The Ornaments of Writing
Kafka, Loos and the Jugendstil
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4070704 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Anderson (0000-0002-6400-8760, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1988 |
| Issue | 43 |
| Pages | 125 |
| Publication date | 1988-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New German Critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-033X • E-ISSN: 1558-1462 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/488401 |
| OpenAlex | W2333465917 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Kafka's fictions certainty of perception is often undermined by an absence of light. Darkness, shadows, snow or rain habitually obstruct the main character's vision of the object or scene he must interpret. evening landscapes of Castle, Trial, the darkness of Gregor Samsa's room in Metamorphosis these elements distance the characters from truth and make Kafka's fictional topography akin to that of Dante's Inferno, which is not only the moral realm of guilt and sin but also an epistemological realm of error and confusion, the realm into which God's light refuses to penetrate. In the Penal Colony is unusual among Kafka's works in that its landscape is marked by an abundance of light. But this light does not illuminate the field of perception, allowing the protagonist to interpret correctly the objects and events before him. Light is an obstacle to perception. explorer must shield his eyes against the blinding desert sun to gaze at the penal machine. glare of the sun in the shadeless valley hurts the explorer's eyes, making it difficult for him to collect his thoughts. And the machine itself, with its hard, polished surfaces, doubles the sun's violent radiance: The Bed and the Designer were . . . bound at the corners with four rods of brass that almost
Art · Literature · Ornaments · Franz Kafka Literary Studies · Literature and Cultural Memory · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2002 - 2025 (24) |
| Highly cited | No |