. ↑ Martin Kippenberger in MoMA ( Memento from June 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Cornelia Köhler: Der Verschollene / America . Anne Roerkohl Documentary, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-942618-15-1 ( documentarfilm.com ).
  18. ^ Staatsschauspiel Hannover: Schedule> Repertoire AZ> America. Retrieved March 10, 2017 .
  19. ↑ [1]