24
PARTISAN REVIEW
According to the letter, the results of his "training" (and here
Kafka offers his own commentary to the final words of
The Trial)
was as follows: "I had lost my self-confidence in your presence, and
exchanged for it a boundless consciousness of guilt. It was this sense
of guilt that I had in mind when I aptly wrote of a certain person:
'He is afraid that
his
shame will survive him'."-Kafka then construes
his further life as a series of attempts to break away from his father,
to attain to regions removed from his father's influence.
It
is remark–
able that Kafka, who in his judgment of literary works absolutely
rejects all lifeless, abstract "constructions," should in this case himself
employ "constructions" which, along with correct elements, contain
many half truths and distortions. Thus, for example, he attempts to
classify his entire literary work under the general heading of "attempt
at flight from his father," as if his love of artistry, his creative pleasure
had no existence of their own. Those who knew him were, of course,
far from accepting the simple picture of a man tortured by a father
complex. They saw in him a man inspired by form, creative will and
ability, thirst for knowledge, a love of life and humanity. A compo–
nent, though no more than a component, was that aspect of
his
literary work which the letter so movingly describes: "You were the
subject of my books," he writes. "In them I poured out the sorrows
that I could not pour out on your breast. My writing has been a
purposely drawn-out parting from you. But though this parting was
force.d by you, its direction was determined by me."
In the letter Kafka views other aspects of his life as an attempted
flight: family, friendship, Judaism, profession, and ultimately his two
attempts to marry: "My self-evaluation depended far more on you
than on anything else,-more even than on outward success. . ..
Where I lived I was despised, ill-judged, defeated, and though I
exerted myself to the utmost to escape, I did not succeed, for with
rare exceptions that was beyond my powers."
His remarks on
Juda~m,
as a flight from his father's power may
here be mentioned, because they cast an important light on his child–
hood and also on his later religious development. "I found just as lit–
tle salvation in Judaism. Here, other things being equal, a salvation
was conceivable. Even more likely was the possibility that we should
find one another in Judaism or use it as a starting point for further
relations. But what sort of Judaism was it tNtt I received from you?
In the course of time I have had some three different attitudes toward
it.
"As
a child I emulated you in reproaching myself for not going
to temple often enough, for not fasting, etc. I thought that I was
