Portland State University PDXScholar University Honors Theses University Honors College 1-1-2013 Building Stories: Modernity, Socialization and Failure in Works of Franz Kafka and Hannah Arendt Chris Carpenter Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/honorstheses Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Carpenter, Chris, "Building Stories: Modernity, Socialization and Failure in Works of Franz Kafka and Hannah Arendt" (2013). University Honors Theses. Paper 8. https://doi.org/10.15760/honors.8 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in University Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible:
[email protected]. 1 Building Stories: Modernity, Socialization, and Failure in the Works of Franz Kafka and Hannah Arendt By Chris Carpenter A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS in ENGLISH Thesis Supervisor: Jennifer Ruth Portland State University 2013 2 Table of Contents I.) Introduction 3 II.) Public, Private, Social 12 III.) Labor and Work 26 IV.) The Archimedean Point 42 Bibliography 61 3 I.) Introduction Modernity, for Hannah Arendt, is primarily a matter of loss: authority, certainty, tradition, and the possibility for meaningful action that can only occur in a public sphere in the full view of equals. The modern age is coeval with the rise of society – the private realm of “housekeeping, its activities, problems, and organizational devices,” 1 which has mixed with the public so completely as to make them indistinguishable.