Walking in Kafka's Space Boots: Questions of Mobility and Stability in Kafka's Literary Landscapes

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, modernist writers followed modernity's wide-ranging and broadly-based transformation of space and took up spatiality as a subject to be reckoned with. As scholars such as Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin suggest, spatial maladies and discomfort are concepts that emerge with modernity and its re-organization of space. These notions are indicative of the reasoning that dominated the modern period, flooding human consciousness, as Georg Simmel memorably recounted, with the intensity of the inescapable urban experience. Hence, the experience of space becomes urbanized independently of where a person finds him or herself; the world becomes city-like, infusing all places with a metropolitan mind-set that re-structures its engagement with places and people. It is in this environment and time that Franz Kafka writes and creates his convoluted, resistant, and live spatial landscapes.;In this project I choose to engage various parts of Franz Kafka's works, which includes "Die Verwandlung" and novellas like Der Proceß , Der Verschollene, Das Schloß, parts of Beschreibung eines Kampfes as well as Kafka's fragmentary novel Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande. These works of fiction tell us about the opaque legibility of modern urban settings through the eyes of Kafka's displaced characters. As the characters attempt to maneuver through their disorienting spaces their perspectives are frequently, but implicitly, called into question by the people they engage with. This dissertation will attempt to stress not only the physical spatial realms of the characters and their significance but it will also shift attention from the characters to the perceived existence of the characters' journeys. Further, this dissertation will underline the importance of the female role within the context of the paths taken by the male protagonists, highlighting the primary position that women hold not only for the spatial travelling of the male characters but also for the disrupted communicative channels between the characters.