Let's discuss five themes in Kafka's novels.
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Poseidon sat at his desk and counted. Being in charge of the world's waters has kept him working endlessly. (Poseidon)
In the short story Poseidon, Kafka chronicles a Poseidon who was in charge of the world's waters and had to work endlessly. This is not the mythical god of magical powers, but rather like an accountant in a modern business. He complained about his current job, but couldn't find a more suitable job. Although he ruled the ocean, he "had hardly seen all of it, and when he hurried to Mount Olympus, he only glanced at it cursorily, and never really cruised in the ocean." "The tedious work takes up almost all of his time, so much so that he can only look forward to the end of the world," and when the last account is settled, before the end comes, he may be able to make a small tour quickly. ”
Computing is a fundamental feature of modern life. The socio-economic life that values efficiency has led to an unprecedented level of use of mathematics. Under the control of numbers, human life is gradually measured by "more" and "less". However, "many" has no end. Money, for example, is the common denominator of all commodities; all commodities can be reduced to money. As an intermediate link between the commodity and the consumer, money, in fact, in the social and psychological aspects, cuts off the connection between the commodity itself (use value) and the consumer (person). People fall into the fetishism of money, and money becomes the only monotonous thing that life pursues.
Not only money, but also labor. In order to improve efficiency, the division of labor is widely introduced into social life. The consequence of the division of labor is the fragmentation and repetition of labor, which indirectly leads to the fragmentation and repetition of life. Labor is measured in time, and time is full of monotonous repetitive labor, which is the modern way of life described by Kafka. In this way of life, people are toiling, anxious, complaining, bored, but helpless.
Just as numbers don't have a maximum, there's no end to the work.
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"Since we live together, if not a sixth person often intervenes, it is also a quiet and harmonious life. He didn't do anything to be sorry for us, but he hated us, and that's enough. Why would he drill into places where others don't like him? We don't know Him and we don't want to accept Him. The five of us didn't know each other before, and if we wanted to, we probably didn't know each other now. But what is possible and tolerable in our place is impossible and intolerable in the sixth. The others we were five, and we didn't want to be six. (Collective)
Another short story, Collective, is about rejection. Five people who did not know each other before accidentally gathered together to form a "collective"; but the arrival of the sixth person destroyed this sense of oneness. So this "collective" banded together to exclude him. The way of exclusion is not to provoke direct conflict, but not to explain: "But how to tell all this to the sixth, long explanation almost means acceptance into our circle, we would rather not give any explanation, we do not accept him." 」 But it didn't work: "No matter how high he plucked his lips, we knocked him away with our elbows, but no matter how we knocked him away, he still did it." ”
This is Kafka's rare depiction of "rejection" from the perspective of the rejector, from the perspective of the collective. In most works, such as The Castle, we often look at the "rejection" from the perspective of the rejected individual. Why refuse? There's no reason for that. It seems to be motivated solely by some emotion similar to collective inertia. The collective responds to the alien individual with silence and unexplained, maintaining an unfathomable but not alienating attitude.
There is a "stickiness" between the individual and the collective. The individual wishes to enter the collective, but the more he tries, the more he is repelled by the more powerful forces; when he tries to give up, he always seems to see hope. This slippery, sticky feeling, indistinctly present in the novel, is both impossible to completely despair and distant from the ultimate goal.
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Seeing that the door of the law was as wide open as usual, and that the doorman had gone to the side, the man bent down to see the world inside the door. When the doorman saw all this, he smiled and said, 'If it attracts you so much, then you might as well try to break through my confinement, but remember, I am very powerful, and I am only the youngest guard.' There were janitors at every door, and each one was stronger than the other, and the third janitor didn't even dare to look at him. (Before the Law)
Infinity means infinitely many, infinitely large, or infinitely vast. For the small individual, infinity is terrible. Kafka understood this deeply.
In front of the law gate, there was a strong doorman; there were countless doors at the first door; there were doormen at each door, and one was stronger than the other, and the third doorman alone made the first doorman dare not look at him. As for how many doors and how many guards there are, it is really unclear.
Similarly, there is a description of the transmission of the edict in "When the Great Wall is Built": "The messenger immediately leaves... There are so many people who can be hugged together, and their place of residence cannot be seen at a glance. If there is an empty field in front of him, he will be speeding up, and you will probably soon hear his fist banging on your door. But this is not the case, and his sweat will be wasted. He was still desperately squeezing in the room of the inner palace, and he would never be able to squeeze out. Even if he could squeeze out, it wouldn't work, he would have to squeeze down the steps. Even if you squeeze down the steps, it is useless, you still have to go through several courtyards, and after passing through the courtyards, there is a circled palace, and it is another step and courtyard, and a palace, so it will take thousands of years. When he finally rushed out of the outermost palace gate— but this would never happen, the capital appeared before him, and the center of the world was full of sediments falling from above. ”
Infinity means futile, it means that the purpose can never be realized, the dream can never come true, and the end can never be reached. Specifically, what lies across Kafka's novels is not "infinite," but "big" or "many" or "vast," yet for individuals, they see no end and no boundary, no different from infinity. Laboring in infinite space and time with a finite body and lifespan is futile and meaningless.
This "infinity" is closely related to the two themes mentioned above, "labor" and "refusal". Toil is to work in infinity: to work in an infinite number, to work in a vast land without beginning and end, in a boundless land; this labor (effort) is both futile and means that the "ultimate end" or "infinite" is rejecting the person who is working. In an infinite number of gates, those who attempt to enter the gates of law are rejected; above the vast expanse of land, the messengers are rejected by their destinations; and the land surveyors are forever rejected by the castles before the layers of bureaucratic apparatus.
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"It was early in the morning, the streets were empty, and I was heading for the train station. When I confronted the tower clock, I found that the time was much later than I thought, and I had to hurry up. I was surprised by this discovery, and I was not sure of the road. I wasn't quite familiar with the city, but fortunately there was a policeman nearby, so I ran toward him and asked him for directions in a breathless manner. He smiled slightly and said, "You want to ask me about that road?" "Yes," I said, "because I can't find it myself. "Forget it, forget it." When he finished he turned sharply, like those who wanted to sneak a laugh at themselves. ("Forget It")
This short article also writes rejection. But another feature, namely ambiguity, is equally obvious.
Ambiguity, which refers to unclear causes or purposes, is an unstable state that is detached from the law of causation. It pervades most of Kafka's novels like a thick fog, giving it a dream-like feel that it is so much seen by many as the main feature of his novels.
For example, "Forget it", people who are anxious to inquire about the road, are replied by the police "Forget it, forget it", which is really strange and inexplicable. Why say "forget it"? This is not the normal behavior of asking passers-by, not to mention the sentence "After saying that, he turned around violently, just like those who want to laugh at themselves", which is even more confusing. Rootlessness, or ignorance of the root cause, is the explanation that Kafka threw to the reader. This explanation is not to explain, and as in the collective described earlier, not to explain is a way of rejecting. Similarly, rootlessness is a way of rejecting.
However, the ambiguity of the novel is a rejection directed at the reader. The reader is suddenly thrown in front of the text, indifferent, and becomes dazed, thus gaining a sense of substitution for the characters of the novel. Ambiguity thus spills over from the text, and both the characters and the reader in the novel feel the anxiety of rejection by something that does not know what it is. This is a triumph of narrative technique.
If we insist on giving an explanation of ambiguity, or without roots, for unknown reasons, perhaps it comes from "infinity." Infinity is far beyond the perceptual realm of the finite individual, making it impossible to see things in its entirety, and at the same time, the toiling individual is cut into fragments by the modern way of life, confined to a narrow circle, and thus can only see the inexplicable and uninformed "accidents" that suddenly jump out of sight.
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"The time of the first generation has passed, but the next generations are no different, but they are more skilled and more aggressive." By the second or third generation, people had recognized the folly of building the Tower of Babel, but by this time they were so closely connected to each other that they could no longer live without the city. (City Emblem)
Boredom and oblivion are words repeatedly mentioned in Kafka's novels.
The stranger of those who work in the infinite is boredom. Boredom is the state in which the joys of life are worn away. As recounted in the Emblem of the City, people were initially ambitious to build the Tower of Babel; unlike the Bible, Kafka attributed the failure of this great project to boredom: because the construction period was too long, the builders inevitably had all kinds of ideas (later construction technology is more advanced, it is better to build in a hundred years), so they repeatedly delayed the construction period, finally slowly stopped, and finally gave up. This reason is all too realistic.
Then tired is oblivion: "By the second or third generation, people have realized the folly of building the Tower of Babel, but by this time they are so closely linked to each other that they can no longer live without the city." "People gradually forget the enthusiasm and reason for the original construction of the Tower of Babel, and this event becomes a legend, or as a remnant of history, it becomes inexplicable.
"In this city, everything expressed with the help of legends and folk songs is filled with a longing, a longing for the day that has been predicted, and on that day the city will be smashed five times in a row by a giant fist. Therefore, the city has this fist on the city emblem. "The construction of the Tower of Babel later became the construction of a city, which seems to perpetuate people's boredom of building the Tower of Babel, which is actually the boredom of life (people even forget why they are tired, only the boredom itself remains). People are eager to end this boredom, just as Poseidon longs for the end of the world, hoping that "a giant fist will smash the city to pieces with five consecutive blows".