414
PARTISAN REVIEW
And although the story is based in large part on a sado–
masochistic fantasy, it is not dominated by this fantasy. At one level
the wish for self-destruction is indulged, in the person of the officer.
But at the ego level where the explicit judgements are made the fan–
tasy is unmasked, its rationalization stripped away, and rejected .
Despite the ambiguity of the ending, the structure of the story is not
finally that of the fantasy. The explorer leaves the penal colony in a
state of conflict, but also of self-knowledge .
The reader participates in this experience of self-knowledge . A
considerable part of the story's achievement is to make us entertain
the fantasy ourselves and acknowledge to some degree the response
it stirs in us. The news it brings us about ourselves is not good.
It
does not seem accurate to make of the creator of so cruelly
powerful a work a "medieval minnesinger," a saint, an abominator
of violence. Kafka may have abominated violence in his own life
(and even this is not so clear: he was eager to be called up in 1915);
in his work he shows that at some level he was excited by it , half in
love with it. As we all are.
If
we were not, human history would be
very different. As for his "saintliness": to make someone a saint is to
put him beyond the reach of understanding and analysis. Saints are
to be admired and venerated, not to be understood. This may be the
easiest way to conceal from ourselves the disturbing quality of
Kafka's work and our own fascination with it. But it would be better,
if we can, to confront and understand it. Not "so well that his appeal
is destroyed," according to Gunther Anders's severe prescrip–
tion - but well enough to understand the dubious sources of that ap–
peal, not only in Kafka but in ourselves.
