Homecoming (Kafka)

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Homecoming is a story in the form of a parable from the estate of Franz Kafka . The story, which is only twenty sentences long and begins with the words: “I am returned” and occasionally appears under this title, was written down by Kafka in a quarto notebook in 1920 and published in 1936 by Max Brod , who also determined the title.

content

The parable describes the situation of a person who returns to their parents' home. The first-person narrator describes part of the courtyard, and the person finally stops in front of the house. The strangeness and cold of the house and a vague fear make the person pause in front of the courtyard. It describes on the one hand the feeling of wanting to enter out of curiosity and on the other hand the fear of seeing the parents again. What happens in the kitchen remains a secret to the narrator, just as the son remains a secret to the parents.

shape

The text Homecoming begins with a description of the situation: “I have returned.” This initial situation is followed by the description of the rooms, which condenses into a picture of the neglected courtyard. The perceptions of the ego are associated with danger through the verb “lurk”.

The parable recalls the story of the prodigal son from the New Testament. There she is described from the perspective of the father and here from the perspective of the son. It is a monologue, a self-talk, even a self-questioning by the son. In the beginning, this monologue is still resolute. However, the matter of course is getting increasingly out of step. There is talk of coldness and self-centeredness. In the final turn of the parable, the idea of ​​keeping secrets plays a decisive role. The family seems to have conspired against outsiders by a secret. And the family home seems like an inaccessible secret to the newcomer.

Text analysis

association

The title Homecoming triggers feelings and associations that go hand in hand with reunion, arrival, anticipation, but also with uncertainty and childhood memories. The expectation of a happy family scene is not fulfilled in the text, it is canceled and replaced by feelings of insecurity and fear. The son also closes himself off from the family. The son's statement “I have arrived” is actually incorrect; it is more of a wish for a hidden search for protection and perhaps even indicates an earlier failure in life without the family, when he had just not "arrived". It is all the more disastrous for him that he cannot get here.

Speech design and style

The questions that run through the text indicate a problem: they create a paradox in that they are not answered. Only the question “are you secret?” Is answered by the first-person narrator . There is no answer to the other questions; thereby increasing the appearance of self-reproach. The last two questions are formed by the subjunctive and relate to the imagination to imagine a future, possible event.

The choice of verbs does not bring about any movement either, but makes everything appear static and evokes a feeling of pessimism and isolation (“returned”, “standing”, “winding”, “waiting”, “lurking”).

The few adjectives that are available are mainly placed in the first descriptive part of the narrative (“procedure”, “old”, “unusable”, “torn”, “secret”, “insecure”), while the adjectives “cold” "," Lightly [...] "and" stranger "follow sporadically later in the text. On the descriptive level, they make the scene, the house look neglected and run down. Nevertheless they refer to the similar feelings of the first-person narrator. The phrase “I don't dare knock on the kitchen door” introduces a new direction. It can be seen that the descriptor is now moving away: “because I listen from afar”. In a figurative sense, reference is made to the emotional effects of the homecoming on the first-person narrator. While the relationships within the family are "secret" ("Smoke comes from the chimney." "The coffee [...] is being made.") They have an ambiguous effect on the first-person narrator, namely mysterious, so that he becomes increasingly "stranger" feels. The self-doubts ("What use can I do for you?") Do not let him participate in the security and exclude him from the family. In connection with the topic and the problem, the objects and the situation gain a symbolic, pictorial meaning, e.g. B. the repetitions ("listen"); as well as the importance that they have in this situation (the kitchen as a symbolic space of security). The result of the return home is announced in the last line: "Wouldn't I be like someone who wants to keep his secret?"

Summary

The theme of this text is alienation .

The person in this story does not return home. At the beginning of the text the person actually seems to be there because he is reproducing very precise observations. But then doubts and fears arise, she keeps moving away instead of coming closer. She herself cannot go to the family and is equally unsure whether she is still capable of personal encounters, of family closeness, which is expressed in the last two sentences. The alienation now seems too great ... In this story, the desire to return home remains.

The special theme in Kafka's work is the relationship between the son and the father or family. In the story Heimkehr , Kafka presents this problem parabolically .

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories. Klett Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 .
  • Jan Urbich: "I came home late". The subject of homecoming in poetry and philosophy of modernity. Wallstein Verlag, 2019, ISBN 978-3-8353-3540-0 . (Chapter 7: Kafka, Heimkehr, pp. 157–195)

reception

  • Sudau (p.66) It was not only the long separation that created a feeling of alienation between the narrator and his family, rather this alienation was already present in childhood. Because the surprising humanization of the house objects makes you sit up and take notice and suggests that they are only a mirror of the family situation: cold things stand piece by piece, as if everyone were busy with their own affairs.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short Prose / Erzählungen 2007. Klett Verlag, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , pp. 68/69.

Web links