Give It Up! (short story)

Give it up is a late 1922 and 1936 incurred published, parable -like little prose of Franz Kafka. The title comes from Max Brod. In the original documents Kafka appears as a headline ' Comment ":

" It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and empty, I went to the station. When I compared a tower clock with my clock, I saw that a lot was later than I had thought, I had to hurry, the shock of this discovery made me insecure in the way, I did not know me yet in this city very well, fortunately, was a policeman nearby, I ran to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: , From me you want to know the way, ' Yes ,' I said, as I myself can not find him, ' Give it up, admit to' he said, and turned away with a great sweep of like people who want to be with her laughter alone. "

Content analysis

Starting with reference to the pure morning streets of the text goes into the temporal and spatial uncertainty of the protagonist. When he asks the policeman for directions, creates a strange turn. The policeman is not the requested information sober, but responds smiling in personal form, but at the same time degrading with a "you".

His advice, " Give it up " can be understood twice. It may be pointless for the questioner to expect help from the policeman. But it can also mean that the whole project of the questioner is doomed to failure. At the end turns to the policeman, who appears as posted specifically for the traveler on the route, with a grand gesture. If the traveler is thinking of a hidden laughter, it speaks its uncertainty. He finds it repellent sneer, as if his question, a hopelessly foolish child.

The policeman is a typical bizarre Kafka figure, actually being able to help, but negating, comparable to the doorkeeper from Before the Law. Also this is posted just for the man from the country before the legislative door. He also helps the man at his request, to enter the law, not and he also announces the end its going to. In both parables does not address the concern of the questioner, it shows more of a hidden mockery. The questioner is thrown back on himself. He is to help yourself or give it up.

Form

The parable -like story is one of the typical unadorned, but ambiguous texts of Kafka. The text design is developing in the contents as follows: At the beginning of simple sentence structure according to the everyday events; Irritation of the narrator expressed by syntactically complex narrative; Headless short-lived rush through staccato progressions.

The reactions of the protection 's are the strong, impressive moments of the narrative. The smile is a typical Kafka addition of a false sense of security before the final disillusionment Represents the double " Give it up " is an apodictic rejection. In the last sentence of the text a gesture of grandeur is then described for the first time in this otherwise rather sober - pale events. The policeman appears in quite a different spirit regions at home as the path searcher and the reader.

Interpretive approaches

Biographical interpretation

Already in a diary entry from February 13, 1914 Kafka has described a dream with similar, but much more optimistic elements. Handlungsort is Berlin, probably in connection with a visit to Felice Bauer. In the parable of 1922, the accrual for then fiancé, now could be expressed by the intended departure by train. Also in the fragment Wedding Preparations in the Country, there is a passage which refers to the constellation of the present parabola with a questioner after the time on the way to the train station and a responder, who extends away laughing.

Give it up could also refer to a draft letter of December 1922 Franz Werfel. Kafka brings is his total inability to express testify anything definite about Werfel's drama Schweiger.

Kafka has quite concretely involved in this time to significant deterioration of his health in 1923 with the idea of emigrating to Palestine. The Appeal " Give it up " could also include the idea that this country is out of reach for him.

Heinz Politzer says about this type of parables, they are Rorschach tests of the literature and its interpretation say more about the character of their men from than about the nature of its creator.

Existentialist interpretation

However, the text also allows for an interpretation with existential approaches. The later advice questioning person is aware of the comparison of their own with the clock of the fact that already has passed a lot of time that it lags the true, ie objective time ( Clock Tower ) behind, will increasingly aware that time and thus also life and all positives and negatives associated are transient. Therefore, they lose orientation on the previously seemingly clear and straight hand path (ie life ) and seeks remedy for a security guard. It is natural to identify these with different Sinngebungsinstanzen, about religion, philosophy or esoteric. However, the person seeking advice is disappointed by the security guard. ( " From me you want to know the way? " - " Give it up, admit to" ) The questioner hopes that the security guard groundbreaking answers, a detailed description of how his goal, the railway station, can be reached. However, he overlooks the fact that the security guard in the same system, the city, as he himself is captured and thus to the question can not adequately respond. In order to respond adequately to the questioner, the guard would have the city, but at least the way to the station to know or be in possession of a city plan. However, this is impossible with the proposed existence or life- philosophical interpretation, as the city must be identified with the life and the question of the way to the station with quasi- metaphysical questions.

Reception

Schlingmann ( p.145 ): " A view from the open end of the parabola back to the starting situation makes it clear that she was burdened with uncertainty ... Internal and external - personal and public - time gape alarmingly apart. Even if the traveler alone still takes the train station, his train will be already left. He is just guessing - to continue the metaphor of the parabola -. Reconsider his travel plans again "
Sudau (p. 116): " The mysterious phrase of the last sentence narrative is based on the Epiphany of a Metaphysical in the triviality of everyday life. The reactions and especially the last shock and awe-inspiring gesture of protection man suddenly transform this from a simple service in a given real phenomenon. "
The sociologist Ulrich Bröckling represents the parabola in a contrast to the famous invocation parabola ( in ideology and ideological state apparatuses ) by Louis Althusser. Where Althusser individual is always already subjectivized of social invocations, Kafka, on the active search of the ego toward an identity that would but denied by higher authority.

Expenditure

Franz Kafka: All narratives. Edited by Paul Raabe, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3- 596-21078 -X.
Franz Kafka: Posthumous writings and fragments 2 Edited by Jost Schillemeit. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, p 530

Secondary literature

Peter- André Alt: Franz Kafka: The eternal Son. A Biography. C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4.
Manfred Engel: Small posthumous writings and fragments 3 Add: Manfred Engel, Bernd aurochs (ed.): Kafka manual. Life - Work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, pp. 343-370, esp 361-363, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0.
Carsten Schlingmann: literature knowledge Franz Kafka. Reclam, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-15-015204-6.
Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories Klett Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7. .

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