Advocates (short story)

Advocate is a prose piece by Franz Kafka, probably originated in 1922, the first publication was in 1936.

A monologue describes the difficulty and the necessity of finding advocates using the typical Kafka legal metaphors.

Content

A narrator tells of his search for advocates, in which he is permanently in the corridors on the road, where there is an undefined roar. There appear again and again old lumbering women. The narrator does not know whether he is in a courthouse. But he knows that he is not the right place to collect advocates. The Advocates are required against the accuser, which can overcome the former nimbly. In a trial with his seemingly clearly defined sequences of the narrator seem to advocate not necessary. But he wants to win a variety of advocates and indeed from all walks of life for himself at the same time.

The relentless pushes forward search in a direction indicated as a gigantic building finished prose piece with the idea of the ever -growing upward stair steps with the upwardly rising feet.

Form

It is a small, not articulated in prose itself, which has been interpreted little. It starts in the past tense, merges into the present tense and then turns in his last passages in almost incantatory manner to the reader, who is often addressed as " you ". The narrator has started this search before the time, she employs him present and the thought of them dominates him and more excessive.

While at the beginning still rather static elements predominate ( " repellent faces, drone, heavy rotating women " ), the end expresses a breathless haphazard Next Hasten through corridors, doors and stairs. This final sequence shows a typical element Kafka shear representation, namely the implementation of movement in a cinematic way.

Text analysis

The Advocate is a term from both the legal as well as from the religious sphere. It is unclear what the narrator advocates really need, since he still in court in any case does not mean need to. But to believe him when he summons his confidence in the orderly processes of the court system? There is talk, their harmful function remains unclear from prosecutors. They are described as nimble animals ( weasels, sly foxes, mice ). It adheres to them more than anything unsound.

The narrator wants a wall of supporters. He wants to collect this " in one place [ ... ] where many people come together from different parts, of all ranks, from all professions, ages ". Here the idea seems to a longed- protective collective that is the communitarian ideal of Zionism with which Kafka was intensely occupied.

The final account of the growing steps under the feet rising describes a Sisyphean situation. At the same time the self- always -more- removal is expressed by advocates may already gained.

References to other works of Kafka

The Advocates are to be a retrospective in the seven years previously aborted novel The Process: the aimless walking in corridors, one of which is not clear whether they belong to the court, the considerations about the nature of justice, the search for helpers.

In the Year 1922, Kafka was also busy with the fragment Castle. The omnipresent in the ancient advocates portly women are reminiscent of the hostesses from the castle, especially on the bridge landlady Gardena, who tries to give an insight into the mechanisms of the castle life the local protagonists.

The roar in the aisles, so a not to ortendes noise has its counterpart in the non- tangible hiss of arose a year later story The Burrow.

Quotes

• "It was very unsure if I had an advocate, I could learn nothing definite about it, all faces were repellent, most people who came to meet me and I met again and again in the corridors, looking like fat old women [ ... ]. "
• "How? In this short piece, by an impatient roar accompanied life down a staircase running? That is impossible. The time allotted to you is so short that you do if you lose a sec, did you loose your whole life [ ... ]. "