Pick one of the following three prompts (Tragedy, The Uncanny, and Comedy in Kafka). Post a 200-400 word contemplative and well reasoned response in the comments section. Make sure your first and last name is evident, as this will count as a homework grade.
Due Thursday Jan 19th by 11:59pm
For literary critics such as Cathy Caruth,
literature negotiates "the complex relation between knowing and not
knowing." Perhaps it is this knowing/not
knowing dichotomy which is compressed so eerily in Kafka, producing the profound
uncanny effect seen in his short fiction.
Combine this with the elegiac yearning for the past evident in both the
Penal Colony’s Lieutenant and the talking ape in “A Report From an Academy,” and both are
decidedly tragic tales, though perhaps not in the traditional sense.
Analyze the elegaic, traumatic, and/or tragic elements of Kafka's tales. How does Kafka present trauma and tragedy?
Kafka’s A Report for an Academy is indeed a tragedy. The tragedy of this story is seen in the capture and life of Red Peter. Red is an ape who has been spent the five years since his capture imitating human behavior. From the beginning one feels sorry for Red. As more time passes, Red remembers less and less of his past life as an ape. Another obvious tragic element of this story is the description of the cage in which he was transported after his capture. He describes how the cage was too small causing him physical and mental anguish.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of this tragedy is the life of Red. He lives his day to day life among humans, forgetting what it is like to live as a wild ape. He tells of the parties he attends, the wine he drinks, and the scientist and scholars he dines with. This is tragic because it seems that he is not truly a guest at these parties and dinners. It is likely that he is still considered an ape to these people, and they are marveling at him rather then enjoying his company. It is a dismal truth that Red no longer identifies with the ape population, but he will never truly be a human. He lives a life of imitation rather then a life of freethinking. As he describes on the boat, he is simply trying to “find a way out”. He knows that freedom is no longer an option.
Leah Camarillo
"Report to an Academy" sheds light on the internal conflict of adapting to an environment by removing all familiarity and identity in a final effort towards self preservation. Kafka's character 'Red Peter' is forced to battle with the idea that a means of escape to freedom is impossible. He gradually comes to realize that in order to move forward, away from his animal-like captivity, he must be as the crew members are: human. The existence he once knew is lost, and he must come to find a new lease on what it is to be “free.” For him, the only progress worth making consists of shameless antics and imitation. He finds some consolation among the crew, as they become his only gateway to an existence without bars. Kafka describes the ape’s tragedy as he progresses from feelings of being pinned and trapped, to slowly realizing his fate and having to turn his inner thoughts towards a goal with little reward, but which provides a means of keeping intact his sense of being.
ReplyDeleteBen Tuminello
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ReplyDeleteIn "Report to an Academy" Kafka describes the tragedy of an ape, Red Peter, being shot and captured. He describes being trapped in a crate and having to adapt to human society. The biggest tragedy if Red Peter forgetting his orginal way of life before being captured because he has to imitate the humans in order to be free. Kafka description of Red Peter is so trageic because it comes off as him not really fitting in with humans, only pretending to so he can survive. Kafka is very detailed when describing trageic moments but he also adds a sarcastic humor to the descriptions.
ReplyDeleteBoth Kafka’s ‘In the Penal Colony’ and ‘Report to an Academy’ present elements of tragedy and trauma though in a bit more of an untraditional way. In 'In the Penal Colony’, the device that the officer cherishes and admires so dearly ends up costing him his life. The officer is extremely loyal to the ideology of the old commandant, and so because he cannot and will not adjust to the beliefs of the new commandant, he meets his end ironically through the broken-down apparatus that he thought to be so wonderful and unequaled in its design. The officer realizes that the former glory of the apparatus and it’s past will disappear, and when he exhausts his efforts in attempting to save it, he condemns himself along with the machine.
ReplyDeleteIn 'Report to an Academy', the tragedy lies in the fact that Red Peter, who was free when he lived as a normal animal along the Gold Coast, is captured and caged. In order for him to not have to live as a caged beast the rest of his life, Red Peter begins to assimilate to human culture, copying their mannerisms and habits, speech and behaviors until he becomes almost human himself. However, he asserts that he never wanted to be human; he was only doing it in order to find a way out. His life as a human, or the role he plays in pretending to be human, does not even make him happy. He goes through his day as any other unhappy human being; lying around, hosting visitors if need be, performing his duties and then returning home to a partner that he has no real affection for. Red Peter has simply exchanged the caged life of an animal for the caged life of an unhappy human being.
Claire Schoonover
Indeed. Would you argue that Kafka is truly using the tale of Red Peter to bemoan modern human existence, then?
DeleteRita Inamdar
ReplyDeleteIn "A Report for an Academy" Kafka talks about feeling as if he needs to learn human behavior in order to find a way out. It is tragic because he was at first "a free ape" and by the end of the story has transformed somewhat into a human. He talks about escaping his situation, yet not truly being free. In The other story, "In the Penal Colony", tragedy comes when the officer is killed by the machine. He is more interested in defending his beliefs of punishment and defending the old Commandant than saving his own life. In both stories the tragic elements can also be perceived as joyous. In the first story, the fact that the ape is no longer in a small cage is joyous. Yet it is tragic that he is never to be a free ape again because of his new teachings on how to be a human. In the second story there is some sense that the cruel machine will not be used anymore and that the other people do not wish to promote it, which is cheerful. Yet at the same time the officer was killed by the machine because of his somewhat old world and barbaric ways of thinking.
Kafka presents trauma and tragedy in his short stories. In “A Report From an Academy” we are introduced an ape named Red Peter. The ape’s character at the time of his presentation to the academy present’s the reader with his own tragic character flaw, that he has become so well adapted to human life that he can no longer express what it is like to be an ape. His thoughts and emotions are so humanized that he cannot even remember what it is like to think as an ape. This trauma is highlighted by the ape’s analogy of movement in freedom and captivity. In his previous “wild life” he was free to move anywhere he wanted. Upon capture he can only move in one direction, out of captivity. Upon the time of this report, he has moved so far in the one direction he can no longer see where he came from, he is too far gone.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Penal Colony”, the Officer’s description of the apparatus serves almost as an elegy for the Old Commandant. As the Officer explains each detail of the apparatus and its function, he constantly mentions the Old Commandant in such a way that he makes it seem tragic that the new Commandant does not support this form of capital punishment. In the final tragic moments of his life, the Officer is subject to the failures of the machine that he not only helped build, but has meticulously cared for since its creation. He is subject to the consequences of his own stubbornness to maintain a complex machine. His blind dedication to the Old Commandant led him to operate the machine long past its time.
Sean Roddy
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