"The work of Kafka … has been subjected to a mass ravishment by no less than three armies of interpreters. Those who read Kafka as a social allegory see case studies of the frustrations and insanity of modern bureaucracy and its ultimate issuance in the totalitarian state. Those who read Kafka as a psychoanalytic allegory see desperate revelations of Kafka’s fear of his father, his castration anxieties, his sense of his own impotence, his thralldom to his dreams. Those who read Kafka as a religious allegory explain that K. in The Castle is trying to gain access to heaven, that Joseph K. in The Trial is being judged by the inexorable and mysterious justice of God."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Susan Sontag, in "Against Interpretation" (1964), in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Franz Kafka
1883 – 1924
deutschsprachiger Schriftsteller
148 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Franz Kafka →
Related Quotes
"The impersonality of the communist state is not easy to understand. The huge dangers with which its subjects are dail…"
"Kafka's Jewishness was a kind of dream, whose authentic moment was located always in the nostalgic past. His survey o…"
"Kafka is enormously important. Years ago I wrote a Jewish travel guide to Prague and other cities in the region. At t…"
"How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense."
"Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... Someone might possibly have es…"
"Plenty of hope — for God — no end of hope — only not for us."
"Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen,…"
"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungezi…"
"Verlassen sind wir doch wie verirrte Kinder im Walde. Wenn Du vor mir stehst und mich ansiehst, was weißt Du von den …"
"The bliss of murder! The relief, the soaring ecstasy from the shedding of another’s blood! Wese, old nightbird, frien…"