20
PARTISAN REVIEW
there the perspective appears to me distorted; facts are found in com–
bination with unwarranted assumptions; from seemingly trivial per–
ceptions there emerges an edifice of almost unfathomable
complexit~;
and in the end the whole structure explicitly turns on its own
axlS,
seems at once to refute itself and yet to remain valid. In conclusion
Kafka makes the father himself speak, as if in reply:
"While I openly and sincerely attribute the sole blame to you,
you try to outdo yourself in 'cleverness' and 'tenderness' by acquitting
me of all blame. Of course your success in this is purely illusory (you
do not want more) and, despite your phrases about 'being' and
'nature,' 'contradiction' and 'helplessness,' it can be read between
the lines that I was the real aggressor, while you acted purely in
self-defense. You really should be satisfied with the results of your
disingenuousness, for you have succeeded in proving three things :
first that you are innocent, second that I am guilty, and third that
out of pure magnanimity you are prepared, not only to pardon me,
but what is at once more and less, to prove, and yourself to believe,
that I, contrary of course to the actual truth of the matter, am also
innocent. That might have been enough for you, but you go still
further. You make up your mind to live entirely at my expense. I
admit that we fight one another, but there are two kinds of combat.
The chivalrous sort, in which two independent opponents measure
their strength, in which each exists for himself, loses for himself and
wins for himself. And the sort waged by an insect, which not only
stings, but also sucks blood to preserve its own life. That is in the
character of the true professional soldier, which is what -you are.
You are unfit for life; but to make things comfortable and easy for
yourself and to spare yourself any self-reproach, you prove that I
have robbed you of all your fitness for life and put it in my pocket."
(These remarks cast considerable light on the genesis of Franz Kafka's
"insect story,"
Metamorphosis,
and also on
The Judgment.)
The central theme of the whole letter can be summed up in the
following formula: the son's weakness as compared to the father's
arrogant strength. Yet, Kafka was aware that the contradictions were
not as sharp and simple as the letter makes out. This awareness,
inevitable in a work of Kafka's, runs through the entire text, becom–
ing most pronounced in the concluding words, which are the most
conciliatory in the entire piece:
"Living facts cannot of course fit together like the demonstra–
tions in my letter; life is more than a Chinese puzzle; but with the
correction resulting from this fact-a correction which I cannot and
have no wish to execute in detail- I believe that something very
