Josefine, the singer or the people of the mice

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Josefine, the singer or the people of the mice is Franz Kafka's last work and one of four stories from his anthology, Ein Hungerkünstler , published in 1924 .

Summary

It is the story of Josephine the mouse and the mouse people who appear as a singer. Josefine's singing is more of a soft whistling, which actually every other mouse from the people gives off or can give off. Nevertheless, her art is publicly undisputed. Sometimes - only among themselves - their listeners admit the truth about Josefine's alleged art.

Nevertheless, their singing, performed in the habitus of a diva , has a great effect on the mouse people, as the feeling of togetherness is strengthened in a strange way on such musical occasions. The mouse people need the concerts as a kind of resting place, because their existence is threatened in many ways. Although its continued existence is guaranteed by the large number of offspring, its existence is also given something arbitrary by the continually pushing new generations.

Josefine is convinced of the importance of her personality, gradually develops little starry airs and finally wants to be exempted from any other work for her singing art. However, when this is not granted to her by the general public, she refuses to sing more and more often, withdraws and ultimately disappears completely from the field of vision or hearing. The narrator, himself a representative of the mouse people, ends the story with the following sentences: “Perhaps we [...] won't do without very much. But Josephine, redeemed from the earthly plague, which in her opinion is prepared for the chosen, will happily lose herself in the countless multitude of heroes of our people, and soon, since we are not making a story, will be forgotten in increased redemption like all her brothers. "

Interpretative approaches

  • The text deals (similar to Der Hungerkünstler ) the relationship between artist and audience. It is thus also a reflection of Kafka on his own artistry. Although one might not believe at first that Kafka represents herself in the person of this bizarre, unsympathetic singer Josefine, there are clear references. So was z. For example, the desire to be released from other work in order to be able to devote oneself fully to art, also a big problem in Kafka's life.
  • The story is told not from the singer's point of view, but from that of the mouse people, i.e. the audience. Against the people with their difficult life, the singer appears as unrealistic as a prima donna, so that the reader will identify with the view of the mouse people when it comes to the question of leave from work.
  • From 1921 onwards, Kafka studied the writings of the contemporary Jewish satirist Karl Kraus . The story is therefore interpreted as an allegorical representation of the interrelationship between Karl Kraus and his predominantly Jewish audience. In the imperfect whistling, the Jewish way of speaking of whistling could be a theme. Josefine's whistling, d. H. their mouse language would therefore be a Mauschel German.
  • Josefine's singing conveys - regardless of her own intentions - a strong feeling of protection, security and calm, which is a great need for this restlessly scurrying, endangered and driven by its enormous reproductive instinct: "This whistling that rises where everyone else Silence is imposed almost like a message from the people to the individual; Josefinen's thin whistle in the midst of difficult decisions is almost like the poor existence of our people in the midst of the tumult of the hostile world. Josefine asserts herself, this lack of voice, this lack of performance asserts itself and makes its way to us, it feels good to think about it. ”- Here a clear reference is made to the Jewish people with their harsh living conditions and their fate, to be scattered around the world, and artistic creation is ascribed a great positive effect as a reuniting force.

Biographical background

Josefine was Kafka's last work, which he completed in March 1924, before his advancing illness made writing impossible for him and he died on June 3, 1924. He ironically looks at himself and his peers, at the artist with his capricious sensitivities and his demarcation from “normal people”. In Josefine's end - "released from plagues ... happily getting lost" - he must have seen his own approaching end.

reception

  • B. v. Jagow, O. Jahraus (p. 534): “Kafka's productions always include the paradox: That is why Josefine is a singer and represents the exception of the otherwise unmusical and artless people. She is peculiar, like all of Kafka's protagonists, and she represents the extraordinary and, in this sense, the highly individual. The collective is opposed to this individual, consisting of a we and a first-person narrator. "

expenditure

  • Josefine, the singer. In: Prager Presse No. 110, April 20, 1924. [First print]
  • Franz Kafka: A hunger artist. Four stories. Verlag Die Schmiede , Berlin 1924. [First edition]
  • Franz Kafka: All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Franz Kafka: Prints during his lifetime. Edited by Wolf Kittler, Hans-Gerd Koch and Gerhard Neumann . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1996, pp. 350–377.
  • Franz Kafka: Josefine, the singer or the people of mice. With a foreword by Michael Stavaric and etchings by Michaela Weiss. Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-99028-475-9

Secondary literature

Web links

Wikisource: Josefine, the singer or the people of the mice (from: Ein Hungerkünstler, 1924)  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 663
  2. ↑ a b Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. A biography . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 665
  3. ↑ Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, Norbert Winkler: The diversity in Kafka's life and work . Vitalis, 2005, ISBN 3-89919-066-1 , pp. 273 and 275. Reference to the interpretation by Andre Nemeths