The exam (Kafka)

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The examination is a small prose piece by Franz Kafka from 1920.

A servant is never called to work. Another servant subjects him to an examination with a strange outcome.

This is one of the Kafka pieces that has been mentioned in the relevant literature but has not yet been interpreted in more detail.

Emergence

In the autumn of 1920, when Kafka broke away from his married lover Milena Jesenská , a series of short prose pieces emerged as if in a productive burst. To be mentioned here are the city arms , the helmsman , at night , community , our town is ... , on the question of the law , the troop raising , Poseidon , the vulture , the spinning top , little fable and also the test .

Kafka himself did not publish these small works with their inner connections; the titles are largely by Max Brod . It was first published in 1936.

content

There is a servant there, but there is no work for him. He's scared and doesn't push forward. But sometimes he has a strong desire to be called to work. He lies dozing in the servants' room and stares at the ceiling. He goes to the pub and drinks sour beer. There he looks out of a small window at the manor house. Sometimes he sees house servants over there leaning against the window and looking down.

Once he comes to the tavern and his special seat is taken. The servant wanted to slip away quickly, but the other guest, also a servant, invites him to have a drink. He engages the servant in a game of questions and answers. But the servant doesn't understand what the other wants from him. He fears that the guest will regret having invited him in the first place. But he says: “That was just a test. Those who do not answer the questions have passed the test. "

shape

The story is told by a first-person narrator. The frequent use of personal pronouns is striking. In almost every sentence there is an “I”, “me” or “my”. It is not about a personality who is egomaniacal or egotistical outwardly, but the seclusion in oneself, which is also the content of the story, is documented. The frequent use of the conjunction “but” is also striking: statements are made that are then relativized or negated.

The division of the piece into two parts is very obvious, first the servant's monological consideration of his own situation, then the encounter with the other guest and the “test”. The connection between these two paragraphs is the respective passivity of the protagonist.

Relation to other works by Kafka

The servant's observing gaze in the direction of the manor house reminds one of the land surveyor K. from the novel Das Schloss . His gaze in the direction of the castle, which he cannot reach, is a glimpse into the seemingly emptiness of the winter nights, driven by the desire to achieve his professional (and social) legitimation through the castle.

Even the seductively beautiful son from Elf Söhne is satisfied with " wasting his gaze on the ceiling " from the sofa and, to the chagrin of his father, being completely passive.

The statement that he or she passes the test who does not answer the questions could also be an invitation not to act, but to contemplatively let the world work on you. In the Zürau aphorisms it says:

  • No.109: “It is not necessary that you go out of the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't even wait, be completely still and alone. The world will offer itself to you to unmask, it cannot help it, it will wriggle in front of you in ecstasy. "

But this aphorism is only suitable to a limited extent to approach the understanding of the test , because there is no ecstatic world to be discovered.

expenditure

  • All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe , S. Fischerverlag, 1977, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Postponed writings and fragments II. Edited by Jost Schillemeit, Fischer Taschenbuch; 2002, pp. 327-329.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter-André Alt p. 548.
  2. ↑ Joachim Unseld p. 194.
  3. ↑ Peter-André Alt p. 569.
  4. ^ Paul Raabe p. 405.

Web links