In law

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Before the law (read by Hans-Jörg Große)

Before the law is a prose text published in 1915 by Franz Kafka , also known as the doorkeeper legend or doorkeeper parable . The plot consists of a "country man" trying in vain to gain entry into the law, which is guarded by a doorkeeper.

content

The parable is about a country man's attempt to get into the "law". The man learns from a doorkeeper who is standing in front of it that it is possible, but not at the present time. He waits for the doorkeeper to let him in, "days and years", all his life. He tries to bribe the doorkeeper. He even asks the fleas in the doorkeeper's fur collar after years of studying the same to help him. But everything is in vain.

Shortly before the country man dies, he asks the doorkeeper why no one has asked for admission in all these years. The doorkeeper replies that this entrance was meant only for him. He'll close it now.

Factory history

The text comes from the cathedral chapter of the fragment of the novel The Trial and is told by a clergyman to Josef K., the protagonist of the novel.

Before the law is the only text from the trial that Kafka himself published. It first appeared in 1915 in the Jewish weekly magazine Selbstwehr and later again as part of the short story collection Ein Landarzt (1920) at a time when Kafka had already given up work on the as yet unfinished novel.

The question of its intertextuality is controversial in research. For Ulf Abraham the “ Midrash legend” Pesikta Rabbati 20, “in which Moses has to overcome a number of doorkeepers before he can receive the Torah from God, is the template to which Kafka's famous 'legend' relates like its negation. The 'country man' is an anti-Moses who gambled away his biblical role. With this 'paraphrase', Kafka questions the belief of a 'chosen people' in God and in themselves. ”Cornelija Vismann sees a reference to Johann Peter Hebel's story The Trial without Law , in which a peasant seeking law - again differently than at Kafka - success is unexpected and quick.

shape

Kafka himself describes the prose piece as a legend . She uses a simple, somewhat archaic language. But it is not a popular narrative about the lives of saints and miraculous events, rather it has a broken relationship with religious popular statements. Other literature sources see a parable here.

The narrative perspective is authorial , since the authorial narrator takes the form of the neutral narrator, but he hardly reports on the inner workings of the two characters. He judges little and knows little more than the reader and does not give the reader an answer to his questions, especially holding back on the central question.

In the end, the text leaves three questions open:

  • What does the law mean?
  • How is the behavior of the country man to be judged?
  • How is the behavior of the doorkeeper to be assessed?

The law can be interpreted as world-immanent or metaphysical : as the law of life for personal self-realization or as the divine law of the sense of existence or the finding of salvation. In his lack of courage and his fear of authority, the country man misses both the self-determined search for meaning, as he also reveals through his ridiculous attempts at bribery that he lacks a real belief system. This would be characterized by humility and confidence. The doorkeeper, in turn, can be understood as an examining authority that investigates the existential seriousness of the search for meaning. He personifies the terrifying challenges of life or, put another way, he visualizes the inner scrupulosity of the country man.

The legend as part of the novel The Trial

The clergyman, who describes himself as a prison chaplain, tells Josef K. in the cathedral that his trial is bad and that he was wrong in court. To explain, he tells him the doorkeeper's legend . Josef K. and the clergyman now develop different interpretations. Kafka himself spoke of the exegesis of the legend in his diaries . The clergyman emphasizes the doorkeeper's duty and patience. Josef K. identifies with the country man who tried in vain to get into the law and who was therefore deceived.

The clergyman criticizes Josef K.'s approach and tries to bring him closer to the multitude of interpretations that already exist. The following two statements are worth remembering: "Correct understanding of a thing and misunderstanding of the same thing are not completely mutually exclusive." And "The writing is unchangeable and the opinions are often only an expression of desperation about it." Josef K. can with these statements start nothing and say, “Sad opinion. [...] The lie is made the world order. "

Although the scene takes place in a cathedral, i.e. a Catholic house of God with the representation of Mary, the clergyman who appears there refers to the way of thinking of Jewish mysticism and the Babylonian Talmud . However, it is not primarily a religious topic, but rather the essence of the judgment or the search for knowledge in general. It is significant that although both characters in the legend are described and interpreted in detail, no attempt is made to approach the essence of the law. The clergyman and Josef K. are also “before” the law; they do not touch the sphere “behind the door”, the glow that comes from there.

The notion proclaimed in the legend that every person is given individual access to the law seems completely misguided to the Western understanding. The law should be attainable in a uniform way according to the motto "Equal rights for all". The clergyman's farewell saying to Josef K is also cryptic : "The court doesn't want anything from you. It takes you in when you come and it dismisses you when you leave." Did the doorkeeper legend want to make this clear? The reality of Josef K's trial is - or at least it seems - not so, otherwise he could elude it. At first glance you might think so. However, one has to question the whole novel to do this, and in the end one comes across the fact that K. could evade the law; he deals with the law voluntarily and lets himself be more and more taken by it. This is not prescribed for him, he could still lead a normal life that is "independent" of the judgment.

The parable as an independent prose piece

Although according to the above there is any variety or even no possibility of interpretation, the doorkeeper legend is always worked on, especially for teaching purposes. Here are a few interpretations:

The country man hides behind the rules and prohibitions. He seeks approval for every step that relieves him of responsibility. He remains trapped in the labyrinth of his own ideas and his need for security. The convenience of security and personal irresponsibility arouses the desire to shift responsibility onto the other or, better still, onto an impersonal authority (the law!). The legend is also a lesson about hierarchies and orders. The man from the country sees the light from afar, but he cannot get there, he is not an autonomous personality, but is caught up in hesitation, indecision and fear.

The law, a legal set of rules, is represented here in relation to the common man from the country as a space with a defined access that is only intended for a specific person. Shouldn't this notion that one can enter the law with ease via a door like a room - or rather like a labyrinth - be the misjudgment that implies further failure? The man's idea that the law should be accessible to everyone and would be visited by many is also obviously unrealistic. With his hesitant statements, the doorkeeper condemns the country man to waiting senselessly until death. If you accept the diction of the story, the law begins behind the door. So there is no law outside the door. This is also how the bouncer, who appears very determined and does not have to justify himself to anyone, either acts arbitrarily or he follows a dull predetermined fate.

In both cases there is no lawfulness, no rule by which the man can enter the sphere of the law or be kept away from it. His search for the law behind the door becomes plausible, and ultimately compelling, due to the lack of legality in front of the door.

The parable also shows a significant look at Kafka's own professional existence as a lawyer, an actually unpopular profession in which he was nevertheless quite successful. The abysses of justice that are described here are vividly depicted in the course of the novel fragment The Trial .

interpretation

Franz Kafka noted in his diary that he felt “feelings of satisfaction and happiness” when he read the text again. In the case of the parable, he succeeded in fully expressing what he wanted.

The prison chaplain accused Josef K. in the church during the trial : "You are looking for too much outside help" and advises him: "Think less about us [...], think about yourself". The country man, like Josef K., fixates himself on the court and tries all the more tirelessly to gain “entry into the law”. What cannot be resolved is what the overriding sense of waiting consists of. Josef K. identifies with the country man and sees himself as the one who was deceived.

The doorkeeper stands as a symbol of the modern civil servant who, as a representative of the anonymous administrative system, no longer embodies the original purpose of this facility, but only embodies its own dynamic, which has been detached from it.

"Correct understanding of a thing and misunderstanding of the same thing are not completely mutually exclusive". This can be seen not only in this paradox , but also in Kafka's 1913 text, Die Trees, which is similar .

Reference to other Kafka works

The striving of the country man is compulsive and in vain. He is comparable to the land surveyor K. in Das Schloß , who absolutely wants to be recognized by the castle authorities, or the animal in Der Bau , who tries to track down an imaginary enemy obsessively, but remains unsuccessful. The endeavor of the actors to achieve a certain cause fails because their actions do not reveal any causal connection with their goal. So there is no way of orientation. Everything goes nowhere, what is strived for cannot be influenced by anything. A tormenting frustration is described, from which the respective protagonist can only find redemption through death.

An essential reference to other works by Kafka is above all that the poet wrote numerous other texts in which the argument about going through a door plays a central role. This fact underscores the importance of the position that this motif occupies in Kafka's oeuvre and actually demands that every interpretation of an individual “doorkeeper's text” be checked against the other, analogous texts.

Quotes

  • But notice: I am powerful. And I'm just the bottom doorkeeper. But doorkeepers stand from hall to hall, one more powerful than the other. Even I can't stand the sight of the third one.
  • The doorkeeper [...] asks him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions like the great gentlemen ask [...].
  • But now he recognizes a shine in the darkness that breaks inexorably from the door of the law. He doesn't live long now .

reception

  • Kindler's literary lexicon (p. 45) sees the doorkeeper's legend as the message to Josef K. ( The Process ), to seek the meaning of his existence in senselessness.
  • Sudau (p. 24): "The simple character of the farmer is only to be understood as an image of man's limitations and his self-deception about the accessibility of truth or salvation ... Thus the man from the country badly represents the misguided man."
  • Ries (p. 136) speaks of religious despair, the pull of the minutely, and brooding maddening .
  • Alt (p. 414): “At no point does the legend show how access to this order can be established. It only tells of desire and power, but not of achieving a goal. This turns it into a story about hope and futility. "
  • v. Jagow / Burkhart (p. 387): “The doorkeeper legend, allegedly told by the clergyman for clarification, raises more questions than it answers. The structure of the parabola is quite typical for Kafka. On the paradigmatic as well as on the syntactic level, the text is extremely simply structured and yet it eludes understanding. "
  • Rieck (pp. 1–5) emphasizes that the “doorkeeper legend” in Kafka's work is supplemented by an abundance of other “doorkeeper texts” and sees the entire work of the poet as a single great “doorkeeper story” before which both Kafka himself and almost everyone its interpreters stand as doorkeepers and make "entry" (a valid interpretation or understanding) difficult or impossible.

literature

expenditure

  • First in: Self Defense. Independent Jewish weekly. Vol. 9, # 34, November 7, 1915, pp. 2a, 2b, 3
  • All the stories. Ed. Paul Raabe . Fischer-TB, Frankfurt am Main 1970 ISBN 3-596-21078-X
  • The stories. Ed. Roger Herms. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997 ISBN 3-596-13270-3
  • Prints in lifetime . Edited by Wolf Kittler, Hans-Gerd Koch, Gerhard Neumann . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994 ISBN 3-10-038155-6 pp. 267-269
  • The process. Ed. Malcolm Pasley. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 292-295
  • Collected works in 12 volumes , edited by Hans-Gerd Koch. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994; see therein:
    • Vol. 1: "A country doctor" and other prints during his lifetime
    • Vol. 3: The Proceß
    • Vol. 9-12: Diaries 1910-1923

Secondary literature

  • Peter-André Alt : Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 .
  • Peter Beicken : Franz Kafka. A critical introduction to research. Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1974.
  • Hartmut Binder : Before the law. Introduction to Kafka's world. Metzler, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-476-00904-1 .
  • Gerhard Donhauser : doorkeeper. How right becomes what it is. new academic press, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-7003-1855-2 .
  • Wilhelm Emrich : Franz Kafka. Bonn 1958.
  • Manfred Engel : The trial. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd Auerochs (Hrsg.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , pp. 192-207, esp. 203 fu 206 f.
  • Ernst Fischer: Kafka Conference. In: Kafka from a Prague perspective. Prague / Berlin 1966.
  • Ulrich Gaier: “Before the law”. Reflections on the exegesis of a "simple story". In: Ulrich Gaier, Werner Volke (ed.): Festschrift for Friedrich Beißner . Bebenhausen 1974, pp. 103-120.
  • Bettina von Jagow , Oliver Jahraus (Ed.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6 .
  • Ingeborg Henel: The doorkeeper legend and its meaning for Kafka's "trial". In: German quarterly for literary and intellectual history. 37, 1963, pp. 50-70.
  • Rainer von Kügelgen: “Not enough respect for the scriptures” or How to clear a disturbance: Kafka's parable “Before the Law” in Orson Welles' film “The Trial”. In: Osnabrück Contributions to Language Theory. No. 61, 2000, ISSN  0936-0271 , ISBN 3-924110-61-1 , pp. 67-92. ( Digital version , PDF, free of charge, 739 KB, accessed June 15, 2014).
  • Andreas Mauz: Outside the law. Marginalia on spatial semantics in Kafka's doorkeeper parable. In: Hermeneutische Blätter. Journal of the Institute for Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Religion Zurich. 1, 2003, pp. 48-60. Online resource: Uni Zurich, Hermes
  • Albert Meier: A bogeyman. Intertextual footnote to Franz Kafka's 'Before the Law' (2019)
  • Heinz Politzer : Franz Kafka. The artist. Frankfurt am Main 1978.
  • Gerhard Rieck: Before the incest. An alternative interpretation of Kafka's "doorkeeper stories". In: Kafka-Katern. 3/2010 (newsletter of the Dutch Franz Kafka Circle) and on Franz Kafka specifically (Before the Incest - PDF)
  • Wiebrecht Ries : Kafka as an introduction . Junius Verlag, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-88506-886-9 .
  • Rolf Selbmann: The process without a law. A new interpretation of Kafka's “Before the Law” or just the old dilemma of interpretation? In: active word. 51, 2001, pp. 42-47.
  • Reiner Stach : Kafka. The years of knowledge. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-10-075119-5 .
  • Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories . Klett, Stuttgart / Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 .
  • Cerstin Urban: Franz Kafka: Erzählungen II (King's Explanations and Materials, Volume 344). Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2004, ISBN 3-8044-1756-6 .
  • Rüdiger Zymner: Small forms: thought pictures, parables, aphorisms. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd Auerochs (Hrsg.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , pp. 449-466, esp. 458-460.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carsten Schlingmann, Franz Kafka. Literary knowledge for school and university. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart, p. 97.
  2. ↑ Pesikta Rabbati 20: When Moscheh climbed Mount Sinai ... in: HaGalil
  3. ↑ Jonathan Magonet (ed.): The Jewish prayer book . Translated from the Hebrew by Annette Böckler, Vol. 2: Prayers for the high holidays . Güthersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997, p. 664; The process . Reclam XL - Text and Context 3.3.5 PT 229 books.google
  4. ↑ Ulf Abraham : Mose “Before the Law”. An unknown template for Kafka's “Türhüterlegende”, German quarterly journal for literary studies and intellectual history (1983) 57: 636. doi : 10.1007 / BF03375985
  5. ↑ The process without law . All works in JP Hebel's. New edition . Third volume. Tales of the Rhineland family friend . Carlsruhe 1838, p. 245 books.google
  6. ↑ Cornelija Vismann: From the poetry of the law or from the law in poetry. A case study on “The Trial” by Franz Kafka . In Hendrik Johan Adriaanse, Rainer Enskat (ed.): Strangeness and familiarity. Hermeneutics in a European context . Leuven 2000, pp. 275, 282 books.google
  7. ^ Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories. 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , p. 25 ff.
  8. ↑ Cerstin Urban: Franz Kafka: Erzählungen II.Bange Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-8044-1756-6 , p. 68.
  9. ^ Ralf Sudau Franz: Kafka: Short prose / stories. 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , p. 27.
  10. ^ Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories. 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , pp. 15-23.
  11. ^ Carsten Schlingmann, Franz Kafka. Literary knowledge for school and university. Philipp Reclam jun., P. 98.
  12. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 410.
  13. ^ Carsten Schlingmann, Franz Kafka. Literary knowledge for school and university. Philipp Reclam jun., P. 100.
  14. ↑ a b c Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The eternal son . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 411.
  15. ^ Ingeborg Scholz, Franz Kafka. Analyzes and reflections. P. 69.
  16. ↑ Kindlers Neues Literaturlexikon , 1990, ISBN 3-463-43009-6 , p. 45.
  17. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 409.
  18. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 414.
  19. ↑ Thomas Gräff: Reading aid Franz Kafka der Proceß. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, pp. 65–74.
  20. ^ Carsten Schlingmann, Franz Kafka. Literary knowledge for school and university. Philipp Reclam jun., P. 103.
  21. ↑ Gerhard Rieck: Before the incest. An alternative interpretation of Kafka's "doorkeeper stories". In: Kafka-Katern. 3/2010 (newsletter of the Dutch Franz Kafka Circle) and on Franz Kafka specifically (Before the Incest - PDF)

Web links

Wikisource: Before the Law  - Sources and Full Texts