On Kafka 's Resistance And Subversion

Franz Kafka is an important representative of western modernist literary writerswith high reputation in literary history. As a Jew, his national identity affected all hislife. Besides, as the only boy of the family, his family environment, especially hisrelationship with his father had a major impact on him. Therefore, he showedsignificant revolt and submission in his life and works.The thesis is made up of five parts.The introduction mainly defines the connotation of revolt and submission. Revoltand submission are two opposite concepts, but they share a vital link. Submission isclosely connected with revolt. And sometimes submission can also be a way ofresistance. In addition, this part also discusses his life and the status of Kafka’s literaryas well as the research situation at home and abroad.The first chapter explores revolt and submission in Kafka’s life mainly from theperspective of Kafka’s identities of both a Jew and a son. As a Jew, Kafka had to yieldto the Christian civilization, but he still tried to maintain cultural traditions of the Jews.As the son, his free will was always violated by his father Herman. In this regard,Kafka had to choose submission. Nevertheless, he never gave up revolt for real. Kafkahad never resisted his father directly. Instead, he took a roundabout way to express hisdetermination to resist.The second chapter describes revolt and submission in Kafka’s works from twoaspects. The first aspect is direct revolt. These typical images consist of the smallanimal in the work The Hole, and the hunger artistic performer in the work A HungerArtist. The small animal tried various ways to get rid of fear. At last, the small animaldiscovered that fear is just from the hole. Although it had never been able to overcomethe fear, it never stopped resisting his fate. The hunger showed by the hunger artisticperformer was misunderstood. In order to obtain recognition and understanding fromaudiences, he always stuck to his view of art, even died for it. In short, they resistedtheir fate directly, rather than using a roundabout way like Kafka. The other aspect is to discuss some images who hesitated between revolt and submission or not only dothey choose revolt but also submission. This typical images include orderly andofficer in the work In Exile, Joseph K in the work The Trial. Orderly resisted his fateoccasionally like a slave, which just based on the immediate benefits. The officer is arepresentative of a social rule. Facing the collapse of rules, he could only submit. Buthe tried to use social rules he had ever supported to judge and execute himself, whichshowed his revolt at the same time. Joseph·K resisted certain social rules too. Hesubmitted this rule, trying to get rid of charges depending on this rule to prove hisinnocence, but the rule accused him of guilt, which means he was resisting this ruletoo.The third chapter discusses the value of Kafka’ revolt and submission. In Kafka’life filled with revolt and submission, he aims to achieve the value of life and pursuefreedom. Kafka believes the value of life lies in literary writing. And, literary writingwas an important way to resist for Kafka. However, Kafka had submitted to literarywriting unconsciously, which set hurdles for his life, especially his Marriage. And hispursuit of freedom was alive freedom, which can be understood from his work AReport for an Academy of Sciences. The monkey Red Peter chose the alive freedom.The first was to determine the choice of alive freedom, then choosing the way toachieve this freedom freely. At last, there were full of hardships in the process ofachieving it.The epilogue summarizes the whole thesis, stressing the viewpoint of the paperagain.