An intersection

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Eine Kreuzung is a short prose piece by Franz Kafka that was written in 1917 and published posthumously . It belongs to the category of Kafka's animal stories in which an unreal transformation takes place.

content

The first-person narrator reports on his peculiar animal, which he inherited from his father. The animal, a crossbreed , is half lamb and half cat in behavior and appearance. The children in the neighborhood can visit it on Sundays. They have already brought cats and lambs with them, but there was no recognition of the strange animal.

It has a close bond with its master and often accompanies him like a dog by foot. When the narrator once doesn't know a way out of a business problem, the animal seems to cry with him. Sometimes it holds its snout to the master's ear as if to say something and looks questioningly into the master’s face. So it acts much like a compassionate person.

But the animal has both kinds of restlessness of both origins and so "the skin is too tight" for it. The narrator wonders whether the butcher's knife might be a salvation for this animal. The animal seems to ask him to do so from its human eyes. As an heirloom, he must deny him this salvation.

background

Kafka has dealt with the hybrid position of a being between animal-human forms of existence several times. See A Report for an Academy , The Metamorphosis . The starting point for the present story could be a dream that Kafka already recorded in a diary of October 29, 1911. There is a greyhound-like donkey with narrow human feet, which always holds itself upright. It is also conceivable that Kafka was inspired by his visits to variety theaters or fairs, where bizarre creatures and freaks were exhibited at that time.

Text analysis

The small prose piece is characterized by short, clear sentences. The narrative perspective of the first person contains a break at the end. At first glance, the formulations correspond to a contemplative, almost leisurely style of speech of an animal and child friend. The animal is cute and affectionate, and the children ask "weirdest questions". "Human ambition" is granted to the animal. The word is actually wrong. It's not an ambition, it's human compassion.

After these touching descriptions of the faithful beast, in the last paragraph of the story the consideration emerges of killing it in an act of redemption. Earlier statements in history are now given a new meaning. Right at the beginning it is said that the eyes of the animal are "flickering and wild", the fur is tight. Skin that is too tight is discussed again later.

When you think of the “butcher's knife”, one thinks of the butcher or possibly the Jewish slaughterhouse . This terrifying end is intensified as the animal's distress speaks “from its intelligent human eyes” and seems to call for killing. This killing is referred to as "reasonable doing". The narrator cannot and does not want to do this in memory of his father.

Interpretative approach

The animal is said to have come from the father's possession. It was not specifically passed on to the narrator by the father, but appeared in the only meager genetic material. For this, however, this being, who charms the narrator, but also makes him sad and affected, fully compensates.

One can perhaps see this crossing as a symbol of what the father unconsciously passed on to the son, namely in the case of Kafka the artistic ability. Significantly, the animal only develops into the multilayered being since it is in the possession of the narrator. It is true that it is said that Kafka inherited more of his mother's musical side. But Kafka only ever moved his relationship with his father; the mother led a shadowy existence in his eyes, was above all the father's helper. That is why he is - also in the demarcation - always only the son of his father. And his writing is always the search for a connection to the father (see also Letter to the Father , The Judgment ). Perhaps the hybrid being is also a metaphor for the different dispositions that are inherent in every human being from both parents.

Just as this animal brings joy and satisfaction to its owner, but also confusion and a longing for death , these same emotions accompany Kafka's literary activity. And although often tormenting for him, he does not push the desire to write aside (so he does not kill it off in himself), but holds on to it and increasingly subordinates his life with long downtimes and no serious partner relationship.

Web links

Wikisource: A Crossroads (1917)  - Sources and full texts

expenditure

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 315.
  2. ↑ M. Müller, M. Pasley: Franz Kafka diaries. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002, p. 205.
  3. ↑ Alt p. 50.