To be unhappy

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Unhappiness is a story by Franz Kafka that appeared in 1913 as part of the anthology Consideration . The story is about an unreal visit to a lonely, unhappy man.

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The first-person narrator reports in the past tense from an evening in November. At the time he was pacing restlessly in his room, had been in a confused mood and had considered going out again. A childlike ghost had emerged from the corridor. The narrator had become even more excited and could hardly believe that the ghost really wanted to see him. This reassured him that everything was right. In the conversation that started now, the two could not have understood each other. First it was a question of whether a door was closed or locked or has to be. The ghost didn't want the narrator to make so much of a fuss. After a real dispute, the conversation broke off.

The narrator goes on to say that he lit a candle and hectically left his apartment. On the stairs he met a tenant from next door whom he told about his ghost. If you don't believe in ghosts, said your neighbor, you don't need to be afraid. But the narrator admitted his deep-seated fears. One could feed ghosts, said the neighbor, especially female ghosts. That didn't convince the narrator either. As he was leaving, he asked his neighbor not to take his ghost away from him. Now he could have taken a quiet walk, but felt so abandoned that he would have preferred to go back up and go to sleep.

Text analysis

A narrator living alone in a room, obviously a bachelor, gets nervous and doesn't know what to do with himself. He walks across the narrow carpet of his room "like in a racecourse". The whole thing takes place in November, the month of depression. When the ghost appears, he quickly dresses himself formally because he “didn't want to stand there half-naked”. It is particularly important to the narrator that nobody in the house notices that he is visiting. He is so indecisive and cumbersome that the ghost becomes angry. The conversation literally escalates, one blames each other. The narrator ends the conversation with the words: “I don't know anything.” You don't find out what happens to the ghost.

The other tenant seems to think the narrator is a serious painter. ("You're leaving again, you scoundrel"). He points out the worthwhile contact with the feminine appearance of a ghost and does not understand the fear and dissatisfaction of the narrator. Although the narrator has only been able to establish an unfortunate connection with the ghost, there is no way he wants to lose it. If he now goes back to his room instead of outside, it can be assumed that he is trying to get closer to the ghost again. There was no talk of leaving the room. The concrete end or the continuation of this relationship is withheld from us.

Interpretative approaches

Here the elements emerge that are later carried out in Blumfeld, an older bachelor , namely an unreal visit to the apartment of a lonely, unhappy bachelor. The essence of the bachelor par excellence is portrayed in another piece from contemplation , namely The Unhappiness of the Bachelor .

The childish ghost should have at least two interpretations. On the one hand, it represents the narrator's alter ego , which he describes in the following words: "Your nature is mine and if I am naturally friendly to you, you must not be otherwise." The narrator's neurosis is reflected in his unreality . How the dark, sick sides of his existence are touched here is expressed in the sentence: “The real fear is that of the cause of the appearance. And this fear remains. I have that great in me. "

The second variant consists in the interpretation of the ghost as a woman. There are often indications that it is also a secret visit by a female being. The almost uptight reactions of the narrator speak for it. You learn that the child's ghost is more of an adult girl with whom you shouldn't lock yourself in the room. Kafka's predilection for young child-like women also appears here. The tenant also points out the female gender of ghosts. The gesture of the ghost rubbing his fingers over the wall of the room is described twice. The narrator particularly mentions this gesture. Is there a suggestion of a sexual gesture? The conversation between the two develops agonizing after the initial affection. The narrator talks to death and problematizes the situation.

But if you derive a young male ghost from the text, the behavior of the narrator seems even more strange and can at best be explained by the reaction to a hidden homophile situation. The question of a closer identity of the ghost cannot be clarified. The literature does not provide a conclusive statement either. With Dagmar C. Lorenz two beings are even seen, namely the appearance of a small child and a female ghost.

In this conversation one can already see the style of Kafka's future letters to his friends Felice Bauer and Milena Jesenská . Here, as repeatedly in his writing, Kafka anticipated his own future reality of life.

expenditure

  • Paul Raabe (Ed.): Franz Kafka. All the stories. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .
  • Roger Herms (ed.): Franz Kafka The stories. Original version. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3 .
  • Wolf Kittler, Hans-Gerd Koch, Gerhard Neumann (Hrsg.): Franz Kafka: Prints during lifetime. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-10-038154-8 , pp. 33-40.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka - The Eternal Son. 2005, p. 254.
  2. ^ Dagmar C. Lorenz: Kafka and gender. 2008, p. 375.

Web links

Wikisource: Unhappiness  - Sources and Full Texts