Chapter VII:  AN EXEMPLARY CASE:  FRANZ KAFKA

The present chapter is an analysis of the personality of Franz Kafka and some of his significant literary works, namely: The Trial; “The Judgement”; “In the Penal Colony”; “Before the Law”; “A Report to an Academy”; “The Hunger Artist” and other narratives, in terms of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome.[1]

I shall have recourse mainly to the autobiographical “Letter to Father,” [2] as it best illuminates, shedding a scathing light, Kafka’s situation vis-a-vis his father. I am going to argue that the underlying thesis contributes to an in-depth understanding of Kafka’s self and of the Kafka opus in general, including texts not specifically analyzed in current study.

The short story “Before the Law,” published three times during the author’s lifetime and incorporated into The Trial, is the crux of Franz Kafka’s personal life and the pivot of his literary output. Franz Kafka cannot act in accordance with Father’s Law. Moreover, Father’s Law undergoes a generalization which turns it into The Law.

            In “Before the Law,” sometimes translated as “Before the Portals of the Law,” Kafka erects a framework, a building — but he does not enter it.

Kafka’s involvement with Law, alias Justice — perceived as rankling injustice — starts in early childhood.

Once, when as a small child after he was put to bed, he repeatedly asked for water — clearly a disguised request for attention and love — he was forcibly carried outside and placed by his father on the veranda — the “pavlatche” — in inadequate clothing for a part of the night. This traumatic experience evoked “extraordinary terror” in the child (“Letter to Father,” p. 34).

The outstanding Kafka critic Mordechai Shalev in a series of brilliant essays has demonstrated that it is Father’s Law that keeps “the man from the country” from entering into the Law.[3] “The man from the country” stands allegorically for Franz. Let me go one step further and put it on record that the guard is symbolically none other than Franz Kafka’s own father. Having thus cut the Gordian knot, let us proceed with the argument.

It is not hard to discern that Kafka’s most significant works are concerned with Law. As noted, for Kafka Law is primarily Father’s Law.

Let us consider “The Judgement.”

In this narrative Georg Bendemann, an only child (Franz was an only son) carries out to the letter the death sentence passed on him by his father. In psychological terms that would signify an identification-with-the-aggressor act. As noted by Anna Freud in “The Ego and Its Mechanisms of Defiance,” identification-with-the-aggressor forms a last defensive stance before a final yielding of the personality, in a last attempt to draw on the strength of the aggressor in order to accord some vitality to an impoverished and weak self. The next step is a complete yielding to the aggressor.

The son’s jumping into the river and drowning in accord with father’s injunction is an identification-with-the-aggressor act, that draws, however, no strength from the aggressor; it embodies simultaneously the terminal station — a complete and final surrender of the personality. On the positive side, it provides the son with a Documentary Victory. As noted in the main part of present study, Documentary Victory is the opposite of pragmatic Victory and success — it is dismal failure. All the same, it is a victory of sorts. If the Syndrome Individual cannot be successful, he can at least have Justice on his side. The base line of a father-son relationship is love, and the death of a son caused by the father on purpose proves that the father infringed a basic law and that he is in the wrong. That would bestow on the son a Documentary Victory, the striving for which is one of the most powerful symptoms of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome.

Documentary Victory shifts the blame to the other party — in “The Judgement” from son to father — and thus frees the Syndrome Individual of guilt feelings.

In “The Judgement,” the worst transgression of the Law of the Father in terms of the narrative, is multiplying the profits and doubling the number of workers in the family business, when managed by the son. This amounts, practically speaking, to a proven success on the part of the son inside the very territory of the father, that outdoes father’s success by far. But it is success that is the Unpardonable Sin, the forbidden fruit within the orbit of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome. Kafka in his Diaries refers to “The Judgement” and views it as a frankly autobiographical narrative; he also provides the clues to the names of his protagonists and is happy with the way he so cleverly managed to conceal their real identity, but still give a hint.

The Trial viewed schematically is all about an unknown Law, that is still effective enough in bringing about the execution and death of the protagonist at the end of the action.

In “Letter to Father” it is made perfectly clear that there exists no firm law to which to adhere, as father himself does not act according to the Law which he forces on his children.

The man who was so tremendously the measure of all things for me, yourself did not keep the commandments you imposed on me. Hence the world was for me divided into three parts: one in which I, the slave, lived under laws that had been invented only for me [my emphasis] and which I could, I did not know why, never completely comply with; then a second world, which was infinitely remote from mine, in which you lived, concerned with government, with the issuing of orders and with annoyance about their not being obeyed; and finally a third world where everybody else lived happily and free from orders and from having to obey. I was continually in disgrace, for they applied, after all, only to me [my emphasis], or I was defiant, and that was a disgrace too, for how could I presume to defy you, or I could not obey because for instance I had not your strength, your appetite, your skill, in spite of which you expected it of me as a matter of course; this was the greatest disgrace of all. (“Letter to Father,” p. 38)

            The law is also “enigmatic” with regard to cursing and swearing, as it is forbidden to others, while indulged in “without scruple” by father (“Letter,” p. 41).

Kafka’s most significant works reflect his deep concern with Law. As noted, The Trial is all about an unknown Law that was transgressed. The Law of the Father [of “the Old Commandant”], viewed from a different vantage point, is presented in “In the Penal Colony.” Kafka’s alter ego, the officer in this narrative, believes that he is finally going to get what he really wants: an insight into the Law — into the workings of the Law, how the Law really works — whatever the cost, the insight denied to “the man from the country” in “Before the Law.” The Law is basically Jewish sacred Law in “Before the Law,” while in “In the Penal Colony” the Law is secular. (The topic of Jewish Law as viewed by Kafka, which is beyond the scope of the present study, is very well presented by Rivka Horwitz in her essay “Kafka and the Crisis in Jewish Religious Thought.”)[4]

For the coveted insight the officer in “In the Penal Colonoy” is willing to pay the price (though his decision to take the place and act as surrogate of the about-to-be-executed soldier is made on impulse) to undergo hideous torture and lose his life. The problem is that he pays the price but does not succeed in gaining access to an understanding of the Law, similarly to what happens in this respect to “the man from the country.”

For the officer at this stage in his career, in this context, there is no possibility of making any use whatsoever of the knowledge that he wants to gain. As soon as he gains the supreme insight — he is going to be dead. It is just an overwhelming intellectual and emotional curiosity — it lies at the core of his being — this is what he wants. But he does not get what he wants; the author does not allow him the insight into the meaning of Law — even in the supposed supreme moment of illumination under the aegis of torture — which does not materialize.

The book on the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome is entitled “KILLING WILL.”

The officer in “In the Penal Colony” —since he is a Dr. Fitterman Syndrome Individual — cannot, by definition, obtain what he really wants: a glimpse of understanding.

            It might be added parenthetically that the sentence [i.e. “the commandment the prisoner has disobeyed”] inscribed-in-death on the officer’s bleeding body, reads “HONOUR THY SUPERIORS!”[5] and offers a not-so-ironic comment on the roots of it all.

The Dr. Fitterman Syndrome is operative here and it should be remembered that not getting what is wanted is an indivisible part of the syndrome — as good as an axiom.

*

Back to “Before the Law.” The guardian in “Before the Law” boasts that there are two more guards inside who would prevent “the man from the country,” to be identified symbolically as Franz Kafka, from entering, even if “the man from the country” somehow managed to ignore his own [the first guard’s] prohibition — an unlikely event, considering the sentry’s overwhelming strength and the man’s weakness.

Shalev in an early essay on The Trial, “Undoing the Concept of Fate in Kafka’s The Trial,” mentioned earlier, argues most cogently that The Trial does not present the workings of an inexorable moira, but on the contrary, it hinges on Joseph K’s free will and his choices. As I accept this view, I feel that for “the man from the country” the possibility of entry into the portals of the Law does exist. (Brod, writing in 1937, wishes that Franz had overpowered the guard and gained entry into the abode of Law.[6])

Moreover, the narrative strikes an incredibly delicate balance (bordering on play), on whether or not the man can make it into the Law. The doorkeeper avers that the sight of the third guard he himself cannot bear. This might indicate that Godhead is involved, especially if we keep in mind the light that emanates from within. “Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law” (“Before the Law,” p. 4).

“A man from the country” when translated verbatim into the Hebrew means an “Am Ha’aretz,” an ignoramus as far as Jewish Law is concerned.[7] If “the man from the country” is an ignoramus in Jewish Law, we may legitimately surmise that Franz Kafka was at a point in his life drawn towards Jewish Law and Judaism. This is borne out by biographical data.[8] However, Judaism was not adopted and “the man from the country,” the “Am Ha’aretz,” did not, in fact, enter the portals of the Law.

The problem still remains how can the Law that “the man from the country” wants to enter stand both for Father’s Law and for Jewish Law. The difficulty, however, is only superficial. Father’s Law is normally generalized into God’s Law. Moreover, a symbol can simultaneously stand for two discrete and even warring entities.

The gate to the Law is guarded by his father. The Law is just for Franz Kafka and that is the reason why during the long years nobody else asked to come in. The father guards the entrance to “Father’s Law.” Put differently: though we are not prima facie in the realm of secular law, “Before the Law,” a symbolic surrealistic piece, doubles as the abode of secular law. As noted, the symbol allows two or more clashing or related meanings to find expression in one and the same cluster of images. It is a double-bind situation. Franz is coerced to adhere to the law, to Father’s Law, but the law is “enigmatic,” unknown, and violated by father without qualms on every occasion. As noted:

The man who was so tremendously the measure of all things for me, yourself did not keep the commandments you imposed on me. Hence the world was for me divided into three parts: one in which I, the slave, lived under laws that had been invented only for me [my emphasis]. I was continually in disgrace, for [the Laws] applied, after all, only to me [my emphasis]. (“Letter to Father,” p. 38)

“No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you!” The words of the gatekeeper in “Before the Law” clearly converge with the words of Franz Kafka in “Letter to Father” (just quoted): “I ... lived under Laws that had been invented only for me. Further: “they [the laws] . . . applied only to me” [my emphasis] (“Letter to Father,” p. 38).

*

The whole of the Kafka opus is permeated with the problems of Law. These problems, like avenging furies, will pursue Kafka across his life span. Anyway, even if Judaism (Jewish Law) is rejected in the final account, Franz Kafka does enter the portals of the Law — secular Law — in choosing Law (which he detests) as his profession.

*

Kafka’s choice of Law as a profession is discussed by himself in “Letter to Father.”

As far as I can think I have had such anxieties, of the very deepest kind, about asserting my spiritual existence that everything else was a matter of indifference to me. Jewish schoolboys in our country often tend to be odd; among them one finds the most unlikely things; but something like my cold indifference, scarcely disguised, indestructible, childishly helpless, approaching the ridiculous, and brutishly complacent, the indifference of a self-sufficient but coldly imaginative child, I have never found anywhere else, but admittedly here it was the sole defence against destruction of the child’s nerves by fear and a sense of guilt.

. . . . .

This then was the state in which I was given the liberty to choose my career. But was I still at all capable of really making use of such liberty? Had I still any confidence in my own capacity to achieve a real career? My valuation of myself was much more dependent on you than on anything else, say for instance some external success. (“Letter to Father,” pp. 61-62)

The reason that Kafka puts forward is indifference. Indifference is a defense mechanism against too much feeling. For Kafka indifference is just a mask behind which more is hidden. How can the statement that he is indifferent to Law be accepted at its face value?

All matters in which Franz displays interest are ipso factor, as a rule, condemned or ridiculed by his father:

It was only necessary to be happy about something or other, to be filled with the thought of it, to come home and speak of it, and the answer was an ironical sigh, a shaking of the head, a tapping of the table with one finger: “Is that all you’re so worked up about?” or “I wish I had your worries!” or “The things some people have time to think about!” or “What can you buy yourself with that?” or “What a song-and-dance about nothing!” Of course you couldn’t be expected to be enthusiastic about every childish triviality, toiling and moiling as you used to. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that you could not help always and on principle causing the child such disappointments, by virtue of your antagonistic nature, and further that this antagonism was ceaselessly intensified through accumulation of its material, and it finally became a matter of established habit even when for once you were of the same opinion as myself, and that finally these disappointments of the child’s were not disappointments in ordinary life but, since what it concerned was your person, which was the measure of all things, struck to the very core. Courage, resolution, confidence, delight in this and that, did not endure to the end when you were against whatever it was or even if your opposition was merely to be assumed; and it was to be assumed in almost everything I did. (“Letter to Father,” p. 36)

The choice of Law as profession obviates prima facie this difficulty. It cannot be ridiculed as Literature can. Literature, German Literature, was formally Kafka’s second choice — but it was what he really enjoyed studying. Before that, for two weeks he made an attempt to study chemistry, apparently also a no-nonsense profession in unfriendly eyes, but mainly influenced by Oscar Pollack with whom he had hoped to study. In giving up the study of German Literature Kafka activated several facets of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome.

1.         The negative zig-zag – doing the wrong thing after the right action had taken place;

2.         Undoing. One example of a minor case of Undoing: Kafka had the bright idea of writing with Max Brod, based on their common experience, a guide to travelling in Europe on a low budget. The book was to be called Cheap. The project fell through because of Kafka’s demanding an exorbitant price from the publisher.

3.         Giving up a pleasurable activity to be substituted by an unpleasurable activity. This might be classed with Postponing Gratifications — though in this extreme case it amounts to giving up completely the specific gratifications;

4.         Indifference — lack of feeling can be a reaction formation and a defense mechanism against too much feeling which is sensed by the organisim as insufferable. Reactive indifference is a mask worn when conditions become unbearable. The trouble with the mask worn by Kafka was that at one point, when he chose law, he mistook it for his own face.

            In choosing law as a profession Kafka acted contrary to his own best interests. He defined the intrinsic difficulty of studying law as having to eat “sawdust” (“Letter,” p. 63) as his spiritual food, stuff which, moreover, many mouths had already munched. Kafka’s predicament and the sheer hardship involved were made even harder by Kafka’s own fixing an impossibly early date for oral exams; the difficulty was further compounded by the Dean’s putting forward even that early date. (Kafka was too shy to tell the Dean that that was impossible.)[9] “A Report to an Academy” reflects Kafka’s ordeal.  “Report” is basically the story of a success — gained at a price. The price is supra-human effort, represented in the text, with its surrealistic freedom, as its opposite: occurring in a sub-human species. When the narrator in this work sums up his achievement, he avers: “There was nothing else for me to do, provided always that freedom was not to be my choice” [my emphasis] (“Report,” p. 258). Kafka knew very well that choices exist.

*

Kafka’s basic negativism starts in childhood. Edna Kornfeld, the translator of “Letter to Father” into Hebrew, uses at one point the classic expression of negativism “Davka lo” that can be translated into English as “On the contrary,” to describe the child Kafka’s usual negative response to a suggestion.

            The same expression is used by Kafka as a noun to designate “the giver” of that response (likewise translated into Hebrew as the “Davka lo”). In the German Kafka uses the words “alles kontra” (p. 175) and “dieser kontra” (p. 176) to describe himself.[10] This is a rudimentary version of his complex adult behaviour.

The difference, however, between a negativist and a Dr. Fitterman Syndrome individual lies precisely in the fact that a negativist can be successful, as evident for example in the case of Richard Feynman, the recipient of the Nobel Prize for physics. The Dr. Fitterman Syndrome individual, the pure type, cannot be successful.

The man, Franz Kafka, was not only a great writer. He was a very clever man, he saw most clearly what was being done to him as his texts clearly testify. Moreover, he envisaged the right solution to his predicament. I was thrilled to learn that Kafka had a wonderful plan. The idea was to use the money he had managed to save (five thousand Czech crowns) in order to give up slaving at his job with the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute, live in Berlin or elsewhere, far from father’s overwhelming presence, for two years on his savings and try to make it as a writer. He was prepared even to go hungry, the main thing was to be “free,” to do the real work which he was fitted to do and which he craved doing. (Later, though, in a letter to Felice, Kafka cut down the idea to one year’s absence from office work.) We need not use our hindsight in order to appreciate how feasible the erstwhile plan was. Given the letter of Wolff, his editor, to Kafka, the plan was sensible in the first place. It included moreover the element of high-risk taking so characteristic of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome individual, and was attractive to Kafka. Max Brod writes that he has in his possession the letter, addressed to Kafka’s parents, in which Kafka outlined his plan.[11]

But the bad joke is that instead of implementing it first, and defending his position later, Kafka seeks parental agreement. Kafka’s asking for his parents’ assent was equal, practically speaking, to undoing the plan a priori. Kafka was a Dr. Fitterman Syndrome individual for whom success is out of bounds.

During his lifetime Kafka tried to hold two incompatible jobs: One: “a clerk” in a semi-Governmental Office. Two: a full-fledged writer. The first job was unnecessary, a catastrophic job in the words of Brod, a prison house, that made his work at nights a dire necessity. Priority was accorded to office work.

It would seem that nobody would act like this if he were not a Syndrome Individual. It was not a case of a person’s holding two equally attractive jobs, and loving both.

*

Franz Kafka displays the main traits of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome:

1.         All-round minimization. Even though he is a lawyer — a doctor juris to boot – he works as “a clerk.”

2.      This is to enable him to get hold of a couple of hours in which to pursue his profession as writer. But a writer cannot work in this way. He must have long stretches of time when he is not disturbed. (Max Brod quotes Kafka who quotes Mozart writing to his father that if he wants him to compose, he — Mozart — cannot accept students.) Writing requires time unhampered by the threat of tomorrow’s office work. The solution of working nights ruins Kafka’s health. It is also part and parcel of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome. It may be argued that in the case of Kafka the conditions in the family household forced him to this course of action. That certainly is true.

Working nights is not the solution and does not allow him the freedom required for writing. Circumstances in the parental home, with its noise etc., are antithetical to fruitful work. Anyway, as far as biorhythm is concerned, Kafka is a night person — another Syndrome Individual trait.

Minimization concerning work as a writer, on top of minimization of work as a lawyer.

Negative Correlation Between Positive Feedback and Performance, i.e. Praised activity is diminished or stopped

            According to the testimony of Max Brod, as soon as Kafka starts publishing it becomes increasingly hard to persuade him to publish or even to obtain his manuscripts for reading.

The Risk Taking Curve

The Syndrome Individual does things when they are in the statistical Alpha. Put differently: almost impossible of execution. If not done — no blame would attach. But Kafka is a doer. As a rule, by dint of great exertion, Kafka makes it. Working within the statistical Alpha area of the risk-taking curve is a significant Syndrome facet. As noted, we know that the really successful people work within the middle range of the curve.

Flawed Decision Making

The roots of flawed decision making are discussed in the main part of the current study. As far as Kafka is concerned his inability to decide should be no surprise. Kafka acts under the burden of two warring frameworks: one is his father’s set of values. The other is his own. Moreover, as discussed earlier, without will decisions cannot be made. His wavering with regard to marriage to Félice Bauer (who would have made an excellent wife, as I see it) is well known. The five years of heartbreaking hesitations and inability to make up his mind, accentuate Kafka’s flawed decision making and an additional prominent Syndrome trait:

Overdoing.

As far as formal activities are concerned Kafka (unlike Dr. Fitterman) not only toes the line, but like “The Hunger Artist” he overdoes. “The Hunger Artist” presents in metaphorical terms Franz Kafka’s predicament.[12] He gives the utmost; he gives more than he has; he makes every effort, possible and impossible.  “[H]e was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward" (p. 276). Anyway, even this is not appreciated and he dies in the attempt to please the overseer. “I always wanted you to admire my fasting” (p. 177). In his all-out effort to please, he gives more than he possesses; he sacrifices more than he can. Even so, he does not manage to be a success with his boss — the boss is always symbolically Kafka’s own father. But posthumously he gains a documentary victory.

Documentary Victory

The pneumonia from which Kafka died did not occur at once. The underlying conditions started fairly early when Franz was still a teenager in high school. His clothes were made by an inferior tailor who was his father’s customer. The way young Kafka’s clothes looked was immaterial. As a matter of fact, they looked awful. Kafka, who was lanky, tried to hide himself and developed a stoop. (See “Letter.”)

Later on, in 1917, Kafka in search of privacy rented an apartment in Schönborn Palace. This apartment could not be properly heated and brought about a diagnosis of suspected tuberculosis. Both points: stooping shoulders starting in youth and tuberculosis, are much regretted by Kafka and laid at the door of his father, but they afford him the satisfaction of Documentary Victory.

            Kafka cannot use the term Documentary Victory — it had not been invented — but he refers to the concept. In the last part of his Letter he plays the devil’s advocate and formulates his father’s answer to his, Franz Kafka’s, accusations:

“You are unfit for life; but in order to be able to settle down in it comfortably, without worries and without self-reproaches, you prove that I have deprived you of all your fitness for life and put it into my pockets” [p. 74, my emphasis]

Further, “For example: when you recently wanted to marry, you wanted . . . at the same time not to marry, but in order not to have to exert yourself you wanted me to help you with this not-marrying through my [Father’s] forbidding you to make this marriage.” (Letter, p. 76)

Secrecy

Further, Franz Kafka’s Syndrome characteristics include secrecy alluded to in “Letter to Father”(p. 32) — a logical outcome of the adverse criticism at the hands of his father.

The kind of reception his plans or enterprises evoke: his father’s standard negative attitude, forces Kafka, practically speaking, to adopt secrecy as a weapon. He cannot fight his father openly as his youngest sister Ottla does.

Authoritative Personality

            The stamp of formal actions, properly executed, is very much to Kafka’s liking. The doctorate is to be a barrier against ridicule (mainly against father’s ridicule).

            In general, doing things in a formal way is to prevent adverse criticism. It is akin to perfectionism since like perfectionism it seems to be proof against fault-finding. Kafka’s doctorate, as well as his stiff collar on his formal visit with Felice after their second engagement at the home of Max Brod (where he first met her) and other similar activities are all defensive actions activated by the same defense mechanism. This defense mechanism is designated to shield the insecure personality of the Syndrome Individual from any onslaught of self doubt as to his own worth, as well as against outside adverse criticism.

*

The most prominent feature of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome is revolt against authority that the Syndrome Individual tries to implement but does not succeed to turn into a successful revolt. Unsuccessful Revolt is the core factor of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome.

Franz Kafka’s revolt against his father’s unknown and ambivalent Law — ambivalent to the point of being non-existent and certainly not made to be obeyed — is expressed with great sharpness and clarity in his works.

In his unsuccessful personal life Franz Kafka displays most traits of the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome, generated by the same matrix: The most salient may be summed up:

Overall minimization;

Flawed decision-making

Negative correlation between positive feedback and behaviour;

Biorhythm — night person

Speed identified with success;

Secrecy;

Postponing gratifications;

Overdoing;

Documentary Victory;

Negative zig-zag; and

Undoing.

The negative zig-zag is clearly visible in his relationship with Felice Bauer (and poisons it).[13] Towards the end of his life the negative zig-zag of the Syndrome takes with Kafka the extreme form of straight undoing, possibly the most destructive Syndrome mechanism. In his works, as noted, Franz puts the blame where it belongs, on his father. As he records it: “My writing was all about you” (“Letter to Father, p. 60). That may well be why he wants them destroyed — to annul his revolt; but it amounts to annihilating his most successful achievement.

Franz Kafka’s guilt feelings toward his father are many times reiterated in “The Letter.” They gain a symbolic expression when the Hunger Artist asks forgiveness [“Forgive me, everybody” (p. 276)] of the overseer, who clearly did not fulfill his function in the situation portrayed in the narrative.

In a horrifying Syndrome gesture he asks Max Brod and Dora Dyamant to burn his unpublished works and all documents pertaining to his life, a testament not carried out by Brod but carried out by Dora Dyamant.

Kafka’s education, factually the Dr. Fitterman Syndrome education, aims at killing will. But it differs from the classic canonical KILLING WILL in that there is no ideology behind it, just the father’s insidious despotic rule.