Before the Law

Before the Law is a 1915 published prose of Franz Kafka, who is also known as doorkeeper legend or doorkeeper parabola. The plot is that a "man from the country " in vain attempted to gain entry into the law, which is guarded by a doorkeeper.

Content

The parable is about the trial of a man from the country, to go to the "Act". The man learns of a doorkeeper who stands in front of it, that it was possible, but not at the present time. He waits for the doorkeeper granted him admission, " days and years " of his life. He tried to bribe the doorkeeper. He asks even the fleas in the fur collar of the doorkeeper after years of study of the same, to help him. But all is in vain.

Just before the man dies from land, he asks the doorkeeper why in all these years no one but him requires inlet. The doorkeeper replied that this entrance was intended for him. He 'll close it now.

Work history

The text comes from the cathedral chapter of the novel fragment The Process. There it is Josef K., the protagonist of the novel, tells of a clergyman.

Before the Law is the only text of The Process, the Kafka himself published. First, the text was published in 1915 in the Jewish weekly self-defense and later as part of the anthology Tell A Country Doctor (1919 ) at a time when Kafka had given up the work on the unfinished novel.

The question whether in the case of Before the Law intertextual references are possible, is controversial in research. Anyway, the story striking resemblance to the Talmudic parable as Moses on Mount Sinai ( Pesikta Rabbati 20 ) rose to. In addition, a calendar story Johann Peter Hebel was identified as a possible template Kafka already ( by Rolf Selbmann ).

Form

Kafka himself describes this piece of prose as a legend. It uses a simple to some extent archaic language. But it is not a folk tale about the lives of saints and miracles happened, but it is in a broken relationship with popular religious statements. Other literature sources see a parable here.

The narrative perspective is indeed authorial, as the authorial narrator assumes the shape of the neutral narrator, but he reported little about the inner workings of the two figures. It evaluates little and know little more than the reader and this is no answer to his questions, adheres to all, especially in the central question back. One of the few votes applies the law of which it is said that it " inextinguishably out the door ."

About three questions, one can try to approach the legend.

• What does the law say?
• What is the reaction of the man to judge from the country?
• How is the behavior of the doorkeeper to be assessed?

The law can be interpreted metaphysically immanent in the world or: Act as a life of personal self-realization or as a divine law of existence or meaning of salvation discovery. The man from the country fails in its lack of boldness and authority fear both the self-directed search for meaning, as he reveals through his ridiculous attempts at bribery, that it lacks a real attitude of faith. This would be marked by humility and confidence. The doorkeeper in turn can be seen as a test instance, which ausforscht the existential seriousness of the search for meaning. He personifies the frightening challenges of the life cycle or, put it another way, he depicts the inner scrupulosity of the man from the country.

The legend as part of the novel The Process

The clergyman, who describes himself as a prison chaplain, Joseph K. tells the cathedral that looked bad for his trial and that he is mistaken in judgment. To illustrate, he tells him the doorkeeper legend. Josef K. and the priest now develop different interpretations. Kafka himself has spoken in his diaries of the exegesis of the legend. The priest lifts it out the duty and patience of doorkeeper. Josef K. identifies with the man from the country, the vain did penetrate into law and was therefore deceived.

The minister criticized the approach of Josef K. and tries him the diversity of interpretation variants that already exist to bring close. Memorable are this, the following two statements: ". Proper apprehension of a thing and Miss understand the same thing are not mutually completely out of " and ". Scripture is unchangeable and opinions are often just an expression of despair about it," Josef K. is with these models do nothing and says: " A melancholy opinion. [ ... ] It turns lying into a universal principle. "

Although the scene in a dome, so a Catholic church with Marie representation, plays, points of there emerging clergy on the mindset of Jewish mysticism and the Babylonian Talmud. However, this is not primarily a religious issue, but it is the nature of the court or the search for knowledge are generally clear. It is significant that while the two people in the legend are described and interpreted, but an attempt to approach the essence of the law does not take place. Even the clergy and Josef K. are on the ground "before" the law; the sphere of " behind the door ", the glow that comes from there, they do not touch.

The proclaimed in the legend notion that every human being, an individual will be given access to the law, the Western understanding seems completely misguided. The law is supposed to be reached on a uniform way according to the motto " Equal rights for all ". Cryptic is also the farewell saying of the clergy to Josef K.: . " This court does not want anything from you, it puts you at when you come and it dismisses you when you go " Does the doorkeeper legend want to clarify this? The reality of Josef K. process is - or seems at least - so no, he might otherwise elude him yet. This one might think at first glance. But you have to this question throughout the novel, where you finally come across but the fact that K. could evade the law; he is concerned voluntarily with the law and can be more and more of him taking. This is not prescribed for him, he could still lead a normal life that is "independent" from the court.

The parable as an independent piece of prose

Although according to the above, there is any variety or just no possible interpretation, the doorkeeper legend is always processed especially for teaching purposes. Here are a few interpretive approaches:

The man from the country hides behind commands and prohibitions. He seeks the approval, which relieves him of responsibility for each step. He remains trapped in the labyrinth of his own ideas and his need for security. The convenience of safety, personal irresponsibility arouses the desire to shift the responsibility to the other, or better still on an impersonal entity (the Act ). The legend is also a lesson on hierarchies and orders. The man from the country sees the light from afar, but he can not get on the way there, he is not an autonomous entity but is mired in procrastination, indecision and anxiety.

The law, a legal set of rules is represented here in terms of the simple man from the countryside as a space with a defined access that is provided for only one specific person. Could not already have this idea that you have the law with ease through a door as a room - can enter to be the misconception that includes the additional failure already - or more like a maze? Also the idea of the man, that the law should be accessible to anyone and would also visited by many is obviously unrealistic. Through its dilatory details condemned the doorkeeper the man from the country to wait until senseless death. If you follow the diction of a story, that starts behind the door of the law. Consequently, before the door is legitimate free space. So is also the bouncer, which occurs very determined and has to justify himself to no one, either voluntarily or he takes a dull predetermined fate.

In both cases there is no law, no rule, so that the man can enter into the sphere of the law or is kept away from it. His search for the law behind the door is plausible by the lack of legality at the door, so ultimately compelling.

In the parable, there is also a more significant view of Kafka points to his own professional existence as a lawyer, a really unpopular occupation in which he was nevertheless quite successful. The depths of the legal system that are described here are shown the process forcefully during the novel fragment.

Reference to other Kafka works

Obsessive and vain is the pursuit of the man from the country. Thus it is comparable to the land surveyor K. The castle, wants to be necessarily recognized by the authority or lock the animal in the building, trying frantically to track down an imaginary enemy, but is unsuccessful. The efforts of the actors, a certain thing to achieve, already fails because their actions show no causal relationship with its target. So there is no possibility of orientation. Everything goes into the void, the Target can be influenced by anything. It describes a nagging frustration, of which the respective protagonist can only find salvation through the death.

An essential reference to other works of Kafka consists above all in the fact that the poet has written numerous other texts in which the debate over the passage of a door plays a central role. This fact underlines the importance of the position assumed this subject in the complete works of Kafka and calls actually that every interpretation of a single " gatekeeper text " is checked on the other, analogous texts.

Quotes

• But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the doorkeeper. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper, each more powerful than the other. Even the sight of the third even I can not bear it any more.
• The doorkeeper [ ... ] asks him about his home and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, as great lords put them [ ... ].
• But he recognizes now in the darkness of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the door of the law. Now he has not very long.

Reception

• Kindler's Literatur Lexikon (p. 45) sees the doorkeeper legend the message to Joseph K. (The process ) to search for the meaning of his existence in futility.
• Sudau (p. 24): " The simple character of the farmer is to understand itself as an image of the narrowness of man and his self-deception on the accessibility of truth or of salvation ... To the man from the country represents the misguided people go bad. "
• Ries (p. 136 ) speaks of religious despair, the pull of the minutely detailed and brooding muse.
• Old (p. 414): " The legend shows at no point, as an access to this order can be made ​​. She tells solely by the desire and the power, but not the achievement of a goal. Thus, it becomes a story of hope and futility. "
• V. Jagow / Burkhart (p. 387 ): "The doorkeeper legend, allegedly told by the chaplain for clarity, raises more questions than it answers. The structure of the parable is quite typical of Kafka. On the paradigmatic as on the syntactic level of the text is very simply structured, yet he defies understanding. "
• Rieck (p. 1-5 ) emphasizes that the " doorkeeper legend" in Kafka's work is complemented by a wealth of other " gatekeepers texts" and sees the complete works of the poet as a single large " doorkeeper history," before both Kafka himself as well as almost all his interpreters available and the " entrance " difficult or impossible to explain ( a valid interpretation or understanding ) as a doorkeeper.