Anxiety in Kafka: A Function of Cognitive Dissonance

Author(s): Christine W. Sizemore

Source: Journal of Modern Literature , Sep., 1977, Vol. 6, No. 3, Franz Kafka Special
Number (Sep., 1977), pp. 380-388
Published by: Indiana University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831182

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CHRISTINE W. SIZEMORE
GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Anxiety in Kafka:
A Function of
Cognitive Dissonance

One of the most fascinating and yet discomforting aspects of Franz Kaf?
ka's fiction lies in its attack on the reader's sense of reality. Kafka's work
reflects simultaneously a realistic and yet a dreamlike situation. At first
the reader thinks he recognizes Kafka's world as that of his own. The
realistic detail, the straightforward logic, the muted tone, the ordinary
characters convince the reader that the fictive world is close to his own
experience. No sooner does the reader acknowledge the reality of Kaf?
ka's world, however, than the events change. The new events contradict
the reader's understanding of reality, and yet, since they are presented
with the same precise detail, the same matter-of-fact tone, and the same
unexcited characters as before, the reader cannot quite dismiss these
new events as mere dreams or symbols.1 An uncomfortable dichotomy
arises, producing a growing uneasiness in the reader. He is forced to
sustain two irreconcilable interpretations of reality: his own perception
ofthe world as he has lived in it, and Kafka's world, which, although it
embraces much of the reader's own concept of reality, has disturbing
details that deny much ofthe reader's previous experience with human
society and the physical world. The uneasiness created by these two
conflicting viewpoints increases as Kafka's works progress. That which

1 F. D. Luke, for instance, emphasizes that Gregor's transformation in the "Metamorphosis" is "a real (objec?
tive) event, and not merely . . . a symbol of physical or mental illness, or . . . a dream . . . ." F. D. Luke,
"Metamorphosis," in Angel Flores and Homer Swander, eds., Franz Kafka Today (University of Wisconsin Press,
1958), p. 28. Gunther Anderscriticizes readers who try to "dispose... ofthe problem" of reading Kafka by dismissing
his fiction as "dreamlike." Gunther Anders, Franz Kafka, trans. A. Steer and A. K. Thorlby (London: Bowes & Bowes,
1960), p. 17.

380

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 381

cannot happen does happen. The reader hopes to resolve the

dichotomy by finding some clue that the seemingly unreal events are
purely imaginative, but that clue never comes. The two irreconcilable
interpretations of reality remain. Gunther Anders suggests that an actual
"shock-effect" is created by this "discrepancy between extreme unreal-
ity and [the] extreme precision"2 which roots the seemingly unreal
events in a new concept of reality. The sustained shock-effect makes
the reader intensely anxious as he finds himself reluctant to give up his
own interpretation of reality and yet unable to deny the persuasiveness
of Kafka's.
Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, which analyzes the
problem of how people absorb conflicting information or perceptions,
explains why this dual viewpoint is so disturbing to the reader. The
basic premise of Festinger's theory is easily accepted: an individual's
"opinions and attitudes [or as Festinger calls them the "cognitive ele?
ments"] . . . tend to exist in clusters that are internally consistent."3
When a new idea generates an inconsistency, dissonance occurs and
one experiences anxiety, which in turn causes pressure to eliminate that
inconsistency. Ordinarily the anxiety is mild because the dissonance is
easily solved by reconciling the new information or perception with
one's initial understanding. Festinger suggests two ways in which indi?
viduals typically resolve dissonance. The individual may revise his ini?
tial opinion in the face of the new evidence, or he may rationalize away
the new conflicting information. In the first instance, the individual may
even modify his behavior. Festinger gives the example of a smoker who,
upon learning that smoking causes lung cancer, revises his initial opin?
ions and gives up smoking. Alternatively, the smoker may try to avoid
the dissonance by attempting to rationalize the new information: the
health wamings are exaggerated, or smoking's pleasure more than
compensates for its possible harmful effects. In this case, the individual
may try to support this rationalization by reinforcing his initial opinion
that smoking is not really dangerous; he may read all the articles he can
find criticizing the research that says smoking causes cancer. Or, he
may change his social environment by avoiding people who talk about
the link between smoking and cancer.4 Nevertheless, whether the

2 Anders, p. 17.

3 Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston, III.: Row, Peterson & Company, 1957), p. 1.

4 Festinger, pp. 6, 18-24. Some of Festinger's specific experiments and some of his corollaries about prediction
have been attacked [see William j. McGuire, "Attitudes and Opinions," The Annual Review of Psychology, XVII

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 382 CHRISTINE W. SIZEMORE

smoker changes his habits or

he has changed one of the
resolved the tension and anx
In Kafka, however, these w
exist. Both of the conflictin
understanding of reality and
change. For the reader to mod
have to deny the validity of
tion one's own concept of rea
naturally tries to question K
notices that most of the detai
to be able to call Kafka's world
clearly that of realism, but no
sible. The reader next tries to
dents with his own concept
those incidents are part of
Kafka often seems to invite th
begin with a protagonist just a
Trial and "Metamorphosis"],
to be no dream. They seem d
that they happen. The reade
these disturbing events will
them from the familiar eve
assimilated into the reader's. M
next tries to deny Kafka's w
dismissed. As the two realiti
the anxious and increasingly
nance.

This anxiety is produced by almost all of Kafka

perhaps most easily demonstrated by one of Kafk
narrative excerpt from his diary dated January 19
that of Kafka's mature work since by this time he h
of his short stories and was writing The Trial. Thus

(1966), 492-96], but most psychologists agree that when dissonance arises i
pressure to reduce the dissonance. One of Festinger's most recent critics, Daryl
tive theory involving self-perception, but he says "it seems unlikely that a 'cruc
between the two theories [his own and Festinger's] will even be executed ... one's
diminishing to a matter of loyalty or aesthetics." "Attitude and Self-Perception
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, XIV (1970), 30. For an explan
reader, Festinger's theory is certainly the most useful.

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 ANXIETY IN KAFKA 383

a typical, although short,

it generates in the reader
Kafka begins his entry
his factory job interfer
speculations about Swed
reader is initially ground
icalevents. The next par
the first
person point of
shift into the past tense
I had agreed to go picnicki
pectedly slept past the hour
how punctual I ordinarily a
lived, waited outside awhiie,
was very startled, jumped o
soon as I could.5

The reader is curious as to why the speaker has overslept and is pre?
pared by the detail and suspense for an anecdote or story, but th
account is so realistic that the reader still does not know whether this
event is autobiographical or fictional. In either case the events and
details conform to the reader's sense of reality and there is no disso?
nance.

The suspense builds as the friends greet the narr

new aspect of the narrator's experience:
When I emerged fully dressed from my room, my friends f
ifest alarm. "What's that behind your head?" they cried. Sin
ing I had felt something preventing me from bending back
now groped for it with my hand. My friends, who had g
calmer, had just shouted "Be careful, don't hurt yourself!" w
closed behind my head on the hilt of a sword. My friend
examined me, led me back to the mirror in my room and str
waist. A large, ancient knight's sword with a cross-shap
buried to the hilt in my back, but the blade had been dr
incredible precision between my skin and flesh that it had c

Suddenly a new and conflicting cognitive element is in

narrative. The reader first attempts to explain the ev
own understanding of reality. A sword in some
causes blood and pain, if not death. Perhaps the sw
superficially into the skin, not enough to cause rea

5 Franz Kafka, The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1914-1923, ed. Max Brod, trans. Mar
Arendt (Schocken Books, 1949), pp. 109-110. All excerpts from Kafka's diaries wi
unless otherwise noted.

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 384 CHRISTINE W. SIZEMORE

That idea must be discarded,

told that the sword was "burie
grosses altes Ritterschwert
Heft."6]
The reader next tries to assimilate the new cognitive element by
presuming that the narrator is hallucinating. This solution is the familiar
one of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" in which the reader integrates his knowl?
edge that a dead man's heart cannot beat with the sounds heard by the
"I" narrator by assuming that the narrator hears the sounds only in his
mind. In the Kafka story, however, two narrative elements undermine
this possibility. First of all, there is no indication by either style or tone
that the narrator is hallucinating. In the "Tell-Tale Heart" the increas?
ingly hysterical tone and the heightened style point clearly to the nar?
rator's hallucination. In the Kafka narrative, on the other hand, the tone
and style have remained constant and matter-of-fact. The sentences are
neither the building periodic sentences of a romantic hysteric nor the
short, simple disconnected ones of a man in a state of shock. The
sentence patterns in the diary,excerpt remain varied and connected
together logical ly.
Another element in the story that tends to negate the possibility of the
narrator's hallucinating is the other characters' recognition ofthe sword.
They point it out to the narrator. Not until he reaches around his back
and feels the sword and then is shown it in the mirror is the narrator
even aware of its existence. Furthermore, although the friends are ini-
tially alarmed, they soon calm down and do not treat the situation as
extraordinary. When the narrator first grasps the sword, they merely
warn him, "Be careful, don't hurt yourself." This admonition particu?
larly disturbs the reader because it establishes the reality of the sword,
but it contradicts the reader's experience by refusing to recognize the
event as unusual. If the sword is real, then the reader's experience leads
him to believe that the narrator has hurt himself, but neither the narrator
nor the friends indicate in any way that he is hurt. In fact, the narrator
says the contrary. He explains that "the blade has been driven with such
incredible precision between my skin and flesh that it had caused no
injury." With this statement Kafka discusses the very question that arises
in the reader's mind, but the statement offers no explanation that the
reader can relate to his own experience. At this point cognitive disso-

6 Franz Kafka, Tagebucher, 1910-1923, ed. Max Brod (Schocken Books, 1948), p. 457.

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 ANXIETY IN KAFKA 385

nance develops in the read

the reader's experience in
without injury and Kafka
events with little difficulty
The reader's uneasiness g
he might integrate Kafk
undermined. When he find
the reader tries to reject K
already too involved in t
dismiss it as mere fantas
point, and although it w
dissonance of the two rea
the careful reader.
In his narrative of the sword, Kafka intensifies the reality of his world
just as the reader seeks to deny it. By his concrete description and
precise detail, Kafka gives the sword an unchallengeable visual reality:
"a large ancient knight's sword with a cross-shaped handle." If the
description of the sword had been hazy, the reader perhaps could have
forgotten the characters' acceptance of it as real, but now not only do
the characters acknowledge the sword's reality, but the reader is also
given a vivid mental picture of the sword. Moreover, not only is the
sword minutely described, but it is also given an exact location, buried
up to the hilt just between the skin and the flesh. This second statement
increases the reader's uneasiness still more. The specificity of detail
reinforces the reality ofthe sword and at the same time forces the reader
to focus his attention so carefully that he is given no chance to question
further the detail's reality. Once again the simple style and even tone of
Kafka's "penny-plain narration," as Lilian Furst calls it, contribute to the
realistic effect. Furst comments that Kafka's "sober, deadpan, legally
precise German underlines the horror of his visions and at the same time
makes them uncomfortably 'real.' A subjective, fantastic world is
worked out naturalistically, with an unrelenting logic and a wealth of
exact detail that brings a frightening conviction to a preposterous
hypothesis."7 The reason the conviction is so frightening is that it re-
moves the preposterousness of Kafka's world at the very point when the
reader is seeking to establish it as preposterous. At this point, to give
credence to Kafka's world is to threaten one's own.

Lilian R. Furst, "Kafka and the Romantic Imagination ," Mosaic, III, No. 4 (Summer 1970), 88.

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 386 CHRISTINE W. SIZEMORE

Kafka does not yet effect a c

He rather smothers the read
accumulation of detail. From
narrative moves to a detailed account of the sword's removal:

Nor was there a wound at the spot on my neck where the sword had
penetrated; my friends assured me that there was an opening large enough
to admit the blade, but dry and showing no trace of blood. And when my
friends stood on chairs and slowly, inch by inch, drew out the sword, I did
not bleed, and the opening closed until no mark was left save a scarcely
discernible slit. "Here is your sword," laughed my friends, and gave it to
me. I hefted it in my two hands; it was a splendid weapon, Crusaders might
have used it.

No questions are left unanswered in the passage except the one large
question that the events contradict the reader's experience.
All the literary techniques ofthe passage, however, work to suppress
that question. The narrator's credibility is reinforced as he briefly echoes
the reader's doubt as to the existence of the sword without a wound, but
the doubt is removed as the friends calmly "assure" the narrator of the
sword's existence and proceed to remove it. The specific details of the
action, the friends' need to stand on chairs, the slowness ofthe sword's
extrication, and the logical progression of these details emphasize the
reality of the experience. The tone, as before, remains matter-of-fact.
Even the characters' reactions seem commonplace. The friends merely
laugh. The narrator swings the sword in the air and examines it.
As the reader focuses on these incidents, his own anxiety intensifies.
Absolutely nothing in the story reflects his belief that something unreal
is taking place. The reader at this point is in the position ofthe subject in
the Asch experiment in which everyone in a group declares that line A is
longer than line B, but the subject sees clearly that the reverse is true.8
Should the subject believe his own senses and previous experience or
should he deny his previous understanding of reality and accept the
group's view. In this Kafka narrative all the fictional elements work
together to establish a believable world; the reader is left alone with his
protest that it is not believable because it does not conform to the
reader's experience.
The story ends with a metaphysical question, and there is no further
entry for January 19. The narrator asks:

8 S. E. Asch, "Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of One against a Unanimous Majority,"
Psychological Monographs, LXX, No. 9 (1956).

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ANXIETY IN KAFKA 387

Who tolerates this gadding

bly brandishing their swo
from injury only because
bodies, and also because th
prepared to come to their

Since this question pro

of the sword's discover
a clue which will allow
The narrator's comme
hardly in a satisfying w
the question of how he w
the sword into his back
He hopes briefly that
original assumption that
destroyed. The reader a
the narrator is calmly im
the waking state. The c
them. In Kafka, this is
which impossible event
no awakening. Kafka c
Janouch. When Janouc
"terrible dream, a terrib
the reality, which conce
terror of art."10 Kafka's
The narrator's second
sword causes no wound
events accurately. He sa
the weapons in all like
zunachst wahrscheinl
sword did not "glance o
hilt" in his back and was
gloss over the seeming
and indeed it again rein
reader cannot forget the
trated the narrator's bod
even cause pain. There

9 Lilian Furst makes this point in he

10 Gustav Janouch, Conversations w

Verschoyle, 1953), p. 32.

11 Kafka, Tagebucher, p. 458.

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388

implications only serve to bring the two conflicting realities to a co

frontation.
The reader is left in a state of anxiety. There seems to be no way
resolve the cognitive dissonance created by the two realities, and yet
Festinger explains, the very "presence of dissonance gives rise t
pressures to reduce or eliminate the dissonance."12 The reader feels
pressure to eliminate the conflict between his own world and that o
Kafka's, but he cannot. The reader has tried to integrate Kafka's wor
with his own, but that is not possible. Kafka's fiction is too close to t
reader's world to be dismissed as fantasy, but there is no way to assimi?
late the disturbing events. Kafka's techniques of realism and vivid details
create a compelling world, but once the reader is within it, he finds that
it is the world of horror. Alternatively, to resolve the dissonance b
embracing Kafka's world and denying one's own previous experienc
with reality is to admit madness and descend into a world of horror.
spite of the pressures to resolve dissonance and the intense anxiety
accompanying dissonance, the reader is unable to escape it. The two
realities cannot be merged. To renounce one's own is madness, but it
impossible to give up Kafka's. The literary experience of reading Kafka is
thus the experience of anxiety, or for those who choose to resolve t
dissonance in favor of Kafka, the experience of horror.
The value of the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance to th
literary critic is that it not only explains why Kafka's method of combin
ing fantastic events with naturalistic detail is so effective in producin
anxiety, and even horror, but it also delineates the stages through which
the reader progresses as he experiences Kafka's work. These stages?th
recognition of a conflicting idea, the hope that one can assimilate th
new information without changing any basic assumptions, the gradu
recognition that that hope is false, an attempt to deny the new idea, and
finally a begrudging acceptance of it and the experiencing of the anxiety
of dissonance or the terror of giving up one's previous reality an
assumptions?are the same stages that a man progresses through in h
confrontation with drastic change, with severe illness, or even with the
approach of death. Kafka saw life in early twentieth-century Prague o
these elemental and frightening terms, and his ability to translate h
experience into fiction is one of the sources of his genius.

12 Festinger, p. 18.

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