KAFKA: FATHER AND SON
29
and purity of their features. In Kafka's work the central theme is
again responsibility toward the family. This is the key to stories such
as
Metamorphosis, The Judgment, Der H eizer (The Stoker)
and
many details in other works. Also a special way of using symbols that
are utterly realistic, is common to both writers. It is not really so far
from Kleist's virgin who, before the eyes of her aristocratic family,
is
transformed into a pregnant and dishonored woman, to the young
man who in the bosom of his family is mysteriously transformed
into a contemptible insect.
(Metamorphosis.)
In both writers there is the same attachment to family and child-
hood experiences. In both there is the unconscious survival of an
austere tradition (in Kleist's case a Prussian tradition refreshed by
Kantianism, in Kafka's the Jewish ethics of justice, reawakened by
later Jewish studies.) In connection with the childlike appearance of
Kleist, I might mention one of Kafka's utterances to me: "I shall
never experience the age of manhood," he said. "From a child I shall
grow directly into a white-haired old man." He often pointed out,
even in his diaries, that people thought him very young.
In both men we find an occasional distrust toward the sexual
function. Finally, both made excessive demands on themselves, as
if
they owed it to their family to prove that they were not good-for–
nothings. This explains the dislike for every kind .of "dependence,"
that tormented Kafka even in the hungry Berlin winter of 1923 (the
last year of his life), when he received packages of food from his
parents in Prague.
Finally, Kafka's highest ideal is nowhere better expressed than
in Kleist's longing words: "To cultivate a field, to plant a tree, to
beget a child." Yet the careers of both men were far removed from
the coveted peasant simplicity. The analogy can even be pursued in
studying their literary form, though of course we must bear in mind
that Kafka consciously learned from Kleist's style. Both writers are
remarkable for a sort of fantastic invention that seems to spring from
the child's inclination to enchant everything he plays with. These two
men actually did know "the way back"- and often traveled it. Their
crystal-clear style, their realistic treatment of detail are a compensa–
tion, a defense against their childlike dreams. For both of them
describe with the clearest, simplest, most definite words they can
possibly find, the most secret, dark and unresolvable things.
( translated
by
RALPH MANHEIM)
