Little fable

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Kleine Fabel is a parable about a desperate mouse by Franz Kafka , which was written in 1920. It was published posthumously by Max Brod , who also gave it the title.

The full text

“Oh,” said the mouse, “the world is getting narrower every day. At first it was so wide that I was afraid, I kept walking and was happy that I finally saw walls to the right and left in the distance, but these long walls come together so quickly that I am in the last room and there The trap I'm running into is in the corner. ”-“ You just have to change the direction of your walk, ”said the cat and ate it.

Content analysis

The mouse is a really pitiful, unfree, frightened creature. The world is almost never the way it would like it to be. Between being too wide and narrowing, there is only a narrow window of comfort for her, typically the sight of the bounding walls emerging in the distance.

As if hypnotized, she runs towards the trap, as if there was no other way. The cat's advice to change direction might in itself be advice from a friend who might want to point out a way out of stuck thinking. Only at this point and brought up by the cat is it cynical and pointless. One therefore speaks of a " Kafkaesque situation". Because the danger is not the trap, but the cat sneaking up unnoticed. The trap just stood there; Wouldn't the mouse have had the option of not approaching it? But the question is idle anyway. The mouse (and the reader) did not even notice the approach of the cat as the real danger of death, so it had no opportunity to be afraid of it either. Otherwise the mouse is completely wrapped up in its fears and compulsions. Isn't it almost a relief when the cat ends this existence?

Shape analysis

This is not a fable in the traditional sense, but a narrative that shows the reader the deceptive nature of all interpretations. The title contains a generic name that places the text in the series of didactic animal stories. But the edifying or at least enlightening message is missing, it just shows that there is no way out. This fable smacked the Enlightenment optimism from which this genre actually emerged in the face. A fabulous sense is revealed in this, namely the warning of a misguided life, which in turn is much more like a kind of parable . “The little anti-fable is Kafka's smallest parable” (Sudau).

The narrative is limited to the last dramatic moments in the life of the mouse, but lets the outlines of the entire life emerge. The mouse tells first in the present tense (gets closer ...), then changes to the past tense (was she ...), a final movement in the same time step is inserted (was ... afraid), before the narration changes back to the present tense and into this tense is completed (rush ..., I am ..., stands ..., I run ...). The life path of the mouse is apparently predetermined. At first it is frightened by the breadth, the resulting complete freedom, so that it quickly moves on. She is only happy for a short time when she recognizes the bounding walls, because apparently without time having passed, she has already reached the end, in the “last room”. There is the trap into which she has to run .

The cat's cynical saying that refers to changing the direction of travel is absurd. Although the mouse seems to have complete freedom of choice, its life path is predetermined without its own influence. She can't help but walk into the trap in the last room where she is being eaten. The cat does not even have to bother to chase it, the mouse is served to the cat through its own path through life "on a silver platter".

This motif can be found very often in Kafka. Examples are the novels Der Proceß and Das Schloss , but also in the country doctor , in the judgment or in the parable Before the Law , the protagonist is caught in a determined doom scenario from which no course of action whatsoever can help him. All of this happens without this protagonist being guilty. It's just the "natural course of things".

Interpretative approaches

The path between the narrowing walls towards the trap could also generally represent the path of life with the inevitable end through death. Stages of human life are signaled here in a few words. The difficult finding in youth. The cramping duties of the adult. The saying of the cat seems almost like an enticement for people who are stuck in their normal life in many ways to set off in the direction of a fundamentally new situation, which, however, leads to annihilation. The concern about the trap represented the general existential concern, including the fear of death. However, if you die quite unexpectedly prematurely, you will be completely wasted. The mouse finds itself hopelessly between different variants of death, and not only through external danger, but through its own inner state of mind.

But it is also conceivable to undermine the fable's provocation by evading its statement. Perhaps it is not about people as such, but rather about the “gray mouse” that is subject to these constraints, but this does not necessarily have to apply. So the little fable could also be an invitation to approach life confidently at an early stage and not necessarily run into the trap between walls.

As in many Kafka stories, misjudgment of reality and failure are the themes. In contrast to these other narratives such as B. The construction , research of a dog , the village school teacher , in which finally a certain unsatisfactory state of limbo remains, leads the present story abruptly to a fatal end. And so the fear of the mouse gets its full justification in retrospect - albeit without a causal connection.

reception

  • Sudau (p. 112): “All in all, Kafka accomplishes the feat of accelerating a process that lifts a melancholy, contemplative review of life into a jerky suction of movement in the shortest possible time and then abruptly terminates it in a dramatic snap motion. This reading and introductory dynamic alone is staged in an astonishing way. If you add the mental shock from the cruel punch line, Kafka's 'Little Fable' is a masterpiece of astonishing construction. "

Text output

  • Franz Kafka: All the stories. Published by Paul Raabe , Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Franz Kafka: Legacy writings and fragments 2. Edited by Jost Schillemeit. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-10-038145-9 , p. 343.
  • Franz Kafka The stories. Original version, edited by Roger Hermes, Fischer Verlag 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3 .
  • Franz Kafka: Little Fable. Graphic novel. Illustrated by Elvira Calderón based on models by José Guadalupe Posada. Trilingual edition: German / English / Spanish. Published by Elena Moreno Sobrino, Calambac Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-943117-79-0 , p. 26.

Secondary literature

  • Beda Allemann : Kafka's “Little Fable”. In: Beda Allemann u. Erwin Koppen (ed.): Participation and mirroring. Berlin, New York 1975, pp. 465-484.
  • Peter-André Alt : Franz Kafka. The Eternal Son. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 .
  • Manfred Engel : Small postponed writings and fragments 3. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd Auerochs (ed.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , p. 359 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son . Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 572
  2. ^ Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka. Short prose / short stories. Klett, Stuttgart / Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , p. 110
  3. ↑ Ralf Sudau, p. 108
  4. ↑ Peter-André Alt, p. 572
  5. ↑ Ralf Sudau, p. 109

Web links

Wikisource: Little Fable  - Sources and Full Texts