Franz Kafka’s “Description of a Struggle” and the Narrative of Ontological Shift
Öz
“Description of a Struggle” (“Beschreibung eines Kampfes”) by Franz Kafka has a murky and opaque narrative. Such a fragmentary and reality-bending storytelling style is actually instrumental in juxtaposing social rationality against individual desires, expressing individual’s difficulties in conforming to social norms. The storytelling itself contrasts the rational with the irrational, order with imagination, as well as the organization of a city with the delusional perspective of a traveler. As the seemingly physical promenade in the city of Prague transforms into an inner journey led by the desires of the narrator, we come to understand that the murky narrative of “Description of a Struggle” displays how social consensus excludes, classifies and/or ignores individual desires. Such an exclusion is depicted through the ontological shift of the narrator, as well as the delusional narrative. In the first part, the study defines the delusional narrative and the ontological shift of the protagonist. Following that, the article shows how the narrator starts blurring the boundaries not only between the outer world and the inner world of the protagonist, but also between the reality and the narration. Once the narration starts reshaping the world, this study argues, Kafka’s story turns into an example of delusional/schizophrenic narrative that functions as a critique of social norms that define, isolate and exclude the self.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Kaynakça
- Biderman, S., Lewit, I., (2016). Mediamorphosis: Kafka and the moving image. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Currie, G., & Jureidini, J. (2003). Art and Delusion. The Monist, 86(4), 556-578. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903844
- Glass, J. (1982). Schizophrenia and Language: The Internal Structure of Political Reality. Ethics, 92(2), 274-298. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2380597
- Glass, J. (1987). Schizophrenia and rationality: On the function of the unconscious fantasy. In: Levin, D. M. (ed.) Pathologies of the Modern Self: Postmodern Studies of Narcissism, Schizophrenia and Depression. New York and London: New York University Press.
- Jamison, A. (2018). Kafka's other Prague: Writings from the Czechoslovak Republic. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, Illinois.
- Kafka, F. (1995). Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories. Schocken Books Inc.
- Kane, M. (1999). Modern Men: Mapping Masculinity in English and German Literature, 1880-. Continuum, New York.
- Mishara, A.L. Kafka, Paranoic doubles and the brain: hypnagogic vs. Hyper-reflexive models of disrupted self in neuropsychiatric disorders and anomalous conscious states. Philos Ethics Humanit Med 5, 13 (2010) doi:10.1186/1747-5341-5-13
Ayrıntılar
Birincil Dil
İngilizce
Konular
Sanat ve Edebiyat
Bölüm
Araştırma Makalesi
Yazarlar
Yayımlanma Tarihi
27 Ocak 2020
Gönderilme Tarihi
7 Nisan 2019
Kabul Tarihi
15 Ocak 2020
Yayımlandığı Sayı
Yıl 2020 Cilt: 19 Sayı: 1