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Gombrowicz's theater. The ense of the signs ha bee n reversed.
Meta phys ics has become phys ics, tha t is to say, carnal.
III
"A cage in search o f a bird ," the 13th a nd shortes t a phorism in
Ka fk a's
R eflections,
is eve n mo re gra phic tha n the Zen pa rable. The
cage fl oa ts in the a ir seekin g a moti onless bird . I see thi s a phori sm as
a drawing or a sho rt sequence in a n a nima ted cartoon . J a n Lenica
would have made it into a little mas terpiece.
Tra nsla ted into a
p icture,
thi s a phori sm is a n emblem. It seems
to belong to the great tradition o f embl ema tic a rt tha t fl ouri shed in
Italy, a nd eve n mo re in Ge rma ny, during the la te R e naissance a nd
the Ba roque peri od . An emblem is a picture of a pa radox or a
gnome. One of the bes t-known emblems represents "the serpent
eating its ow n tail. "
Embl ems can be g ive n a n a lmos t unlimited number o f symbolic
or pa radi gmat ic readings. "The cage" tha t goes "in sea rch" of a bird ,
the cage in moti on , the ac tive cage may signify within a give n
symboli c code the dev il's sna re fo r ca tchin g soul s, a spiri tual tra p ,
Calvinisti c predetermin a ti on o f the saved a nd the damned ; or , in
political terms, the cage is the sta te a nd the sta te is a prison . In
Freudi a n symbolism , the sea rching cage mi ght be a n image of the
supe rego.
In
The Trial,
the cage comes one morning to J oseph
K.
as Death
does to the sinner in the grea tes t mas terpi ece of medi eval drama,
Everyman. The Trial
is a story, ye t it is equ a ll y as gra phic, and nearl y
as theatrical, a
Everyman.
With its concreti zati on of gestures,
interiors, a nd movements,
The T rial
can be eas il y visua li zed. Ka fk a's
Trial
is not wa itin g fo r its ad a pta ti on fo r thea ter a nd film - those
have bee n done a lread y - but for its tra nspos iti on onto the stage or
screen: its tra nsc ri ption .
A gra phic tra nsc rip tion is a desymboli za ti on , a deall egori za–
tion , or , to use a more fas hi onable te rm , a deconstructi on .
Graph
a nd
the gra phic readin g a re sudden a nd violent visua li zations o f
unexpected a nd unsuspec ted hidden relations. The di scove ry of the
hidden is a shock in M ax E rnst's pa intings a nd perha ps even more in
Magritte's. A book about Ka fka's influence on postmode rni st visual
art has yet to be wri tten .
The symboli c he rme neuti c cha nges the
graph
or the
picture
back
into a n all ego ry or a meta phor: "the cage" is a meta phor , "went in
