The Book of Hermits: A History of Hermits from Antiquity to the Present by Robert Rodriguez

Author:Robert Rodriguez
Format: epub

55. Eremitism in European Literature

Franz Kafka

Perhaps Franz Kafka (1883–1924) is the most representative writer of the first half of the twentieth century. Kafka projects into his fiction lives of social estrangement and profound solitude. His personal sense of monotonous diurnal loss and helplessness becomes a creative resource for the production of novels and short stories (most of which were published posthumously).

This inner process drove Kafka to write incessantly. In a 1913 letter to his fiancée Felice Bauer, Kafka writes: “I need solitude for my writing; not ‘like a hermit’—that wouldn’t be enough—but like a dead man.”

In The Trial, The Castle, Metamorphosis, and other fiction, Kafka identifies haunting images of unrelieved alienation. Of the many representative stories, two reflecting the depth of intractable solitude are characteristic existential fables or parables. In a fragment from “The Great Wall of China” titled “An Imperial Message,” the dying emperor entrusts his faithful servant with a message. The messenger must cross interminable passageways, corridors, stairways, and courtyards, push through thick crowds, interminable multitudes, passing these through still more courtyards, stairways, steps, and multitudes. You are waiting by the window at evening for the message that will not come.

In “Before the Law,” a man from the country has come to the door of the Law, seeking admittance, redress, and resolution. The doorkeeper denies admission but tells the man he may gain permission later. The door is open but there are interminable doors and doorkeepers beyond, and the doorkeeper warns him not to attempt to enter. After a while, the man petitions again, in vain. Now he waits sitting on a stool. The doorkeeper occasionally engages him in polite conversation. Days and years pass, and the man clings to his place, asking why no one else has also come like himself seeking admission to the Law. The doorkeeper replies that this door was only for him, the petitioning man, and now the doorkeeper is going to shut the door.

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