Odradek

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Odradek is an enigmatic and ambiguous figure from Franz Kafka's prose text Die Sorge des Hausvater from the collection of stories A Country Doctor , initially thinglike, later in the process . The figure is mostly interpreted as a question of a meaning, since the resolution of its reality status and its meaning in the text remains unclear. The narrator himself expressly describes the nature and meaning of Odradek as incomprehensible and contradictory.

description

The Odradek outlines

In the story, the protagonist describes the Odradek as a wooden-looking, twisted star with knotted, colored threads that stands on edge on one of its prongs. As a stabilizing leg, it has a crossbar that starts in the middle of the star and is joined by a second at right angles.

Thread

Despite its external form, which the householder perceived as broken off, it also appears closed. This perfection is underlined by the fact that he also suspects that Odradek will survive him or even be immortal. Nor can it be caught while it roams nimbly through all the houses and always returns. If you ask him something, he gives no or short answers and laughs.

Odradek, as a symbiosis between human and thing-like properties, appears as a puzzling figure that can hardly be classified. The father of the house as the narrator calls the name "Odradek", whose etymologies from Slavic or German he rejects, and the object named with it as "meaningless".

Interpretative approaches

The short story, which turns the question of the meaning of the Odradek to the reader, expressly leaves its resolution open.

Kurt Weinberg (1963) interpreted Odradek symbolically in the sense of the Star of David from which the Christian cross arises , but he was also accused of overinterpretation ( Heinz Hillmann ). The figure is often understood allegorically as a question of the meaning of life . In an illustrated book about Kafka (FK Bilder aus seine Leben, Berlin 1983, p. 47), Klaus Wagenbach depicted a motorcycle the way Kafka rode one and titled it as "Model Odradek"; It was, however, a joke by Wagenbach to caricature the Kafka interpreters' addiction to interpretation. Thomas Borgstedt (2009) refers to the relationship between the object and a wooden toy. Andreas Kilcher (2010) compares Odradek's description with Karl Marx's criticism of goods.

Confrontation between Wilhelm Emrich and Malcolm Pasley

Most interpreters interpret Odradek as a doubt about the meaning itself. An older dispute took place between Wilhelm Emrich , who started from that general doubt about the meaning, and Malcolm Pasley , who tried to integrate more concrete biographical aspects.

Wilhelm Emrich's theory, which is more universal, is based on the paradox that if the meaningless outlives the meaningful, the meaningful is meaningless . This allows the conclusion, based on a comparison of Kafkascher images and motifs, that Odradek represents “the conclusion of all efforts in human and animal society”, the “intertwining and opposing of all human life and thought processes”.

In contrast, Malcolm Pasley proceeded chronologically and emphasized the closeness to Kafka's stories “ The Hunter Gracchus ” and “ Elf Sons ”, from which he emphasized Kafka and his work rather than a universal background. Odradek seems to be “a cipher for Kafka himself”, a “new picture of his own existence from the father's perspective”, and he believes that on a second level of interpretation it must be asked what Kafka wanted to express by such a “poeticization of his existential problem”.

Newer interpretive approaches

Odradek's appearance is described with the utmost precision. The style reminds some of the reports Kafka wrote about technical issues while working for workers' accident insurance. This precision of the description leads to the statement: “…; the whole thing seems pointless, but in its way complete ”. This statement can apply to many things, including bureaucratic systems. At the same time, it also fits the aesthetic quality of artistic productions, which in the sense of the aesthetics of autonomy are viewed as function-free and aesthetically closed.

Similarities have also been found between Odradek and Goethe's figure of the Mignon from the novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship Years (Borgstedt 2009): Both are initially referred to as genderless "it" and only later given a gender, both have something mechanical and artistic about them and are located between different cultures, both are “agile and difficult to catch” and give rise to fatherly “concern”, both symbolize the poetic in a certain sense. Further similarities have been described to Herman Melville's figure of Bartleby .

The self-determined Odradek, who is not subject to any rules, also has similarities with other "Kafka beings", for example with the jumping balls from Blumfeld, an older bachelor . Even a small woman falls into this category, considering its non-functional accessories and their moving dolls shape. These beings contain certain slapstick elements, whereby the problem of the object that one has to struggle with in everyday life is a topic.

Interpretations of the name "Odradek"

With regard to the linguistic origin of the name “Odradek” and its meaning, various contradicting suggestions have been made. In the story itself, the interpretation is described as uncertain. The questionable origin of the word Odradek from Slavic and / or German can be related to the linguistic-cultural situation of German-speaking Jews in Prague.

Max Brod and Wilhelm Emrich derived the name quite plausibly from the Czech verb “odradit”, which means “to advise against” or “to advise against” and which contains the German root word “advice”. “Odradek” would then be a “little bullshit” or complainer. Detlef Kremer refers it to the Czech "řádek" for "text line", which is opposed to the phonetic deviations. Slavoj Žižek, in turn, refers to the French linguist Jean-Claude Milner and wants to recognize an anagram of the Greek dodecahedron divided by two : “Odradek” would be half of a dodecahedron.

Another interpretation suggests Mirjam July: The word Odradek is therefore composed of P od ieb wheel , the birthplace of Kafka's mother Julie, and Woss ek , the birthplace of Kafka's father, Hermann. The allusion to the being's “indeterminate place of residence” - which is then to be understood in a humorous and ambiguous manner - would fit in with this. Odradek would thus stand for the tense mixture of the rumbling-impulsive father and the gentle-patient mother, according to Kafka a structure with "earlier ... functional form", but on the whole "pointless".

Again and again, however, the approach is found that this story by the poet deliberately eludes interpretation, similar to the research of the word “Odradek” which does not lead to the goal. In this story, Kafka could have expressed and anticipated the ambiguity, the countless attempts at interpretation and the centuries-long survival of his works using a bizarre, small being.

Odradek as namesake

A publisher, a label and an online comic magazine are named after the creature invented by Kafka.

In the 2019 video game Death Stranding by Hideo Kojima, an Odradek is an important item in the world of Death Stranding. It is a shoulder-mounted sensor that helps protagonist Sam on his journey through a post-apocalyptic world that has died. It is a mechanical arm that can be moved thanks to numerous joints. At the end are five finger-like prongs that look like a small palm-like radar dish when a scan is performed. The inner surface of the finger-like sensors lights up in different colors and provides additional information about dangers when it lights up orange. The Odradek is used by Sam to find important objects (such as lost cargo, raw materials ...), to identify dangers and to scan the terrain. The device is retracted most of the time - when the player presses a button, it is temporarily activated and casts a kind of radar scan over the landscape. Thus, the player has an overview of what is happening in a limited radius. In certain scenes in the game it becomes apparent that the Odradek has a kind of intelligence and empathy, based on the way the finger-like sensors move or e.g. B. turn to the BB (a baby in a kind of supply tank) you are carrying to calm it down.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mirjam Juli: Worry. Investigations into a motif by Kafka and Heidegger. Institute for German Studies / General Literary Studies at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, May 11, 2009, accessed on October 20, 2018 (German).