The rejection

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The rejection is a short story by Franz Kafka from the anthology published in 1913 Consideration .

content

The first-person narrator mentally constructs the possibility of meeting a beautiful girl, not described further, whom he asks to come with him, but who passes by in silence.

To explain this rejection, he puts the words in her mouth that he is not manly enough, not well traveled, not attractive. In response to this, he himself refrains from his offer. He, too, finds a lot to criticize about the girl, she is not a high lady with servants, her figure is insufficient and her clothes are out of date, he calls the dress “this mortal danger on the body”.

The girl ends the fictional dialogue with the remark that it is best if everyone goes home alone.

Text analysis

Here a fictional dialogue takes place between the ego and the girl, which leads to the rejection of the girl towards the ego. But the imaginary input constellation seems strange. How could a girl - especially in the prudish time of the beginning of the 20th century - have responded to this direct question other than by passing silently, unless she had been a prostitute? Ignoring the girl was inevitable and the following explanations with the devaluation of both sides, which only take place in the head of the narrator, are heightened fantasies in the context of a fictional situation.

This kind of an almost uncomfortably appraising view of women can also be found in two other pieces of contemplation , namely in The Passenger and Clothes . Incidentally, Kafka also described his twice fiancé Felice Bauer in diaries in a similar way .

The Rejection is one of the earliest works - probably created in 1906 - and is one of the rarely interpreted Kafka pieces.

expenditure

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b v.Jagow p. 406.
  2. ↑ Raabe p. 394.

Web links

Wikisource: The Rejection  - Sources and Full Texts