Up in the Gallery

In the gallery is a parable by Franz Kafka, 1919 as part of the band appeared A Country Doctor. The text consists of two parts that describe the seemingly same process, but play very different. As in Kafka's stories A Hunger Artist, First Sorrow or A Report to an Academy is chosen in the present prose piece vaudeville and circus world as a venue for the artists problem.

• 3.1 Ambivalent Artist world and general problem of truth
• 3.2 Biographical references

Content

Instead of a story provides the text on the gallery only two long enumerative set periods, the two contrasting variants of one and describe the same ( Artist ) existence from the perspective of an authorial observer.

The first ( conditional ) sentence creates the unreal image of a sick, deplorable, childish bareback rider in the circus that is months driven before " a tireless public " from their " whip- wielding ruthless boss" to ever wider, endless excellence - " maybe then rushed a young Gallery visitors down the long staircase through all ranks, rushed into the ring, were calling the stop! by the fanfare of the ever -adapting orchestra. "

The second ( causal) record, however, shows the seemingly realistic image of a vibrant, beautiful lady as a rider full of dignity, happy with her career and courted by its Director and lovingly cared for - " since this is so, the gallery visitor puts the face on the parapet and, in the final march as if in a bad dream sinking, he is crying, without knowing it. "

Form

Grammatical viewing

The first paragraph with the negative display fills a long if-then - period, which consists of two conditional subordinate clauses with a subsequent main clause and the scope and complexity mainly arises because in the two conditionals a number of local and modal adverbials are included, enumerates while the separated by indent law three asyndetically Tiered predicates.

In turn, the even longer second paragraph contains only a single compound sentence, which consists of two causal separated by indent subordinate clauses with final main clause and its scope and complexity mainly arises because the first principle of causality not only various subjects and predicates enumerated, but on top of other subordinate clauses is interrupted and the main clause contains a double predicate and a modal adverbials with Infinitkonstruktion.

Linguistic representation

The first paragraph is written in the conjunctive, ie in the form of possibility. Part shown as a possibility - - As the swift response of the gallery visitor in the first seems logical to understand: If it were so, then the young gallery visitors would intervene.

The second paragraph is written in the indicative, ie in the form of expression. Therefore, there is a tendency at first reading to the second regarded the first representation as a possibility and a reality. But this will put at the end in question by the crying of the gallery visitor. Even more questionable is the optimistic variant, considering the reality of the circus everyday life with the constant routine of repetitions and there usually prevailing gap between boss and subordinate circus people.

Overall, the language of the short prose piece in two parts by the ranking of the parts of a sentence and agitated driven. In the first part of the linguistic presentation seems to express the evil advance whips the artist. In the second part it reflects the euphoria.

So both paragraphs express the content completely different perspectives. On the linguistic level, however, both paragraphs are similar and differ only in nuances.

Narrative perspective

The narrator position of this parable is difficult to grasp, because the parabola is less a narrative than a literary experimental arrangement dar. Although it is the Gallery visitor is confronted with both variants, but he is not the narrator, since he also is viewed from the outside, is from an authorial instance that does not express itself in a linear narrative, but rather in a cyclical mind game, not so much authorial " narrator " rather than authorial reflection medium.

Interpretive approaches

Ambivalent Artist world and general problem of truth

On the gallery shows the contrary sides of an artist's life, which is in the public eye, from the perspective of a gallery visitor. If you compare the question of which variant is more real, and the receiver horizon must be seen. What 's perspective on things are even possible for a viewer or artist? Which point of view it takes up basically, hardly his voluntary control subject. He may compulsively the World " think hopeless " and distressing and it is then also represent so. Or he can emphasize positive opposite. Both models over-emphasize the pathetic ambivalence of good and evil strikingly described, happy and depressed.

Both sections show competing forms of circus reality by exaggerating their characteristics, and thus provide a study of the problems of perception, presents the different designs of reality that forces the viewer to divergent reactions.

Kafka staged here a confusion around appearance and reality. He developed both in its effect on a particular audience in the gallery, who seems to have no connection to other audiences and look straight through the artificial, fragile happiness due to its isolation and loneliness. Given the pitiful fate of the rider, he can take a heroic role and save them. A latent rivalry between him and the director is unspoken in the room. In the other variant of this audience cries. Is it luck or tears he grieves because he knows that everything is just a facade and the rider in reality so feels, as described in the first case? That he " sinking like a bad dream, crying, without knowing it ," says the dubiousness of the decision between true and false reality.

Thus, the problem of truth is subject of thought the game itself. Search for knowledge leads to the tragic dilemma, ends in weeping futility - and in the painful separation from living and in good faith then superficially vergnügenden average person.

Biographical references

The ring is not only the stage but also the work of the young equestrienne. With inadequate conditions at workplaces Kafka was in his work in the former Prague Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute, (which in Austria is still there ), confronted and affected by it. It is therefore to assume that Kafka as a visionary perspective wrote this story, inter alia, under the impression of his professional experience in forms of working life and the entertainment industry, which only appear in today's media world so crass. (Cf. Sudau, S.U. "Reception". )

Already in the diary entry of November 9, 1911 Kafka describes a dream he had on the gallery and a frightened young girl down on the stage.

Another background or a suggestion might have been two pictures from the 19th century, namely the circus by Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec and The Circus by Georges Seurat (see the painting pictured above ). They treat the same subject, namely, the representation of a young equestrienne in the circus ring with a director. Due to the similarity, it is quite likely that Kafka knew these images.

Reception

• Old (p. 498 ) called here the reference to the dream and the power of the psychic forces acting on the individual. With his unconscious wines of the gallery visitor returns to the world of the imaginary, unconscious.

• Sudau (p. 10): Kafka's parable about a world gear, which succumbed to the false appearance, can be easily disassembled into many concrete sectors in which Glitter worlds or a lazy magic unfold: starting from the catwalk up to the political stage. The present age with its all day long running television circus has a treacherously - paradoxical notion found, the Kafka game of deception and bitter corresponds closely: the " reality show". The media art - or rather kitsch and trash worlds according to the pattern of "Big Brother" must appear in a stupefied and spellbound in front of the screen audience more and more as the real world. The " stop" is far away, the suffering undetected and silent.

• V.Jagow / Liska p.67: By Kafka problematizes the narrative perspective and thus shows that it is only by subjective perceptions in any case, he escapes the reader the opportunity to define what is now the real circus scene. He sits down on the presented in the text male positions and report to the circus rider back unvereinnahmbare their independence.

Expenditure

• Paul Raabe (ed. ): All stories. Fischer -Taschenbuch -Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3- 596-21078 -X.
• Roger Herms (ed. ): The narratives. Original Version Fischer Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3.

Secondary literature

• Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories. Klett Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7.
• Peter -André Alt, Franz Kafka: The eternal Son. Publisher C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4.
• Urban, Cerstin: Franz Kafka: Tales II King explanations and Materials (Vol. 344). Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2004, ISBN 978-3-8044-1756-4.
• Carsten Schlingmann: Franz Kafka. Reclam Verlag, ISBN 3-15-015204-6.
• Reiner Stach: Kafka: The years of knowledge. S. Fischer, ISBN 978-3-10-075119-5.
• Bettina von Jagow and Oliver Year in Kafka 's Guide. Life -works effects. Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6, Vivian Liska contribution.