During Kafka’s writing career he was likely heavily influenced by the philosophies of his day. As the Great War raged in Western Europe, many lost their belief in Christianity and God. Nihilist belief in the purposelessness of life further eroded popular belief in Christianity. Nihilists saw religion as providing a false purpose in life and ideologically condemned religion, believing it should be destroyed (Pratt). In 1917, toward the War’s end, Kafka wrote “The Great Wall.” He uses the story to allegorically question the purpose of Christianity and demonstrates Nihilism’s role in its destruction.
Kafka uses the process of building the wall as a symbol for Christianity and enforces religion’s importance to society with the amount of celebration and praise for builders of the wall. According to the speaker’s narrative, for him and the people of China, the wall is the most important task. Like how religion was stressed to young Christians in Europe the speaker had the importance of the wall enforced throughout his childhood. As he recalls, “as small children [we were] ordered to build a sort of wall out of pebbles; and then the teacher… ran full tilt into the wall, of course knocking it down” (Kafka 236). This focus on the wall is felt as “significant of the spirit of the time” (Kafka 236) according to the speaker, something that many in Europe would have said about their faith. Most people identified with Christianity and society approved of religion. For European society, Christianity was a uniting part of their identity as people. Similarly the speaker sees the building of the wall as an action of unification for China. According to him it is a project to unify, “a ring of brothers, a current of blood no longer conf...
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...ickly away from religion and neither did most Europeans. The speaker’s slow progressions through his understanding of the imperfections of building the wall are symbolic of this. For Kafka the evils of hell and the rewards of heaven could not have been further removed from reality. Hell represented the everyday pains suffered by people including the pains of tuberculosis that Kafka himself was beginning to suffer from and heaven was a fairy tale. Religion was nothing more to him than a time consuming building of a wall for a God that did not exist, a needless burden in an already painful world.
Works Cited
Kafka, Franz. “The Great Wall.” New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1971. Print
Pratt, Alan. "Nihilism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 23 Apr. 2001. Web. 20 Jan. 2011. .
In philosophy “Nihilism” is a position of radical skepticism. It is the belief that all values are baseless and nothing is known. The word “Nihilism” itself conveys a sense of abolishing or destroying (IEP). Nietzsche’s work and writings are mostly associated with nihilism in general, and moral nihilism especially. Moral nihilism questions the reality and the foundation of moral values. Nietzsche supported his view on morality by many arguments and discussions on the true nature of our inner self. Through my paper on Moral Nihilism, I will explain 5 major arguments and then try to construct a deductive argument for each, relying on Nietzsche’s book II “Daybreak”.
The China’s Great Wall is one of the most spectacular and lasting structural feat ever conceived by the human mind. It is considered as the monument to the Chinese civilization constructed at extreme costs and under myriad sacrifices including loss of lives from hard labor for a worthy cause. The Great Wall, which is translated in Chinese as Chang Cheng was originally constructed to provide protection to the Chinese farmers from the marauding nomadic raiders who raided villages for food. The topics that follows attempt to elaborate the history of the Great Wall; the motives behind its construction; the design, materials, methods as well as the processes and labor that were applied in its construction.
A description of the wall is necessary in order to provide a base for comparison with the rest of the story. Because we only get the narrator s point of view, descriptions of the wall become more important as a way of judging her deteriorating mental state. When first mentioned, she sees the wall as a sprawling, flamboyant pattern committing every artistic sin, (Gilman 693) once again emphasizing her present intellectual capacity. Additionally, the w...
Sokel, Walter H. "Franz Kafka." European Writers. Ed. George Stade. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992. 847-75. Print. European Writers. Ward, Bruce K. "Giving Voice to Isaac: The Sacrificial Victim in Kafka's Trial." Shofar 22.2 (2004): 64+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. .
Walls are built up all over the world. They have many purposes and uses. The most common use of a wall is to divide a region. One of these famous walls is the Berlin Wall, which was constructed in 1961. This Wall was erected to keep East Berlin out of West Berlin, and even America had its own wall well before this one. There were a few major differences though. America’s wall, in contrast, was not a physical one that kept capitalism from communism. America’s wall was of a psychological variety, and it spread across most of the nation. America’s wall was more of a curtain in the fact that one could easily pull it aside to see what behind it, but if one didn’t want to they didn’t. This curtain was what separated whites and blacks in America, and one famous writer, James Baldwin, felt there was a need to bring it down. He felt that one should bring it down while controlling his or her emotions caused by the division. One of the best places to see the bringing down of the curtain and the effects that it had on the nation is where the curtain was its strongest, in Birmingham, Alabama.
classicmoviescripts/script/seventhseal.txt. Internet. 4 May 2004. Blackham, H. J. Six Existentialist Thinkers. New York: Harper, 1952. Choron, Jacques. Death and Western Thought. New York: Collier Books, 1963.
Bernstein, Richard. “A VOYAGE THROUGH KAFKA'S AMBIGUITIES”. New York Times 02 May 1983. : n. pag. ProQuest Platinum.
Ross, Kelly L. "Existentialism." The Proceedings of the Friesian School, Fourth Series. Kelly L. Ross, Ph.D., 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Franz Kafka always had a strong background in literature and writing. Pursuing a career in law, Kafka put his writing skills to good use, but he always had a knack and passion for writing literature such as short stories, poetry and full novels more than working his actual job. By the age of 27, Kafka attended a play put on by a Yiddish theatre troupe performing in Prague. With the lack of money the troupe had, they became stranded in the town, where Kafka gained his interest in Yiddish theatre (Gray, 301). With the stranding of this troupe, critics believed this to be what led to the influence of most of Kafka’s later writings. This is believed due to the evidence of a journal found after Kafka’s death. These journals kept records of performances he attended, plot synopses, character analysis, descriptions of staging and critiques of the performances (Gray, 301). Kafka also had a journal filled with vignettes about specific productions, along with brief reflections on the theater and the production (Puchner, 177). We first see Kafka showin...
Despite all the tragedy that surrounds The Great Wall of China, it continues to be considered a triumph for China. The Great Wall supplied protection for the developing empire. It also allowed for the development of Chinese trade with other countries. It has helped China?s economy from the days of the Silk Road through the present as it supplies tourism for China. It revolutionized not only military communication of the time but also wall building techniques. It stands as a symbol of strength and endurance for China. The Great Wall is a tribute to all of the Chinese who worked on it. The Great Wall of China shows the magnitude of what mankind can achieve in the face of tragedy.
This paper will present a novel, The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. My purpose of this paper is to analyze the story and the author Franz Kafka's life. The Metamorphosis is an autobiographical piece of writing, and I can find that parts of the story reflects Kafka's own life, also I would like to analyze the symbolism of the story, the protagonist in the novel The Metamorphosis. The analysis of the story is addressed to all people in general. The research of this paper will be supported by scholarly journals, academic websites, and books.
Kafka felt that “the powerful, self-righteous, and totally unselfconscious personality of his father had stamped him with an ineradicable conviction of his own inferiority and guilt” (Sokel 1). He felt the only way to ever be successful was to “find a spot on the world’s map that his father’s enormous shadow had not reached—and that spot was literature” (Sokel 1).... ... middle of paper ... ...
Pawel, Ernst. A Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. 2nd ed. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984.
When the Berlin Wall was constructed, East Germany went into a state of panic, fell into poverty, and adopted a communist government. The citizens of the GDR were filled with terror and anxiety when the border separating them from friends, family, and lovers was constructed. Many attempted to escape but every passing day, the wall became more and more menacing. Trapped, the people of East Germany were forced to cope with the shortage of goods, accept the fact that anybody could be a spy for the STASI, and follow the rule of an oppressive government. Although conditions were grim, the people of the East united together in order to survive. The wall is but a thing of the past, but it will always be remembered by every individual in Germany and the rest of the world.
...ntryman, has come prepared to influence the gatekeeper into giving him a chance to pass. Despite the countryman’s determination the gatekeeper does not provide for him the authorization, abandoning us to feel that one cannot buy access to God. On the other hand, it ought to be expressed that the gatekeeper takes the valuables offered by the countryman, which is somewhat similar to the way religion asks individuals for “indulgences” in order to reach alleged salvation. Put differently, Kafka is contributing his critique upon the idea to which individuals have systematized religion and most significantly changed its immaculate and profound importance. Also, in the event that we may look upon the character of Law as being God, the gatekeeper as being a modernized servant of God, and the countryman as an individual in search of God; the parable seems to make some sense.