The care of the householder
The concern of the housefather is a short story by Franz Kafka that appeared in the volume Ein Landarzt in 1920 .
content
A strange thing or being called " Odradek " moves around the narrator's house according to its own rules .
Odradek resembles a small star-shaped spool with torn threads and rod-shaped arms on which he can stand upright. He can also move and even speak.
Odradek wanders around the house, sometimes he's gone. On the one hand, he talks, and is often mute. He is addressed like a child because of his tiny size, but he answers as an adult. There is no recognizable legality for him, he shows no specific activity. To the displeasure of the head of the house, Odradek has no activity in which he grinds himself apart and - as is the case with all beings - finds death.
The narrator of the housefather cannot assign any meaning or purpose to this object and it almost pains him to think that Odradek could survive it.
interpretation
See Odradek .
expenditure
- Franz Kafka: All the stories. Paul Raabe . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
- Franz Kafka: The stories. Original version, edited by Roger Herms. 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, pp. 282–284.
Secondary literature
- Peter-André Alt : Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography. Verlag CH Beck, 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 .
- Bettina von Jagow , Oliver Jahraus : Kafka Handbook Life – Work – Effect. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6 .
- Reiner Stach : Kafka: The years of knowledge . S. Fischer, ISBN 978-3-10-075119-5
Web links
- The concern of the householder in the Gutenberg-DE project
- The care of the householder - text of the story spoken by Hans-Jörg Große
