The Problem of Our Laws

On the question of law is a prose text by Franz Kafka from the year 1920. It was published posthumously in 1931.

Content

Kafka describes a social order in which a group of nobles ruled the people with unknown laws. It is the people unable to learn about the laws by which it is governed. Ignorance of the legal order here leads to the disrespect. They are called " slip laws " or " just a game of the mind ."

Form

The prose is best described as a legal- sociological reflection without direct action. It is from the "we" - tells or "I " perspective, a Kafka rather rare perspective. The "we " here includes explicitly the community of the people in contrast to the group of nobles.

The text consists of three paragraphs. In the first paragraph is an increasingly linguistically complicated ductus developed. The often found in Kafka sober - clear style does not occur here. In the second paragraph, which can be seen as a major part of all aspects of the secret laws and their significance for the people are, so to speak durchexerziert in the manner of a breathless, tortuous monologue. The third paragraph is again a manifestation of a writer, which aim towards the preservation of the nobility as "the only visible, indubitable law " to that one but did not want to bring themselves.

Relation to other Kafka works

This prose text has a reference to the parable Before the Law. There, a man from the country trying in vain to penetrate into the sphere of the law. In the Penal Colony, the topic involves far as the delinquent, the law, against which he has failed, does not know and should not know. A similar process involves the novel The Process.

On the question of law arose in 1920 as well as the fragmentary prose pieces Our little town is situated ... (also known as The rejection ) and the levy of troops under the influence of Tibetan travel reports. It is Kafka's approach to describe " the social integration of the individual and the subordination to the dictates of a power structure, a mysterious acting noble caste ".

Approaches to interpretation

• The law is not dependent on his law but from its interpretation. The law is not the same for all and is therefore void.
• Criticism of the resignation of the people who does not fight back against unfair interpretations of the law.
• Ambivalence of the law: on the one hand, control, security, morality, on the other hand, suppression, law enforcement position as god-like punishment.
• Criticism of the government (represented by the nobility ); Only the nobility has the authority to interpret the law. The people at the mercy of the nobility here is delivered. The people have no law. Emergency needs, lack of alternatives, the law of the nobility are applied to the people.
• Critique of religion, which is guided by a dull authority.
• The people prefer to submit to arbitrary laws, as the supposed safety, security and certainty that bring these laws to be losing. This suggests a antianarchische setting.
• Nevertheless, there is hope that one day the law is in the hands of the people, suggesting a weak desire for democracy or socialism.

Expenditure

• All narratives. Edited by Paul Raabe, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1970, ISBN 3- 596-21078 -X.
• The narratives. Original version, edited by Roger Herms, Fischer Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3.
• Posthumous writings and fragments II Edited by Jost Schillemeit, Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 1992, p 270-273.

Secondary literature

• Peter- André Alt: Franz Kafka: The eternal Son. A Biography. Publisher C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4.
• Manfred Engel: Kafka and the modern world. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd aurochs (ed.): Kafka manual. Life - Work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, pp. 498-515, esp 505-507. ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0