LUBOMIR DOLEZEL Kafka’s Fictional World Modern literary texts provoke many different, often contradictory inter- pretations; this fact has been usually explained by their semantic polyvalence or indeterminacy. In the case of Kafka, however, the chaos of interpretations results much less from the semantic indeterminacy of his texts than from the theoretical weakness of his interpreters. In spite of the mass interest in Kafka, his work has remained on the periphery of modern literary theory. The purpose of my paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of modern semantics of fiction for the interpretation of Kafka’s fictional work, as well as possibilities of a further development of the theory, stimulated by its confrontation with complex and multivalent texts. In contrast to ad hoc approaches, fictional semantics conceives of literary texts as semiotic systems for constructing (bringing into existence) fictional worlds, parallel with, but autonomous with respect to, the actual world. Reference (to the fictional world) is a secondary function of fictional texts, based on, and presupposing, the existence of a constructed world. For this reason, modern fictional semantics is to be set up as construc- tional semantics, i.e., as a theory explaining the semantic properties of literary texts, which have the power of constructing fictional worlds (cf. Dolezel, 1980). A fictional world is characterized by a set of its constituents, by a specific structure and by its own semantic potentials. ‘Fictional world’ is a macrostructural concept and, as such, it provides a general frame for in- terpreting semantically the particular constituents or aspects of the 1 I share fully Steinmetz’s opinion: ‘Der extrem hohe Grad von Uniibersichtlichkeit und Widerspriichlichkeit, der die Kafka-Forschung auszeichnet, ist vor allem dadurch verursacht, da} in diesem Falle das Versaumnis einer grundsatzlichen Reflexion iiber die Bedingungen und Prozesse von Rezeption und Interpretation literarischer Texte unterblieben ist ... [Die Kafka-Forschung] hat wie kaum ein anderes Beispiel als Ganzes wie in so gut wie all ihren Einzelbeitréigen das Scheitern einer weitgehend unreflektierten Hermeneutik veranschaulicht (Steinmetz, 1977, 20). Only a few isolated aspects of Kafka’s work, such as his narrative modes (cf. Cohn, 1968) or his peculiar form of argumentation (cf. Steinmetz), have been studied with a view to general theoretical frameworks. CANADIAN REVIEW OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE /REVUE CANADIENNE DE LITTERATURE COMPAREE CRCL/RCLC MARCH/MARS 1984 0319-051x/84/1101-0061 $01.25/Canadian Comparative Literature Association62 / Lubomir Dolezel literary text. In other words, interpretation of a text starts with propos- ing a hypothesis about the global characteristics of its fictional world. Within this global hypothesis, interpretations of particular constituents of the text's meaning are accomodated. I do not mean to suggest that a hypothesis about the macrostructure of the fictional world will make it possible to formulate definitive, solely ‘correct’ interpretations; I believe, however, that this hypothesis will provide a basic criterion, in terms of which individual interpretations can be evaluated. It is especially ob- vious that the macrostructural hypothesis will reveal the unreliability or sheer absurdity of some interpretations of isolated text constituents. I THE MYTHOLOGICAL WORLD In order to understand the structure and semantic potentials of Kafka’s fictional world, we have to consider it against the background of the world of classical mythology. The mythological world is a dual (binary) structure, consisting of a natural and a supernatural domain.? Two pro- perties of the mythological world are of fundamental import for the study of Kafka’s semantics: a) The contrast between the natural and the supernatural domains is a contrast of alethic modalities. The modal constraints operating in the natural domain are given by the laws of nature; these laws determine what is possible, impossible and necessary in the natural world. The modalities are imposed on all the inhabitants of the natural domain, in- cluding humans. In such a way, the human world is an integral part of the natural domain. Everything that happens or can happen in the natural domain, including both events of nature and human actions, is restricted by its modalities. In contrast, the modalities of nature are not imposed on the supernatural domain. Everything seems to be possible in the supernatural world, since its events are caused by, or referred to, forces which are beyond and above the laws of nature. As a rule, these forces are individualized and personified as supernatural agents, i.e., gods, spirits, demons, etc. b) The association of the supernatural and the natural domains is dominated by two basic relationships: the relationship of power (con- trol) and the relationship of accessibility. The fact that in all mythologies the natural domain is under the governance of the supernatural domain 2 Ina typical case, the natural domain is surrounded by (‘sandwiched between) two subdomains of the supernatural: the upper domain (the heaven) and the lower do- main (the underworld) (cf. Kirk, 1970, 224). This particular aspect of the structure of the mythological world is, however, irrelevant for our discussion.Kafka’s Fictional World / 63 is a matter of common knowledge. All events of the natural world can be ultimately traced to, or, at least, influenced by, interventions from the supernatural domain.? In the extreme case, these interventions cause events of a supernatural character to happen in the natural domain. Such violations of the laws of nature and of the modalities of the natural world are perceived by its human inhabitants as miracles, fantastic events, or, at least, mysterious, unexplainable phenomena. It should be noted that the relationship of power is strictly asymmetrical; the inhabitants of the natural world do not possess the abilities to intervene directly in the events of the supernatural world. Similarly, the second basic relationship between the two domains, the relationship of accessibility, is asym- metrical. While the inhabitants of the supernatural world have free ac- cess into the natural world — although they may have to assume special adaptations or guises — for the inhabitants of the natural domain the supernatural domain is inaccessible. Special permits are required and strict conditions are imposed on the few human visitors who are allowed to cross the closely guarded boundary. Being physically inaccessible, the supernatural domain is, ultimately, beyond human cognition; it appears as a profound mystery, as a transcendental black hole. The minds of the inhabitants of the natural world are constantly attracted to this mystery; however, they have to rely on self-appointed informants whose descrip- tions of the supernatural world are not independently verifiable. II KAFKA'S MODERN MYTH The modal opposition and the asymmetrical relationships, characteristic of the world of classical myth, provide the background for understand- ing the structure of Kafka’s fictional universe. Kafka's fictional world can be defined as a specific transform of the mythological world. Two kinds of transformations, giving rise to two varieties of Kafka’s fictional world, can be formulated quite explicitly: a) The first transformation consists in removing (dissolving) the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural domains and neutralizing their modal opposition. By this operation, the binary mythological world is transformed into a unified hybrid world. b) In the second transformation, the boundary be- tween the two domains is preserved and with it the asymmetrical relation- ships between them; however, the modal opposition is lifted and both domains are placed under the constraints of natural modalities. As a 3. The interventions of the supernatural agents in the human world are, usually, governed by more or less strict rules (cf. Barnes, 1974, 123); however, there is no warranty against capricious, arrogant interventions.64 / Lubomir Dolezel result of this transformation, the modal opposition of the mythological world is replaced by a semantic opposition of the visible / invisible world. The core of Kafka’s fictional writings is located in these two fic- tional world varieties (see Schema #1). In what follows, I will describe in more detail these semantic macrostructures and investigate their repres- entative manifestations in Kafka’s corpus. a) The hybrid world. The hybrid world is a semantic structure where the modal opposition between the natural and the supernatural is neutralized, so that both natural and supernatural phenomena are in- tegral constituents of one and the same world. In fact, the semantics of the hybrid world has to abandon the ‘natural,’ ‘supernatural’ terminology which was applicable to the mythological world; all phenomena of the hybrid world happen quite ‘naturally’ and as a matter-of-fact. If we need to specify phenomena of the hybrid world which are beyond the restric- tions of natural modalities, we will refer to them as bizarre phenomena. Since there is no supernatural domain in the hybrid world, it cannot be referred to as the source of explanation of bizarre phenomena. In fact, such an explanation is contradictory to the very principles of Kafka’s semantics; if bizarre phenomena are interpreted as supernatural, Kafka’s hybrid world is reduced to the mythological structure and thus deprived of its specific semantic originality and aesthetic effectiveness. We have to accept the basic modal rule of the hybrid world: it generates and fully motivates both the non-bizarre, and the bizarre phenomena. A model of Kafka's hybrid world is provided in his short text entitled ‘Eine Kreuzung’ ({A Crossbreed] 1917).4 The unique animal of this story, ‘halb Katzchen, halb Lamm (half kitten, half lamb) demonstrates all the significant aspects of modal neutralization and hybridization: a) it has some features specific for the cat (‘Kopf und Krallen’ [the head and the claws]) and those of a lamb (‘GréBe und Gestalt’ [the size and the shape]); b) it possesses properties which both animals share (‘die Augen,’ ‘das Fellhaar,’ ‘die Bewegungen’ (the eyes, the coat, the movements]) or, at least share in a different degree (‘die Unruhe'’ [the restlessness]); c) it lacks some features of its original constituents (‘miauen kann es nicht und von Ratten hat es Abscheu’ [it cannot mew and it has a horror of rats]). Finally, in addition to the features derived (inherited) from its ‘parents,’ the hybrid acquires properties of its own, its specific structural totality: it is alien to both cats and lambs and seems to be close to higher, human be- 4, The dates of Kafka's writings are taken from Binder, 1975. The page references are to Franz Kafka, Samtliche Erziihlungen, Der ProzeB and Das Schlo in the Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag editions,Kafka’s Fictional World / 65 Schema #1 1, THE MYTHOLOGICAL WORLD: supernatural natural 2. KAFKA'S MODERN MYTH: a) the hybrid world b) the visible/invisible world eee invisible visible66 / Lubomir Dolezel ings (‘Hatte diese Katze mit Lammesseele auch Menschenehrgeiz? [Did this cat with the soul of a lamb also possess human ambition?]). To sum up, Kafka’s bizarre hybrid has the ability to behave as a cat, as a lamb, as neither, and as something (somebody) quite different. Similarly, Kafka’s hybrid world can produce phenomena which were (in the underlying structure) called natural and supernatural, as well as phenomena of a new, ambiguous character. While a metalanguage based on binary logic lacks the vocabulary for naming such phenomena, Kafka’s hybrid world is a semantic mechanism for producing them en masse and in a great variety.> To my knowledge, the first manifestation of the hybrid world is the last text of Kafka’s first printed collection Betrachtung (Meditation), en- titled ‘Ungliicklichsein’ ([Unhappiness] 1910). A bizarre event — a child entering through the wall of a room — breaks into the lonely world of the narrator-protagonist. The child is compared to a ‘kleines Gespenst' (a small ghost), but is accepted and treated as a normal, expected visitor, as an inhabitant of the narrator's own world. In a subsequent conversation with a neighbour, the narrator, while claiming that he does not believe in ghosts, expresses rational fear that the child might be a supernatural phenomenon. In any case, no rational explanation is possible (‘Die eigentliche Angst ist die Angst vor der Ursache der Erscheinung’ [The real fear is the fear of what has caused the apparition], p. 22). The narrator searches for a cause, for an explanation outside his own world. In this respect, and in this respect only, the bizarre phenomenon is not yet fully domesticated in the hybrid world, is not yet fully accepted as a matter- of-fact event by its human inhabitants. However, when the narrator returns to his room, the semantic rules of the hybrid world are recon- firmed: the child has disappeared, the narrator is not surprised and goes calmly to bed. In one of Kafka’s best known works, in the story Die Verwandlung ({The Metamorphosis] 1912), the modalities of the hybrid world generate the bizarre transformation of a human being into a Ungeziefer (pest, ver- min). It should be emphasized that the new form of Gregor Samsa is never definitely specified as animalistic. Rather, Gregor has changed 5 The role of children in ‘Eine Kreuzung'’ is very indicative of the character of Kafka’s hybrid world: only children take such a world without surprise, even with delight and curiosity and, therefore, are able to consider as meaningful questions about its origins, its name, its future and its end. 6 The much disputed question whether the metamorphosed Samsa is a worm or an insect (and of what kind) is totally alien to Kafka’s semantics. It demonstrates the basic fallacy of Kafka's interpreters, their attempts to ‘naturalize’ Kafka’s artificialKafka’s Fictional World / 67 from a ‘pure’ human being into a hybrid, mixed form, combining human and animalistic features; he is an animal in his physical appearance, while his mental life, slowly degenerating, remains human. The bizarre event in this story is, again, not fully domesticated: Gregor's family and other human inhabitants of the hybrid world react with horror and revulsion. Although no attempt is made to explain the event as an in- tervention from the supernatural domain (which — as we have stated — does not exist in Kafka’s universe),’ the observers react emotionally as if they had witnessed a supernatural intervention. Their emotional reaction corresponds to the rational Angst of the protagonist of ‘Ungliicklichsein.’ In both stories, the human agents are not yet fully adapted to the modalities and semantic potentials of the hybrid world in which they live. For this reason, Die Verwandlung is the one work in the Kafka cor- pus which comes closest to the traditions of the fantastic genre.® The rational or emotional reactions of the human inhabitants of the hybrid world, observed in ‘Ungliicklichsein’ and Die Verwandlung, are residua of the old, binary modal conditions of the traditional myth. In other stories of the hybrid world these residua disappear. Whatever hap- pens is accepted by the human inhabitants as domestic, unsurprising, ‘natural.’ This attitude is quite obvious in ‘Ein Landarzt’ ([A Country Doctor] 1917). The ‘miracle’ of discovering a pair of horses and a groom in an unused pig-sty is greeted with amusement by the doctor and his maid. The maid's comment indicates that she understands perfectly the semantic potentials of the hybrid world: ‘Man weift nicht, was fiir Dinge man im eigenen Hause vorratig hat’ ([You never know what is in store in your own house] p. 124). The bizarre is in the midst of the human world, stored there and waiting to be discovered or to interfere. Now, the bizarre is an integral constituent of the hybrid world and its human in- habitant accept it as everyday experience. Having been lured into the hybrid world by Fehllauten der Nachtglocke’ (a false alarm on the night bell), the doctor, riding a truly hybrid equipage — ‘mit irdischem Wagen, unirdischen Pferden’ ({with an earthly vehicle, unearthly horses] p. 128) — has no way of escaping from its modalities. world by describing it in terms referring to the everyday world of human ex- perience (cf. Steinmetz, 33ff.). 7 No explanation is, in fact, suggested; Gregor's mother speaks about him as ‘mein ungliicklicher Sohn’ ({my unfortunate son] p. 78). 8 Todorov has outlined the relationship of ‘Die Verwandlung’ to the fantastic genre, emphasizing, at the same time, that Kafka transcends this traditional structure: ‘ce qui était une exception dans le premier monde, devient ici la régle’ (Todorov, 1970, 183).68 / Lubomir Dolezel Once the structural rules of the hybrid world have been established, its semantic potentials can be used in generating a great variety of stories. In ‘Die Sorge des Hausvaters’ ([The Cares of a Family Man] 1917), a hybrid thing-being (‘Wesen’ — ‘Gebilde’ — ‘Holz’ [being — creature — wood]) cohabits with people in their house and, from time to time, engages in simple conversations. In ‘Der Jager Gracchus’ ([The Hunter Gracchus] 1917), the modalities of the hybrid world make it possible for a dead man to coexist with living people. To be precise, Gracchus, quite in accor- dance with the semantics of the hybrid world, is both dead (‘Seitdem bin ich tot’ [Since then I have been dead], p. 287) and somehow alive (‘gewissermaGen lebe ich auch’ [to some extent I am alive too], ibidem). In ‘Blumfeld, ein alterer Junggeselle’ ([Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor] 1915), the hybrid world generates a grotesque object, two sensitive balls jumping and dancing around Blumfeld. I suggest to include Das Urteil ((The Judgement] 1912) into the group of the stories of the hybrid world. To be sure, no bizarre event in the strict sense happens in this story; however, the father’s unexpected curse and Georg’s self-destructive reac- tion are so hyperbolized and surprising that they can produce the effect of bizarrness. Finally, ‘Ein Bericht fiir eine Akademie’ ([A Report for an Academy] 1917) is surely a story of the hybrid world. It is a mirror im- age, a reverse of Die Verwandlung: an animal acquires substantive pro- perties of humans, whilst retaining some features of the ‘Affennatur’ (ape nature). In this story, the naturalization of the hybrid world is perfect: the process of hybridization is deprived of any indication of the miraculous; it is just an extreme, unlikely case of a purely natural process of persistent and diligent training (learning).? Kafka‘s discovery of, and experimentation with, the hybrid world is a major event in the history of modern fiction. The novelty, pre- cariousness and frailty of the structure presented Kafka with many 9 An interesting residuum of the hybrid world structure can be found in Kafka’s last work, Josefine, die Sangerin oder das Volk der Mause’ ({Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk] 1924). The narrator of the story is a hybrid belonging to the mouse nation but, at the same time, displaying higher, human-like abilities of observation and interpretation. Here, the semantic structure is transformed into a narrative mode, i.e., into a discourse structure, so that the story can be read as a standard animal tale. Similarly, in the earlier written ‘Die Briicke’ (1916), the hybridization of an inanimate object is achieved by its being given a narrative speech-act ability. Moreover, in an experiment — which was to be repeated in- dependently in other Ich-forms of the twentieth century — Kafka has violated the ‘natural’ rules of this narrative mode by having the Ich-narrator report his own destruction, In this ‘text after death,’ Kafka has contributed to the radical conven- tionalization of the Ich-form narrative mode (cf. Dole%el, 1973, 108, footn. 22),Kafka’s Fictional World / 69 difficulties. One of them was to find an adequate ending to a story of the hybrid world. Let us be reminded that neither the mythological solution — i.e., the explanation of the bizarre event by reference to the super- natural domain, nor the ending of the fantastic genre — i.e., a natural ex- planation of the seemingly supernatural, are available in the hybrid world. Both of these traditional endings require a world where the op- position and differentiation between the natural and supernatural is preserved. I am convinced that the structural difficulty of finding a satisfactory untying of the sequence of events in the hybrid world is the prime reason why so many of these stories remained unfinished or, rather, were abandoned. Only in Die Verwandlung did Kafka discover the specific, appropriate ending of a story in the hybrid world. I do not refer to the death and removal of the Ungeziefer,’ but rather to the final suggestion that the bizarre event might possibly recur, that it might affect any of the human inhabitants of the hybrid world. There is no regularity and, therefore, no explanation of the bizarre events; there is no protec- tion from their haphazard recurrence. The hybrid world evolves in ir- regular repetitions of accidental bizarre events. Kafka's narratives are just fragmentary episodes of the repetitive, cyclic, senseless history of the hybrid world. The description of the structure and of the semantic potentials of the hybrid world is a most valuable result of our analysis of Kafka’s work in terms of fictional semantics. However, it will hardly satisfy a traditional Kafkologist. When he offers interpretations of Kafka’s works, he does not formulate their meanings in terms of literary, fictional categories, but rather expresses them in sociological, psychological, biographical, psychoanalytical, philosophical, religious, etc. mode of discourse. In this form of interpretation, Kafka’s work, as already indicated, is deprived of its literary specificity and of its novel semantic powers. While I consider irrelevant or even illegitimate, aprioristic ex- traliterary interpretations of Kafka’s work, 1 want to emphasize that his texts themselves carry significant clues or indices for possible interpreta- tions. Kafka’s fictional text performs a double function: firstly, it con- structs a fictional world, secondly, it offers its interpretation(s) in terms of various motivations. By a set of specific devices, by its composition, its style and its intertextual links, Kafka’s text motivates its hybrid world, i.e., associates it with analogous structures both outside and inside 10 | am using the term ‘motivation’ in a sense which originates with TomaSevskij: Motivation is ‘a system of devices justifying the introduction of particular motifs or motif blocks’ (Tomatevskij, 1928*, 145). In the present paper the concept is generalized to include systems of devices which ‘justify’ fictional world structures.zo / Lubomir Dolezel literature. Kafka’s texts, as it were, have foreseen their possible inter- pretations. The interpreters have done nothing more than monopolize one of the given, text-inherent interpretations, i.e., extending its scope to cover the whole corpus. The best starting point for our study of the text-inherent motivations of the hybrid world is ‘Ein Landarzt.’ The structure of the hybrid world is connected with that of the dream world by three prominent sets of devices: a) The relationship between agents, actions and settings are in- congruous, displaced: the horses and the groom are discovered in an unused pig-sty, in ‘dem Tiirloch, das sie restlos ausfiillten’ [the door hole which they filled entirely] p. 124); the horses stick their heads through the windows of the sick boy’s house (p. 126); the doctor suddenly discovers a terrible wound in the boy's body, filled with worms; the doc- tor is undressed in front of the village elders and to the accompaniment of the school choir (p. 127) and then flees naked through a frosty night. b) Contradictory motifs and evaluations coexist in the text: the voyage to the boy‘s house takes no more than a moment (‘als dffne sich unmittelbar vor meinem Hoftor das Hof meines Kranken’ [as if my patient's farmyard had opened out just before my courtyard gate], p. 125), while the way back takes infinitely long (‘Niemals komme ich nach Hause’ [Never shall I reach home], p. 128); the boy expresses contradictory wishes: ‘Doktor, laB mich sterben’ ([‘Doctor, let me die'] p. 125) — ‘Wirst du mich retten?’ (['Will you save me?'] p. 127) and the doctor produces contradictory diagnoses: ‘der Junge ist gesund’ ((‘the boy is quite healthy’] p. 126) — ‘der Junge ist krank’ (|‘the boy is ill'] p. 127). c) An erotic undercurrent is pre- sent in the relationship of the old doctor to the young maid, actualized by the violent intervention of the bizarre groom. The dream world, motivating the fictional world of ‘Ein Landarzt,’ seems to be the most obvious model of the hybrid world: in dreams modal restrictions of the natural world are lifted and the natural com- bines freely with the supernatural. However, if the dream world were the only model of Kafka‘s hybrid world, his stories would not depart radical- ly from the traditions of the fantastic genre. We have to emphasize that Kafka’s hybrid world is an abstract semantic structure which can be ‘ex- plained’ by various text-inherent motivations. Thus, in a direct contrast to the oniric motivation of ‘Ein Landarzt’ stands the strictly scientific, ra- tional motivation of Ein Bericht fiir eine Akademie.’ This ‘antimeta- morphosis,’ impossible in ontogeny, is quite possible in phylogeny. Kafka’s ape is hybridized on the scientific model of biological evolution, radically accelerated by intensive learning. The style of the story, the style of a scientific report, is in complete harmony with the Darwinistic motivation of its hybrid world.Kafka’s Fictional World / 71 In Das Urteil und ‘Blumfeld, ein alterer Junggeselle’ the hybrid world is motivated by being connected to psychopathological states. The Freud- ian motivation of Das Urteil (indicated by Kafka himself, cf. Binder 1975, p. 126) has been very popular (for a survey, see Binder, ed. 1979, II, pp. 295-8). As a text-inherent motivation it is expressed primarily by the structure of the story: the unexpected turns, concentrated in the sud- den hostility of the father and in the son's ‘literal’ performance of the sentence, indicate a shift from the natural world into the hybrid world. The father’s figure assumes the character of the demonic and the son‘s suicide is equivalent to the fatalistic, purely deterministic actions of mythological stories. The determinism of Georg’s behaviour after the judgment is explicitly expressed in the texture of the story; his acting is described as being under the control of a higher, unknown force, rather than as resulting from his own desires and intentions: ‘Georg fiihlte sich aus dem Zimmer gejagt ... tiber die Fahrbahn zum Wasser trieb es ihn ... (er) lieB sich hinfallen’ ([Georg felt himself urged from the room ... driven towards the water ... (he) let himself drop] p. 32). Such a radical weakening of the agent's control over his own acting is a clear indication of the presence of a hybrid world located in a pathological human mind. Up to now, we have identified non-literary and non-fictional sources as motivations of Kafka’s hybrid world. However, some of Kafka’s texts refer to literature and literary tradition as the motivating source of their hybrid world. Ina group of these stories, the motivation is intertextual, i.e., the hybrid world is developed as a continuation and transformation of semantic structures which have existed in literature for a long time. Most of these intertextual links have been identified in Kafka studies: ‘Der Jager Gracchus’ harks back to the ancient legends of human immor- tality, life after death, mortals who could not die, etc." Against this literary tradition, Kafka constructs his hybrid protagonist, both dead and alive, thus lifting the mythological world of the legends from the restrictions of binary modalities. In ‘Ein Bericht fiir eine Akademie,’ the intertextual links to popular stories of humanized apes, dogs, etc. (cf. Binder, ed. 1979, 11, p. 333) reinforce the scientific motivation of the hybrid world. In spite of some skepticism, expressed in Kafka criticism, the world of Die Verwandlung seems to me clearly motivated by its generic intertextuality, i.e., by its link to the ancient mythological theme of transfiguration. Kafka’s transference of the story from the mytho- 11 Neumann (in: Binder, ed., 1979, 11, 337) mentions ‘die Sagen vom Wilden Jager, vom Ewigen Juden, vom Fliegenden Hollander, zu E.T.A. Hoffmans Nachrichten von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza ... und zur Christus-Figur.’72 / Lubomir Dolezel logical into the hybrid world and its consequent restructuring is a prime example of Kafka’s radical transformation of literary tradition. The most significant text for the understanding of the motivation of Kafka’s hybrid world is ‘Die Sorge des Hausvaters.’ While ‘Eine Kreuzung’ provides the model of the structure and the properties of the hybrid world, Odradek of ‘Die Sorge des Hausvaters’ demonstrates the procedures of its genesis, of its construction. The text-inherent motiva- tion given in ‘Die Sorge des Hausvaters’ is the primeval motivation of the hybrid world, ‘explaining’ it as a purely fictional construct produced by the powers of human imagination. The text reveals the construction pro- cedures of fictionality on two levels: (a) on the level of language, and (b) on the level of objects. (a) All of the constituents of the expression ‘Odradek’ are extant morphemes of an actual, natural language (Czech): od-, -rad-, -ek; however, in their unusual combination they produce a purely artificial, fictional verbal structure. It is tempting to speculate about the possible meanings of this fictional neologism, but all these speculations must be guided by the consideration that the new, artificial form produces a new, artificial, up-to-now nonexistent meaning. Both the form and the meaning of ‘Odradek’ are products of the meaning- creative capacities of poetic language; an interpretation of a fictional ex- pression in terms of ‘natural’ words can be only approximate.’ (b) Analogous principles of fictional construction are displayed on the level of objects. With meticulous attention to detail, Kafka enumerates the constituents which combine in the new fictional artifact: ‘eine flache stern- artige Zwirnspule,’ ‘Zwirnstiicke von verschiedener Art und Farbe,’ ‘kleines Querstabchen’ and ‘noch eines’ ([a flat sharp-shaped spool for thread, bits of thread ... of the most varied sorts and colours, a small wooden crossbar, and another one] p. 139). However, since these consti- tuents combine into a structure with new properties of totality, their ‘original’ identification is only approximate, it is a guess (expressed, for example, in the conditional mood). The constituents of fictional objects have to be named by natural language expressions, but their referents are uncertain or, better to say, they are just reminiscent of the actual referents of these expressions. ‘Die Sorge des Hausvaters’ has a central position in Kafka’s fictional 12 Ina recent study, Gaifman-Arie (ms.) has followed this postulate to a certain degree by proposing a number of possible meanings for Odradek, The artificial ex- pression is treated as a word of poetic language, by being interpreted as inherently polysemic. Gaifman’s interpretations are more convincing than the many others for yet another reason: she is able to connect the individual meanings of the fictional word with the possible meanings of the text as a whole.Kafka's Fictional World / 73 corpus; in a minimal text Kafka has displayed the workings of human imagination. When constructing fictional objects, imagination has to operate with actual objects or, at least, with constituents described as ac- tual objects. Artificial objects are produced by unusual, original com- binations of these actual constituents; in their new totality, however, the fictional objects transcend the original properties of their actual consti- tuents, The hybrid expression ‘Odradek,’ consisting of actual morphemes combined in a fictional form, is a model of the creativity of poetic language which discovers new areas of meaning. The hybrid thing-being Odradek, made of pieces of wood and thread, but endowed with the pro- perty of speech and laughter (a bizarre laughter produced without lungs) is a model of the higher-order totality of fictional objects. In constructing ‘Odradek’ and Odradek, Kafka has demonstrated that the very essence of imagination is the process of hybridization: human imagination has to use actual constituents, but in its synthesizing power it produces fictional objects with new structures, new properties and a new mode of existence. b) The visible/invisible world. We have described the hybrid world as a transform of the mythological world structure, created by the removal of the boundary between the natural and the supernatural domains and by their ensuing blending or neutralization. Concurrently with the con- struction and exploration of the hybrid world, Kafka has developed — as already indicated — a second variant of his fictional macrostructure which can be equally explained as a transform of the mythological universe. In this second transformation both domains of the underlying dual structure are converted into natural domains (i.e., into domains where natural modalities are in force), while the boundaries and the asymmetrical relationships between the two domains are preserved. No bizarre phenomena are possible since the fictional world is now uniform- ly natural; needless to say, no supernatural phenomena can be generated either because there is no supernatural domain in this universe. The second variant of Kafka’s fictional world is a universe of two natural, but strictly separated, alien and asymmetrically related do- mains. In Kafka's specific treatment the division of the fictional world is produced by constructing it from positions or observation points which are located exclusively in one domain, while the other domain is not directly observable. As a result, the observable domain is constructed as a visible world, while the domain beyond observation is a hidden, invisi- ble world. 13 In this paper, I am concerned with the semantic properties of the visible/invisible world structure, rather than with its specific mode of construction, discussed in detail in Dolezel, 1983.74 / Lubomir Dolezel Before I proceed to describe this fictional macrostructure in more detail, let me illustrate the difference between the two variants of Kafka’s world. The doctor's discovery of the horses in his pig-sty (in ‘Ein Landarzt’) and Joseph K.’s discovery of the whippers in a closet of the Bank (in Der Prozef3) are equally strange, displaced and unexpected events. However, while the world of ‘Ein Landarzt’ generates this event by its own hybrid modalities, the strange event in Der Prozef results from an intervention of a natural, human but, at the same time, alien in- stitution, the Court. The second variant of Kafka’s fictional world com- pletes the removal of the supernatural. The modal conditions of the hybrid world still allow bizarre events to happen (i.e., events which look like supernatural); in the visible/invisible world structure, however, the events which look like supernatural have their source in a hidden, separated, but perfectly natural domain. The inhabitants of the visible world are faced with interventions of the same force, arrogance and un- predictability as were the human inhabitants of the mythological world. However, no supernatural explanation or justification of such events is offered by the modern myth; the alien forces are nothing else than the mysterious ingredients of human nature or societal organization.™* Our example has already indicated that Kafka’s unfinished novel Der Prozef ([The Trial] 1914) is a prime manifestation of the visible/invisible world structure; not surprisingly, it is joined by Das Schlof ([The Cas- tle] 1922) whose macrosemantics reveals the same basic division. Our discussion of the second variant of Kafka’s fictional world will be based primarily on these two novels. However, we should not bypass other, shorter texts in which particular aspects of the structure can be observed. In the story ‘Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer’ ([The Great Wall of China] 1917), the centre where decisions about the grandiose construc- tion are made (‘die Fiihrerschaft’) is represented as a hidden, unknown world: ‘In der Stube der Fiihrerschaft — wo sie war and wer dort saf, wei und wubte niemand, den ich fragte ...’ ({In the office of the high command — where it was, and who sat there, no one whom I have ever asked could tell me ...] p. 292). The emperor of China himself, residing somewhere in the depth of his palaces, is a totally unknown entity to the inhabitants of his land: ‘Genau so, hoffnungslos und hoffnungsvoll, sieht unser Volk den Kaiser. Es weifit nicht, welcher Kaiser regiert, und selbst iiber den Namen der Dynastie bestehen Zweifel’ ([Just so, just as 14 A demonization of the alien domain of the invisible world, quite common in Kafka criticism, is nothing else than a reduction of Kafka's innovative semantic macrostructure to the traditional structure of classical mythology.Kafka’s Fictional World / 75 hopelessly and as hopefully, do our people regard the emperor. They do not know which emperor is reigning, and there are even doubts as to the name of the dynasty] p. 296). However, the text states quite explicitly that the lack of knowledge is unilateral: [Die Fiihrerschaft] kennt uns. Sie ... weiB von uns, kennt unser kleines Gewerbe, sieht uns alle zusam- mensitzen in der niedrigen Hiitte ... ' ((Our commanders know us. They ... know about us, know of our simple occupations, they can see us all gathered round in our humble dwellings ... ] p. 294). The relationship of epistemic accessibility is clearly asymmetrical: while the invisible domain is unknown to the inhabitants of the visible world, the visible world is no mystery for the rulers residing in the invisible world. A part of Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer’ published separately (1919) under the title Die kaiserliche Botschaft’ (A Message from the Emperor) reinforces the alienation of the ruling centre by locating it at an infinite distance from the people. Even the best messenger can never traverse this distance; the message from the dying emperor will never reach the addressee and will forever remain a mystery. In the story ‘Ein altes Blatt’ ([An Old Manuscript] 1917), the power relationship in the divided world is focused on. An alien, probably bar- barian, army penetrates or, better to say, creeps into the land of the natives, establishing a silent, everpresent threat. There is no war, no bat- tle, the invaders are unchallenged. The world of the natives (with the ex- ception of the isolated palace of the emperor) succumbs to the invaders, ‘als ware viel vernachlassigt worden in der Verteidigung unseres Vaterlandes’ ([as if much had been neglected in the defence of our fatherland] p. 129). Another aspect of the power relationship — analogous to the infinite distance between the rulers and the subjects in the previously discussed story — should be noted: no contact between the natives and the invaders is possible, since they have no common language: ‘Sprechen kann man mit den Nomaden nicht. Unsere Sprache kennen sie nicht, ja sie haben kaum eine eigene’ ([One cannot talk to the nomads. They do not know our language, indeed, they hardly have one of their own] p. 130). ‘Die Abweisung’ ([The Refusal] 1920) is another story of Kafka's ‘Chinese cycle,’ With the central administration in infinite distance, the local administrator (mandarin) exercises absolute power, although nobody ever saw his credentials. In this story, the world of the power is represented as a complex hierarchy of bureaucracy (‘Beamtenschaft’). Similarly as in ‘Ein altes Blatt,’ the soldiers on which the alienated power relies are of foreign origin: ‘Die Soldaten sprechen einen uns ganz unverstandlichen Dialekt’ ([The soldiers speak a dialect completely in- comprehensible to us] p. 312). A conspicuous, novel feature of this story76 / Lubomir Dolezel is the mention of a group of youths who are dissatisfied with the system. However, they are ‘ganz junge Burschen, die die Tragweite des unbedeutendsten, wie erst gar eines revolutionéren Gedankens nicht von der Ferne ahnen kénnen’ ({very young fellows who are utterly incapable of foreseeing the consequences of even the least significant, far less a revolutionary idea] p. 313). When discussing the hybrid world, I have pointed out that Kafka’s texts provide it with several text-inherent motivations. In the case of the visible/invisible world structure, the text-inherent motivation seems to be surprisingly uniform: one and only one, i.e., socio-political or historical motivation, is offered. All the short stories discussed are styl- ized as historiographical accounts with substantial, but sober and unpre- judiced comments. The narrator of ‘Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer’ presents himself as ‘unbestechlicher Betrachter’ ([incorruptible observer] Pp. 292) who is highly educated especially in ‘vergleichende Vélker- geschichte’ ({the comparative history of nations] p. 294). In his pre- sentation and analysis, the political of China appears as a world of re- mote, invisible rulers governing the infinite expanses of the empire without any contact with its inhabitants. A similarly ‘objective’ mode of reporting can be observed in ‘Die Abweisung,’ while ‘Ein altes Blatt’ reads like a fragment of an old chronicle. Tt should not surprise us that in the socio-political motivation of Kafka’s fictional world, the concept and function of law becomes central. The popularity of Kafka’s parable ‘Vor dem Gesetz’ ([Before the Law] 1914)!5 has overshadowed the significance of another reflection on law and its nature, the text ‘Zur Frage der Gesetze’ ([The Problem of Our Laws] 1920). For our topic, this reflection is of utmost significance: it reveals sharply the nature of law in a world divided by strict asym- metrical relationships. Two fundamental properties of laws governing a divided world emerge from the reflection: First, the law is an instrument of a small group of rulers to control the masses of people; the text defines the opposite social groups in terms of the feudal system (‘die Adelsgruppe’ [the nobility] — ‘das Volk’ [the people]). Secondly, the law is secret, being a privileged property of the nobility. Quite logically, a fundamental question is to be faced: Does a secret law, administered and interpreted by a small ruling class exist, or is it just a deceit? Es ist eine Tradition, daf sie [die Gesetze] bestehen und dem Adel als Geheimnis anvertraut sind, aber mehr als alte and durch ihr Alter glaubwiirdige 15 Asa part of Der Proze, the parable has been usually read as a miniature of the novel, specifically as a model of its semantic indeterminacy.Kafka’s Fictional World / 77 Tradition ist es nicht und kann es nicht sein, denn der Character dieser Gesetze verlangt auch das Geheimhalten ihres Bestandes’ ([There is a tradition that they, the laws, exist and were entrusted as a secret to the nobility, but this is not and cannot be more than an ancient tradition to which age lends authority, for the character of these laws requires that their very existence be kept secret as well] p. 314). While this sophism seems to provide an argument for the existence of the laws, there exists a minority opinion (‘eine kleine Partei’ [a small party]) which denies this existence. However, denying the existence of the law means to affirm the necessity of the nobility as the sole representative of legality. The ‘small party’ is caught in this vicious circle and therefore is unable to gain popular support for its cause, Let us now turn to a more detailed exploration of the semantics of the visible/invisible world structure, focusing on its two principal manifesta- tions, the novels Der Prozef3 and Das Schlof. | have already mentioned that the semantic opposition between the two domains is produced by a manipulation of the point of observation and narration; the text gives many clues implying the existence of an invisible domain, but never of- fers its explicit descriptions based on direct observation.*¢ In Der Prozef, the syntactic structure of the formula of Joseph K.’s arrest — ‘Sie sind ja ver- haftet ... Das Verfahren ist nun einmal eingeleitet’ ([You are arrested, after all ... well, proceedings have been instituted against you] p. 8) — both presup- poses the existence of some responsible authority and hides its identity. From the very beginning of his story, Joseph K. is under orders and in- structions coming from an invisible domain. Later this hidden authority is assigned a name — ‘das Gericht’ (The Court) — but it will remain hid- den and unknown to the very end of the text. In Das Schlof the site of the invisible world is given a name at the very beginning (the castle of Count Westwest) and its existence is confirmed again and again. Concur- tently, its invisible character is established: ‘Vom SchloSberg war nichts zu sehen, Nebel und FinsternifS umgaben ihn, auch nicht der schwachste Lichtschein deutete das groBe Schlof an’ ({The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show that a castle was there] p. 7). In the most explicit description (p. 12), the castle is ‘deutlich umrissen in der klaren Luft’ (clearly defined in the glittering air) but is seen ‘von der Ferne’ (from the distance) of K’s observation point; only general exterior features are specified. Fixing the 16 It could be argued that the attic offices of the Court (in Der Prozef) and the Her- renhof (in Das Schlof) are described on the basis of direct observation. However, a closer look at the semantic macrostructure reveals that these offices are enclaves of the invisible world in the visible world, necessary for conducting affairs,78 / Lubomir Dolezel point of observation and narration and manipulating consistently the texture of his novels, Kafka constructs an invisible domain in the midst of the natural world. This domain is as mysterious, inaccessible and powerful as is the supernatural domain of the mythological world. Let us explore in more detail the asymmetry of the relationships of accessibility and power dominating the structure of Kafka’s divided universe. 1. The relationship of accessibility. The invisible world is physically inaccessible for the inhabitants of the visible world. As such, it represents a challenge to Kafka's heroes who set out on a frustrating quest for penetration. However, when they seem to be getting closer to their goal, the heroes discover again and again that the core of the invisible world is still very far away. Joseph K, penetrates into the attic offices?” and faces an examining magistrate of low rank. He is never able to gain access to those who are deciding his fate. In his last question the total failure of his quest is clearly expressed: ‘Wo war der Richter, den er nie gesehen hatte? Wo war das hohe Gericht, bis zu dem er nie gekommen war?’ ([Where was the judge whom he had never seen? Where was the High Court, to which he had never penetrated?] p. 165). The progress of the hero of Das Schlof is no less disappointing. He sees the castle from the distance but is physically unable to reach it. He slips into Herrenhof, sees Klamm through a hole in the wall (or, rater, he is told the observed person is Klamm) and then waits for him in vain in the courtyard. These episodes of shallow penetration do not prove the existence of ‘weak spots’ in the boundary between the visible and invisible domains; rather, they are in- troduced to prove that the questors are really trying to gain access.1® Another consideration is even more significant for judging the questor’s success: The invisible world is infinite in its depth and, therefore, can never be fully explored by human agents in their finite time. In Der Prozef8, the infinite hierarchies of the Court are asserted ex- plicitly by Huld and Titorelli. According to Huld, ‘die Rankordnung und Steigerung des Gerichtes ist unendlich’ ([the ranks and hierarchies of the Court are infinite] p. 88); Titorelli, who claims to have access to judges of a lower rank, emphasizes that he would never think to reach ‘das oberste, fiir Sie, fiir mich und fiir uns alle ganz unerreichbare Gericht’ ([the highest Court ... quite inaccessible to you, to me, to all of us] p. 116). Similar reports are conveyed about the depths of the Castle's offices and bureaucratic hierarchies protected by rows of barriers (p. 149). 17 In this scene, the physical contrast between the visible and the invisible world is made most explicit: Joseph K. gets ill in the attic office, while the girl and the clerk from the Court become ill on the outside (55-7). 18 In view of what was said in footnote 16, these successes are highly dubious.Kafka’s Fictional World / 79 The physical inaccessibility prevents the invisible world from being observed by the inhabitants of the visible world and, consequently, makes it unknowable. Epistemic inaccessibility is a necessary conse- quence of physical inaccessibility. The heroes’ quest for physical penetra- tion is equivalent to an epistemic quest, a quest for knowledge. Being denied direct access to the mystery, the questors seek help from a host of informers. However, this help is more than problematic: the informers’ descriptions of the invisible world are nonauthentic and unreliable. Let us illustrate this fact through the case of Olga, the principal informer from Das SchloB. Olga does not inform K. about what she herself had observed, but rather transmits her brother Barnabas's accounts (or what she claims to be Barnabas's accounts). The information about the invisi- ble world takes the form of hearsay, rumours, traditional tales. The heroes themselves have no possibility of verifying these accounts in- dependently. Behind the veil of unreliable, often contradictory reports, the world of the Court and of the Castle remains a provocative mystery. The physical and epistemic inaccessibility of Kafka's invisible world does not have to be proved by the failure of the questors. The invisible world is inaccessible by necessity, due to the semantic conditions of its construction. Any penetration, any cognition from the side of the visible world would destroy its very essence, i.e., its invisibility, by converting it into a visible domain. The failure of the heroes’ quest is determined a priori, since their quest aims at accomplishing the impossible: to penetrate into a world which is by necessity inaccessible. The tragedy of Kafka’s questors is the tragedy of those who refuse to accept the category of necessity (impossibility). No advice, no threat, no failure can dissuade and stop these tragic heroes who are haunted by the eternal obsession of the human mind and heart: to see the invisible, to achieve the impossible, to grasp the illusory. 2. The relationship of power. The asymmetry of power in Kafka’s fic- tional world is quite obvious. In Der Prozef3, the invisible Court exer- cises its control with a capriciousness of absolute power. Suddenly, without explanation and without any apparent cause, the invisible world intervenes to change radically the life history of those selected in- dividuals against whom ‘proceedings have been instituted.’ But since this selection is random, the authority of the Court is extended virtually over all individuals of the visible world. In Das Schlof, the submission of the village to the Castle has all the features of a feudal fief, including ius primae noctis (cf. Beiken, pp. 333f.). With respect to the hero of the novel, the authority exercises its arbitrary power by reversing repeatedly and without explanation its decisions and instructions. The most80 / Lubomir Dolezel meticulous bureaucracy operates, ultimately, in a purely random man- ner. The interventions of the invisible world in the visible world are carried out by a special group of agents, emissaries. As instruments of the invisi- ble world, these agents are charged with specific missions or tasks. The arrest and killing of the hero of Der Prozef are the most typical actions performed by these special agents. However, the emissaries, presumably, receive their instructions in the invisible domain and, therefore, their credentials cannot be verified. Their authority rests solely on the fact that the inhabitants of the visible world accept and take for granted the legitimacy of the invisible powers.” Nevertheless, the asymmetry of power is a breeding ground for revolt. Joseph K., while accepting the legitimacy of the invisible Court, rebels against its irrational and random proceedings. His rebellion is purely rhetorical, but he persists in his defiance up to his very end, up to his very last question. His active resistance is especially perceptible when compared to the behaviour of such defendants as Block. While Block ac- cepts without questioning the rules of the game imposed by the Court, Joseph K. challenges by rational arguments the irrational foundations of these rules. He is deterred neither by warnings nor by threats; he rushes to judgement, convinced about his innocence. In Das SchloB, K.'s rebellion is purely emotional and short-lived; he is so fascinated by the Castle that only exceptionally does he think about his relationship with its power in terms of conflict (51). The real rebel of Das Schlo is Amalia and, therefore, her episode is an essential component of the novel's total meaning.?° The asymmetry of power in Kafka’s novels is based ultimately on the fact that the invisible domain operates as an institutionalized organiza- tion, while the inhabitants of the visible domain appear as isolated in- dividuals. From the moment of his arrest, Joseph K. becomes a ‘marked’ individual, suddenly separated from his closest associates and relatives. His trial is paralleled by a process of de-socialization; more and more he neglects his duties and ambitions in the Bank. However, he finds no com- munity with the other defendants, not only because he is different from 19 While the credentials of the emissaries are generally unverifiable, those of the two gentlemen who came to kill Joseph K. are especially suspect. For a discussion of this aspect of the semantics of Der Prozefi, see Dolezel, prepublication. 20 Amalia’s refusal to accept the invitation from the Castle has been interpreted in all possible ways, so that it seems futile to discuss it again. Let me just note that Heller has used the Amalia episode as an important argument for rejecting Brod’s religious allegorization of the Castle (Heller, 1974, 132).Kafka’s Fictional World / 81 the others, but, primarily, because there is no community of the victims." K. of Das Schlof enters the village as a stranger and his efforts to become an accepted member of the village community (frustrated un- til his very end) are usually understood as the most important goal of his quest. In contrast to the individualized heroes, the individuality of the representatives of the invisible world is suppressed. The invisible world is the seat of an anonymous ‘appartus,’ wiping out ‘everything individual’ and making ‘every single member just a member and nothing else’ (Walser, 1961, p. 68). The lack of individuality of the judges, officials and emissaries of Der Prozef is manifest in the fact that they are named by functional definite descriptions, lacking proper names (Dolezel, pre- publication). The names of the officials in Das Schlof are either symbol- ic, such as Klamm (cf. Gaifman, 1981, pp. 403f.), or minimally differen- tiated, such as Sortini — Sordini. In any case, the power of the invisible world over the individuals of the visible world is the power of a remote faceless social institution, of a ‘swollen bureaucratic machinery’ (Goldstiicker, 1965, p. 72). We should not forget, however, that also in the visible world social in- stitutions exist. In fact, the character and the modus operandi of the in- stitutions of the invisible world is best revealed by their contrast with the social institutions operating in the visible world. In order to describe this semantic contrast, we shall concentrate on Der Prozefi where the Bank emerges as a clear alternative to the Court; in Das Schlof3, it seems, the power of the invisible world is such that it imposes its modus operandi on the most significant social institution of the visible world, on the village administration. K.'s visit to the superintendent (‘Vorsteher') pro- vides sufficient evidence for this assertion. In Der Prozef,, the contrast between the Bank and the Court represents two essentially different modes of social activity. The Bank signifies a ra- tionally organized, highly efficient and fully predictable mode of social praxis; it is this mode of institutional activity which, according to stan- dard beliefs, has made modern man the master of his world. The mode of operation of the Court is on all three counts in absolute contrast to the Bank: it is irrational, desperately muddled and completely unpredictable (random). These properties of the Court make it look, on the surface, like an institution of ultimate corruption (see Glicksohn, 1972, p. 37). In a1 In this respect, Block's words, based on a long experience, are revealing: ‘Gemein- sam laBt sich gegen das Gericht nichts durchsetzen ... Es gibt also keine Gemein- samkeit’ ((Combined action against the Court is impossible ... So there's no real community] 128).82 / Lubomir Dolezel fact, the critics who express this opinion make the same erroneous evaluation as Joseph K. did: judging the Court by the standards of the Bank, they fail to understand its specific modus operandi. The Court is nothing more and nothing else than the other, the opposite possible mode of institutionalized social praxis. Two constitutents of this mode — irrationality and muddle — are easi- ly understood in the twentieth century; but the sense of the Court's mode of operation is most clearly revealed in its third aspect, its randomness and unpredictability. It has often been claimed that the Court is the supreme embodiment of Law. As such, it should treat all individuals under its jurisdiction with a strict equality and regularity. In fact, as already mentioned, the Law of the Court is capricious, unpredictable and random in its application to the individuals of the visible world.?? The predictability and regularity of application is a required property of human law. In contrast, the law of nature, while strictly deterministic in its scope of validity, is random in its application to human individuals. All men are mortal, but the death of a particular individual is a purely random event. In this respect, Kafka’s Court operates in a manner quite analogous to that of nature.?3 When the Court, in contrast to the Bank, emerges as an alternative mode of operation of human institutions, the sense and the laws of social activity become problematic: Is social activi- ty the domain of human laws or of laws of nature? Franz Kafka as an ar- tist does not have to give an answer to this question. He proposes it in the literary form of a complex fictional world which did not exist before his work was written. Through this original fictional world, he has under- mined forever the credibility of our banal and stereotyped interpreta- tions of the actual world. University of Toronto 22 According to Titorelli, the ways of the Court are ‘unberechenbar’ (lincalculable] 116). Huld conveys a traditional belief, according to which ‘das Endurteil in man- chen Fallen unversehens komme, aus beliebigem Munde, zur beliebiger Zeit! ([the final sentence often comes by a chance word from some chance person at some odd time] 143). 23 It should not surprise us that the story of Der Prozefi has been interpreted allegorically as meaning the biological process of disease (Fiirst, 1956, 36-52; for a criticism, see Beicken, 86). In fact, biological process is taken as a model of social activity.Kafka's Fictional World / 83 REFERENCES Barnes, Hazel E., The Meddling Gods: Four Essays on Classical Themes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1974 Beicken, Peter U., Franz Kafka. Eine kritische Einfiihrung in die Forschung. Frankfurt/M.: Athenaum 1974 Binder, Hartmut, Kafka — Kommentar zu samtlichen Erzahlungen. Miinchen: Winkler Verlag 1975 Binder, Hartmut, ed., Kafka-Handbuch. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Alfred Kréner Ver- lag 1979 Cohn, Dorrit, ‘Kafka’s Eternal Present: Narrative Tense in “Ein Landarzt” and Other First-Person Narratives,’ PMLA 83 (1968) 144-50 Dolezel, Lubomir, Narrative Modes in Czech Literature. 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