The Function of Symbol and Metaphor : a Study of Kafka's the Trial and Melville's Pierre Or, the Ambiguities.

APPROVAL

N,une: Henry "3.l.m i-Tubert Degree: Kaster of ^:rts

Title of Ttlesi s: The r;cllncti-on of Symbol md Metaphor: k Study of Kafka's --The Tx*ir;l nnd 1-ZelvilLe1s -Pierre or2.-, Tile :mb?pities

Exminin~Committee:

( J. Zaslovo ) Serrior SuporvSso::? ABSTRACT

This study began originally out of an interest in th.e nature or Frmz 1';al"Sra's populari-by in America. I emphasized thematic rela%ionships hetween Kafkz, and American aut;i.mrs of both the nineteenth cmd twentieth centuries esrly in my research, bat then turned from an exmination of' suecifkc social thomas to problem of aesthetics as tml2. Poetic perception, early

English Romantic theorists held, Ts a matter of investing r*n object with that quality af lV'e which arises ont of the perce-ivsy*'c sensibility. Perceptio!~is active, permitting-- indeed, demandin=--the si~bject' s unity with the object in his act of conceiving it.

This concept provioes the hasis for the e~.trsmeserse of vulnerability uhfch Kafka 1 s prot ?.gonists reel In the presence of their environment. The nature of their >a17r,ept;ion forces %he world to confront arid reject t.nir?:n. The s~meis true 3-31 some of Melville Is works, especially in :405g-~!ick mid Pierr.& or,

The !mbiy-rities. In %he lcitter, tho hero conceives 2 stranpr as his sister, a fzct which also laxls to h-is c.onceptio;q oi' the social environme~;t ss Snlso. Since the identi.3-ciition of' Pierrels corlcep-i;ion snd perception force him out of the given social stmcture, bjlt prov3 des no alternative mode of life, he perishes, jnst like mmy of Kaf'kaf s prot:?y.m ists,

The basis of the azsthetjc stuc!y in tllis the~isLS poetic or metaphoric language also unites subject and object.

Thus poetic perception leads olie into a unity with the object of perception. Met aphorlc thou~$t breaks thrcugh logical system,

permitting one not only to find significcmce but also have -hate 6 memin,r: revealed. Xaf.lials strongth lies in revealing mecaning which ciefius systematization, as I attempt to sho;-r in a study

of "A Country Doctor .''

Since I did not aclopt this approach to literature w-.ti1

I began my work on Kafka and lielville, tnis paper is more of' a1

attempt at c~1inteeration of these thoughts than primarily a

comparison of Bafka and Melville or a definitive XJOP~on either, I do not concern myself with my specific relationships betwee;._ the two ~~uthorsin tems of mxb.t:.ral influanc:as, nor do I attempt to place then into a similar 7:!eltanshmim~ in tems of catcgori.es such as 'ie;G.stentialism.' or "alienction. Kevertheless, I think that the stvdy does sho~rbasic similc7.ri.t;i.e~regarc2ing attiluzes both toward soc'ety and "cwzrd literature, TABLE OF COl.'ITiTi.'i.'CS

:T!l'l'ffCi~~iCTrO? . . . . * , ...... * . . . Chgnter I. STOXED XE OHEl S IIOUSE: COUlTTRY DOCTOR" . . , INTHODUC TION

This study began originally out of an interest in the nature of Franz Kafka's popularity. Next to Eertold Breclit, Kafka I is probably the most widely read German author of the twentieth century on this continent. My first concern was primarily thematic and thus I read extensively in twentieth-century writers who dealt with the thetuesof naivete, guilt, and alienakion. Gradually, however, I turned from the study of specific social themes to more aesthetic problens, especially as they have been formulated by Romantic theory. In mt flrirror end the I?. H. Abrams presents a history of Iiomanticiem which explains the significance of the change from using the image of the mirror to the image of the lamp or fountaix Lo descriSc the nature of poetry. Poetic perceptio~?,the early Romantic theorists held, was a matter of investing the object with the quality of life which arose out of the perceiver's sensibility. Kence the ps~tic

image became the congru'ence of outer object 2nd inner emtion.

This concept aids the critic of Wafka'u works a great deal, for it stresses the active nature of perception, and

points to the poet's uuity with the object. It also provides the bmis for the etc2weze~rse of vulnerability which Kafka's

protagonists feel in the presence of objects of the exterms1 works of the herican 3omantics of the nineteenth century. In Melville especially I found a novelist in whose best work the division between outer activity and inner sensibility vanishes. I also fou.nd in Melville the themes of naivete, guilt, and alienation which I had found in Kafka. Since these appeared the slrong- est in LiS*re Or, Th3 hmbimxities, I decided to concentrate on a comparison of Kafka's T'rjal and Melville's Pierre. Mel- ville's novel was further suitable for my study because in this book Melville treats critically the basis of his whole art as it arises out of the Romantic insistence that the poet enters into relationship with the object of his perception. As a result of my interest in this area I began reading further. According to Susanne Langer in Yhiloso& a a @J m, the chief obstacle to understanding the phenonena of the mind is C 1, the conviction that the mind is passive in perceiving reali.l;y. In fact, she argues that the very opposite is true, for, as the nineteenth-century Romantic critics, both English an6 continental, had discovered, the mind is-. active in perceiving the world--for ---._-- _-_--^_ - .-. - . - mind does not only perceive the world, it also concei~the world. As the mind meets ww experiences, it objectifies them C L by naming them, and thereby it is able to retain them in its

memory. In primitive cultures this naming activity goes on , ,/ constantly, as new experiences are added to the reservoir of man's knowledge. As culture and language evolve, however, this naming activity gives way gradiza3.l~to the use of words which, through constant use, gain those fzxed meanings which form the basis of ouz. 6iscursive language. ?'hc actiirj ty of naming becomes

0 3 weaker and weaker, until it seems to stand in direct contrast to simple discursive language, which has become the norm. Thus the difference between zhe "presentational" and the "discursive" symbol arises. Owen Barfield and Martin Foss also discuss these two different aspects of language, applying their knowledge directly to thestudy of literature as they present their theories. Because of my interest.in this area of thought, I decided to adapt the thrust of my work on Kafka and Melville to these aspects of Romanticism in order to gain more freedom to examine the appli- cation of xhese theories to literature, I determined to make this study of the nature of langna~ethe hasis not of a coxpsrat- ive work, but of a mutual study of both autlmrs. Hence my ::tcdy will take the form of a mutual interpretation of Kafka and Melville,

This format has also been used in Mark Spilka's study of =.%a and Dickens, for instance, or Teoffry Hartman's study of Words- worth, ~aldryand Bilke. Since this whole area of thought is still rather new to me, this paper is more of an attempt at an integration of what I have been studying than a definitive paper on either Rafka or Melville. Nevertheless, I am confident that for me this paper contains valuable insights into both Kafka and Melville, and that it can act as a base for 2 furthm study of both authors. The simple juxtaposition of the two authors has proved valuable in itself, for it has forced me to consider facets of their works which have received less siudy tkai? other aspects of their work. 4

In Kafka, for instance, it reveals the nature of his symboLic art, while in Melville, the juxtaposition leads to a closer study of the relationship of the a~stheticaspects and the social aspects of the "poetic iz'ovel." Further, I think a study like this is valuable, because in pointing to the similarity of the two authors, it invites the transference of criticism from one to the other. Kafka's critics could learn, for instance, not to ask questions like, "What does the Castle represent?I1 for that type of question has been shown to lead nowhere in the study of Mobv-Dii. Thus the castle or the court is what it does, just *4.".."-' -a'-' -n -r--*uwr--* llllllllirrrXIM as the white whale is just what it docs. Just as Noby-Dick is not God or the devil, so the court is not heaven or hell. Melville's critics, on the other h.and, could learn to look far the social implications of the works, thereby finding Melville not only a consumate master in handling an open form but also a person of a very keen social conscience. In conclusion, I repeat that this is not primarily a compzrative study, nor is it a study of influences of one author on the other. It is doubtful that Kafka ever read any of Mel- ville's works, for Mobv-3ick was first translated into German in 1927. It is probable, however, that both Rafka and Melville weE influenced by Germmi Ronanticisrr?, but that is a problem which goes beyond the scope of this essay. Here I deal with the nature of metaphor and poetic thought as it applies to what has been termed symbolic or mythic literature, dealing eepecially with

Kafkat s "A Country roctort' and The 5'ri%i and witL 14elville 's

--*,--pie.t~($ QY, i.r,biat,i es . CHAPTER I

STOKED IN ONX'S 'HOUSE: "A COUNTRY DOCTORtt

In attempting to explain the work of Franz Kafka, criticism involuntarily enters the world of Kafka as he himself found it. The difficulties faced by both Kafka and his critics are problems which have dogged philosophers through the centuries: what is real knowledge; what is the meaning of meaning; and what is the reality of meaning? Kafka's short story "A Country Doc- tor" serves as an excellent point of departure for yet another attempt to chart the region overshadowed by Kafka's, and more generally man's, epistemological problems. In this task, one cannot but feel akin to the landsurveyor K, who, upon entering the village dominated by the castle, quickly finds hi~selfwith- out instructions or duties of any kind. Like the landsurveyor and many other Kafka characters, such as the country doctor and Joseph K., critics have often accepted the assistance of helpers in the form of theologians, sociologisfis or pcychologists, but often the various helpers have pro\,en to be no more helpful than K.'s assistants, Artur and Jeremias, or Joseph K.'s aids such as the lawyer Huld or his nurse Lai. In my study I propose to find a possible area which woill_d include both these popular. approaches of theology and psyct- olo&z, xhile getting nearer to the dilemma tha.t not only Knfka, but many other writers in the nheteenth and twentieth centuries face m well, One can say that today these problems are not only the concern of literature, but also the concern of philosophy, religion and psychology a,s well, since all these areas of study concern themselves with the nature of reality. This is the central problem in "A Country Doctor" and also the central problem of this thesis. Along with the rest of Kafkats works, "A Country Doctor" has often been' described as symbolistic. Hence critics have set out to explain what the symbols represent, thereby hoping to determine what the story reallx means, since, in their approaches the story is obviously inconclusive as it is written. This symbolic approach makes several assumptions about literary cri;i- cisn without ever stating them; assumptions which, if consi5e1-cC and stated, would clarify some of the difficulties in the rriti- cism of flsymbolistictl works. A few critics of "A Corntry hc- or" have recognized some of these basic assumptions and have pointeO out the falLacies of critics who have not. Neveriheless, msri; of these who have recognized pal-t of the traditional error ha-;? not been able to correct .it since they have remained within the same basic fxaamework of criticisn. Maurice Beebets -:.v - Svrn.bolisn, 1 an anthology of works and criticism on symbolisx I:> literature, contains Xafka's short story as well as three crztlc::,.. - essays an it. All three essays are based on the assymption xl-*a: the story nust be rcade meaningful in terms of some accepte;i; cazw egory of ?.ite~ature,or that it fiu.st be explained I.ogicalli7 i:: order to have mes~iing. Uecause they pinpoint the diff icu2z:-ez of a great deal of criticism of "symbolistic" works, -1 will use the three essays as the basis of argument in this chapter. Margaret church,* who includes other works of Kafka in her argument, states that Kafka criticism has tended to be too narrow, that Kafka writes "of all hman experience and thought, leaving the reader with a wide range of interpretation." In the same paragraph, however, she also 'says that " [and interpretation of

Hafka recyxires a paint of view toward his works. " The approach is that tho7xgh several appraaches may be correct, sorne.defined approacL, which must necessarily exclude other approaches nwi; be taken. Thus she interprets this story, as well as The Trial

and The Castle, as a quest. I Stanley Cosperman states, "It is necessary to accapt; a simple dream narrative as tile literal level of 'A Country Doctor,

since only a dream can give it any literal melining whatsoever. If 3 Xis article goes on to extract the iiteral meaning by subjectink

the story to a psychological i~terpretation. Then he shows 110% the story may also be interpreted as a "symbolic restatement of the classical existential situation," in ~hichan individual is confronted with a crisis to which the doctor's cry, "I could see no way out ," is an "echo of the philosophers of crisis from Kierkegaa~r?to Szrtre." Like Church, he concludes that the work

canm t be exhailsted by any isoiatea interpretation: it is weaving and ~eveavi.ngof many themes, and it cannot be approzdled

bluntly czr ;;i.rLg2emindedJ.y. " Yet, he has presected two mut-u3:Lly exzlvsive in:.e~.p;-eba';i.ons, thus coritradicting his staterncat that both "must occupy the same space at the same time." They cannot as I vill show later ir, this study (pp. 4.0-41). Ia the thLrd essay in Beebe's collection, Basil Busacca attempts to integrate the various approaches by proposing that

Kafka, like Aesop ?. concerns himself not with specific situations, but with relationshi.ps which these situations display: "The mean- - could be expressed in the and of symbolic logic more economically than in language,- albeit,- less charmingly, because it is concerned with particular relations and not with specific, termini.. . . . The formula of relations (the meaning) may, like a proverb such as 'A stitch in time saves nine,' be agplied to any set of specific termini whose relations mzy be conceived as analogous. lf4 Busacca thns nttcrqts to find s solntion for the problem that Cooperman a,mi Church pclPnt out by saying that interpretations approaching the work from one point of view are inaciequate.. Busacca goes on to interpret the story by substi- tuting different termin. in four different situations, in effect giving four different interpretations for the story. In doing this Busacca, howc~~er,does not solve the problem since he too is finall-y forced to provide single-minded interpretations which, insofar as they retain a logical pa-ktern, must remain matually exclusive as individual essays. He cannot, for instance, uni.te his existential, psychological. and religious interpretations a.sse?:ti.or-,s of the vzlidity of his basic pattern. All three critics agree that Kafka presents a whole of h~~..nexperience, "the stuff of the hu.ma.n soul," according to Coopermma Yet they also agree------that he can_ _ _only I I- - be-.- -.approached -- ---. -- _ C

sive scgnents till.-. A all-" - have.. -been exhausted. Though-- this attitude -- --- "%_" impresses any reader of- the immense depth of Kafkar s writings, C------~ttalso destroys the works as the reac?,er first meets t'hem. It assumes that thc work is not somehow "alive" as an experience,

both within itself an6 within the reader. This brings us back

g to the original, assertion that Kafka' s writing is meaninglass until 1-L is decipnes.ed, mtil it is brought into the framework wof some ca-besories which give it "literal mezning. The assumption is that neznirig is dependent on soma accepted category of

thour.gh2i; such as psychology, existential philosophy, or religion.

The r~su1-iis '6h.e difficulty that Busacca especially tries t~j

overcone in pcbinting to a basic forinula which is to integrate

the various interpretations. As logical system, they must, how-

ever, be m~tuall-yexclusive, siace each approach altempt s to solve the same problems as the other approach. The question thzt follows nzturally from this is whether meaning itself is i.n some way isolated in term of rational cut- Ggories. If meaning can be known only as it becomes isolstad,

ka writer like Hs.fka can only be ap~roachedfrom a ~piaclof

'Y~utuallyexclnsilrc positions. In that case, to gxin the nsem- ing of Ezfka ' s :forb- one must becpne a men-ta.1 acrobat, leaping C from meaning to exclusive meanir~g--until, on the one hand one

postulates that Kafka i;.ust have had serious ~entaldifficulties

,rin order Co write like that, or, on the other hanci, c;?_t;ij.or,e " assumes r;ha.t 3Czfka is conce.rned with the absurd; ttlrn:t the meanin& of his work is the paradox that there is no meaning. Beithe of these solutions is adequate, since both fLy in the face of the widesgwad and enduring respcnsiveness of readers to Kafka

and other wr.i.$erS iib-e biz vhosc works also defy a single-minded

approach all tl,e part 02 the reader.

Rather than continuing in speculation, we can turn to "A Country Doctor" in an attempt to find a new point of departure

fiction as weli.. Kzfkat s-narrative begins as3-j* a. cc the dramatic setting is introduced in the first sentence, acd the

L second sentence provides the background for this setting. The

doctor is i2 great perplexity; he has a patient, seriously ill, waiting for him in n village ten miles swag. Yhough he is ready to go, he ca~lnotbecause his horse has just clied as a result

of the hard work in the severe winter. The suspense increases as the doctor thinks about his sitnation. Logically nothing cr?n be done; his own horse is dead, and though his servant girl i.s now in the village trying to find another horse, the situation is hopeless; no one will lend him a horse in this weather for fear it also will die. Everything is perfectly clear--logic tells him he cannot fulfill his obliga.tion by meeting the needs of tl:e patient. At this point the story becomes unconventional. Confused*

and tortured, tk.le doctor, who until now has been physicaT1.y inac-

tive, kicks i-:i the door of a pigsty, long unused, in desperation;

the. door opens ax1 s~iii~sback and forth on its hinges. 'dar'lnt'n and a smell of horses reaches the doctor; a blue-eyed man crawls out, asking whether he shal.1 harness the team. At this point t2E servant-girl says, "One never knows what is stored in one's house. This statemedt focuses the events of the story up to this point, and directs the further progression of the narrative. Rather than being logical, explaining the inexplicable situation in terms of some ex'ternal point of reference, the statement is proverbial and fuses the experier~ceinto the condition ob human existence as man has experienced it in history. he girl's statement, as simple evocation of truth, stands in contrast to

the doctor' s logical thought xhich establishes his dilemxa. Though Kafka omits the trmcitions by inserting semi-colons in his sentences, the progression of thought 1"s oleai* from the first phrase of the story. Tl~edilemma is presented in simple cause and effect reasoning: "1 was in great perplexity [because] I had to start on an urgent journey [becausd a seriously ill patient was waiting for me . . . [becausd a thick blizzard of snow filled all the wide spaces between him and me . . . [&causd there was no horse to be had, no horse." Why was there no horse? because] my own horse had died [because] it had been worn out by the fatigues of this icy winter." The girl appears without a horse fron the village becams& no one will lend her one because

it too would be endangered by the long trip. By using semi-colons rather thar, verbal transitigns, Kaf'ka seems Lo present the situation as conclusive without emphasizing the logical. process. Like the proverbial situation pointed. out

by Rose, th.2 girl, this situa,tion too seems to fit into the pat- of life as it is experienced. The difference is that the ex-

perience that is acknowledged by the proverb resolves the impasse which the doctor has reached. It introduces another one, of course, but as we shall. see, further difficulties are precipitate6 by the way the doctor conceives them. In this case, the doctor becomes totally revitalized by acknowledging what he has stored in his house. While the girl is in the'village the doctor stands forlornly, the snow gathering more and more thickly upon him while he is more and more unable to move. In kicking open the pigsty door, however, the doctor's experience changes radically. Before he is fully aware of the consequences of his action, his immobility as well &s the blizzard have passed. In a moment he

fiids himself at his patient's home which is flooded with moon- light.

Professor Cooperman is correct in recognizing that the story, as it is, has no literal meaning. In asserting t6hat one xmust ficd a literal. meaning for the story by subjecting it to a

'~psychoanalyticzlinterpretation though, he fails to fol1.o~the progressiors. of the story, which presents the reader witn a asan- ing that defies the traditional dependence on logic. Again we

are thrust back to Rose's statement which points to the qualit- ative difference in the experience of the doctor. The existence

of the groom is uuczused, it simply becomes; the existence of - the earlier inpasse, in contrast to this condition, is very log.i~al--i~.is clez~1.ycaused by a series of related eve1it.s.

As the stor? conl inucu this condition of simply exgerieuecd ev-

erlt F: is c011t if~~allyinterrupted 'r~ylogical evcct s ;is tt;;. docstor considers his situation, until, at the end, refusing to reflect on his situation any longer, the cloctor ,concedes that once one i? has lost his grip on experience, he cannot help but give himself over -to the progression of events just as they happen.

Fhe dilemma of man in his compulsion for order is the dilemma of Kafka's protagonists. Like Kafka's critics, -the prut- agonists themselves attempt to establish literal meanings in their own existence +s they are confronted with life as it is conceived in a directness unbroken by reflection, which functions. divisively. In attempting to do what Kafka's protagonists cannot do, many critics place themselves outside the essential progression of the stories. The critics themselves Secome Kafka's protagonists aa - they are confronted with the undifferentiated experien~eof Kafka's works. Pet to argue that Kafka's works concern themselves only with finding literal meaning is to miss the entirz reaim of meaning that is poetic rather .khan literal, meacing that is mol-e basic than literal meaning which can be logicnlljr defined. Indesc., . this poetic meaning is itself the ground out of which logical , -meaning arises, it is the ground which includes the totality of experience which constantly eludes those who search only for literal meaning, Unlike lit era1 meaning, this poetic meaning is not static, it cannot be defined apart from its existence in a

% work:, for it exists only within the process of a work of art.

In "A Cowtry Doctor" therefore, we have a two-fold duty; first, to exsmine the dilemma of the doctor's attempt to estab-

- lish &rid to enforce a literal meaning in his very exiscenca; secondly, to examine the dilemma of the critic in resolving the doctor's search for meaning with the thrust of the poetic meaning of the work as a process of meaning which illuminates existence as a complete'totality; In other words, the function of the critic should be to follow Kafka rather than Kafka's protagonists.

A short narrative entitled "~espr&h mit dem Betrunkenen," an early work of Kafka's, introduces us into the heart of the first problem. In order to follow the progression of thought 1 will quote the beginning of the narrative without omission: Als ich aus dem Haustor mit kleinen Schritten trat, . wurde ich von dem Himrnel mit Mond und Sterne und gaop er ~zlbungund von dem Eingplatz rnit Rathaus, Marienshle und Kirche iiberfallen. Ich ging,rul-iig au-s dem Schatten ins Kondlicht , knZpfte den Uberzieher auf und w'jrmte mici?; lieg ich durch Erheben der Hbde das Sausen der Nzcht Bchtseigen und fing zu uberleger, an: "Was ist es doch, dap ihr tut , als wenn ihr wirklich wgret . Wollt ihr mich glauben rnacher,, day ich unwirklich bin, komisch auf dem griinen Pflaster steh- hend? Aber doch ist es schon i.ange her, day du wirklich warst, du Himel, und du Kingplatz bist niemals wirklich gewesen. '' "Es ist ja wahr , noch immer seid ihr mir %berlegen, aber doch nur dann, wenn ich euch in Xuhe lzsse." "Gott sei Dank, Nond, du bist nicht inehr Mond, aSer viell-eicht ist es nachlzssig von mir, dap ich dich Mondhenannte; noch immer Mond nenne. Warm bist du nicht mehr so ubermGtig, wenn ich dich nenne 'Ver- gessenc Yapierlaterne in merkwcrdiger Farbe.' Und warurn ziehst du dich fast zursck wenn ich dich 'Marien- &hlcf nenne, und ich erkenne deine drohende Haltung nicht mehr, ~ariensgule,wenn ich dich nenne,'Mond der gelbe3 Licht wirft.'" "fis scheint* * nun wirklich, dap es euch nicht gut tut, wenn man uber eixch nachdenkt; ihr nehmt ab an Mut und Gesundheit."o This passage is interesting not only because it reveals the activity of Rafka' s poetic conception, thereby assisting one in entering other works of his, but also because it; pard-lcls so closely what students of language and philosophy have discovered. about the history of language as it relates to perception and the development af knowledge.7 In this short section the con?- itions of - the environment cha~qactively as the narrator c~~~~si- ders them reflectivelv in detail. To dismiss this activity as an aberration of the narrator's perception, as one naturally tends to, is to cut oneself off from an understanding of the activity taking place in the work itself. On the other hand, an undes- standing of the activity would also demand a change in ideas about perception insofar as those ideas have dominzted our philosophy at least since the eighteenth century. The problem centers aro-~-nclthe difficulty we have iii realizing that perception is not a passive process of the mind, that perception cannot take place without conception, which is the ac-tive process of engeiid- ering Life when related to processes of the mi.nd as well as to biological processes. Since an understanding of this concept is basic to my interpretation of Kafka, J will exarnine it in detail before continuing with my discussion of "A Country Eoctor."

In Sce~ticismand P~etryD. G. James points out that

Wordsworth and Coleridge derived their basic id~asabout poetic . perceptioc and the poetic imagination from the philosophy of Imanuel Kant. Considering that aspect of Rant's philosophy which deals with the role of the mind in the perception of one's environment,, James surrmarizes the revolutionary hypothesis of the German philosopher in this way:

Eut an2 thing is certain, that Kant presented a view of the hurnm mind in knowledge which was radic,z.l.:g different fro;;: -those of hi5 prc3ecesso~~;;aad in general this radical difference consists in hie regarding the mind, not as essentially passive in the face of the world communicating itself to mind, but as essentially active in exercising certain powers which, he held, are a necessary condition of knowledge, and of knowledge of a world of objects .. . . The presence of objects existing in an ordered world is to be explained primarily not by the possible reality of such objects in an ordercd world, but by the activity of the mind which oper~tes on the limited material presented to it, synthesizes it in doing so, goes beyond it and represents to itself a world of objects. James explains, however, that it is not the logical understanding

F . which synthesizes concepts in the perception of an individual whole, for then the individual whole would be known "not as an f individual but as an exemplification of certain concepts and k principles. lt9 In order 'to account for the individual whole prior to the reflective analysis which works upon it, we ;nust "ascribe the primary labour of synthesis not to the reflective analysis but to a logically prior and imnieiiiate grasp of %he individual; and it is this labour of synthesis which we may c2I:L the activity of the imagination in knowledge. tr 1-0 Coleridge based his theories of the prinary and second3rg Z imaginations on the foundation which Rant had laid. Poetry P"I F conceived by the secondary imagination is but an extension of

b m ~ the activity of the mind in physical perception. For Coleridge 2- poetry and knowledge of the sensible world are essentially of rBi r.% one o~der,and in the first of his famous two paragraphs in

, r the wity of-poetry and knowledge very direcxly:

The IMAGINATION then, I consider either as primary, or secondary. The prircsry IXAGII$ATIOS I hcld to be the living Power and prime Agent of d.1 Fcrceptlon, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the InTinite I AM. The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still identiczl with the primsry in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create; or where this process is rendered impdssib2e9 yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify, Just how closelg the poetic imagination and knowledge of the sensible world are associated will beco-me apparent in the course of this essay. While Kant was preparing to write his epoch-making critique of reason, a fellow east-Prussian and sometime student of Kantfs, Johann Gottfried Herder, was considering the origin of language. In a prize-winning essay entitled ttAbhandl-ung Uber den Ursprung der Spra.chel' in 1770, Berder refuted the concept of a divine source for the languages of mankind. By stating that langaage was the result of the development of man's mental ~apabili~ics, he laid a foundation for the difficult task of determing the true geneses of man's verbal communication. Though Eerder himself could not prove conclusively that language, 2oe try, and religion had a common beginning in hman pre-history, the problem was not lost Lo phiLosoyhica1 thought, and later German scholars did much to advance this area of thought and to spread mzny of their ideas until they became basic questions of western thinkers,

With ths wealth of a cenhry's concentrated study on the problc~ of meaning and knowledge as background, Susmne Lan~er,in pfr.los~cfrg-.>~Qew Pev, sets out to present the sigriificance of the work of these prcxiominantly German schol.ars. The main problem, as she presents it, is still ~2. contj.nuatior~of the problem:; ti-lat b I Rant and Coleridge dealt with. Many, she says, still regard c- r the mind as a passive organ of man, simply used to or~anize the data d'pesception to make it useful for man in his physical existence. Language then exists solely for the purpose of corumw~icatiz~gknowledge, and all words exist for the purpose of conveying denotative meaning. Mrs. Langer assumes that this approach to laxguage has been borrowed from the study of mathematics and of the sciences which were originally based on empiricism. Though mathematics cannot bs considered empirical in the strict sense, it is allied to the sciences in its use of purely logical symbols which represent concepts just as symbols in the sciences represent empirical facts. Since words gre symbols, and since symbols are apparently invented for the sole - purpose of referring to facts (concepts in absentia) it was taken for granted that the study of language should follow the same principles as the study of the sciences. Owen Barfield agrees with this analysis: Our poets have not Seen much dispo,sedto bother themselves with Hwne and Coleridge and Goethe and all that. What they have done is to absorb, as it were through tlleir

pores, the findings of scientism and with them l-i-,2 . 2.' underlying attitude from which it partly springs and which it in part begets. Accordingly they have pres@r:t?d. us wit.h the human spirit as bewildered observer or agonized patient . . . helpless to alter anything but his own pin-pointed sub$ecXive emotion. 11 He wfers to John Locke as one ~f the principle early propnents

of this approzch to the origins of language. "Bis definitions

of WTGS are perfect models of abstract thought, tI ssys Barfieid,

F1:7..;:..: he proceeded to attribute this defin~nc;z,,ctivity of his own to primitive mxn, as the process by which 13ngu2,ge came into being. " Barfield quotes the following hypothetical example of Locke s: - "One of Adam's children .. . roving in the mountains, light on a glit%ering substance which pleases his eye. Home he carries it to Adam, who, upon consideration of it, finds it to be hard, to have a bright yellow colour, and exceeding great weight. There, perhaps, at first, are all tile qualities he takes notice of in it, and abstracting this complex idea, consisting of a rrubstance having that peculiar bright yellowness, and a weight very groat in proportion to its bulk, he gives the name zahab, to denominate and nar' substances 'that have these qualities in them. f2a11 Barfield terms this notion of the history of language a historical delusion. Mrs. Langer simply says that this direction of thought, though i.t has permitted the sciences to expand immeasurably, has led. the study of language to an impasss.

;i The methods of the natural sciences lead away from rather thea F toward the problems under scmtiny. flThat," she says, signifies that the generative idea which gave rise to physics and chemistry 2nd all their progeny ... does not contain any vivifying concept for the humanistic sciences. The physicist's scheme, so faithfully em- lated by generations of psychologists, epistemologists, and aestheticians , 3.s ?rob:il~2y b1-ock ing t'icir piwg_ress , defeating possible insi@ts by its prejudicial force. The scheme is not false--it is perfectly reasonable-- but it is bootless for a study of mental phenomena. It docs not engender leading questions and excite a cons- truc-Live imagination, as it does in the physical re- searches. Instead of a method, it inspires EL militant methodology. lj Though langrtsge funct- through referential symbols just as C' da the sciences, which have achieved a remarkable advazce beczuse p of their free use of symboiization, the study of the activity b of the mind has not progressed bocause, from a common ground,

Oxe course of symbolizatian loads to tho logic of the sciences, 20

the &her leads to tho goneration of the creative arts. And the common ground out of which both courses proceed is the cons tructive function o$ the human imagination. The process of symbolization is rooted in the very nature of man, conceived not only as a rational but also as pre&ninently a creativo being. Human thought is more than just a conditioned f / YC response. "The symbol-making f'unction is one of man's primary activities, like eating, 1-ooking, or moving about. It is the

' fundamental process of mind and goes on all the time. l4 This does not mean that mm simply names things he sees in osdar to manipula'm thorn, for a "signi' is not the game as a "symboljl' to use Mrs. Langer's terms, "A sign indicates the existence-- C - past, present or mture--of a thing, event, or condition. ,.. L The logical relation between a sign and i%sobject is a erg

simple one: they ape associated, somehow, to form a pair; that -

is to say, they stmd in a one-to-one correlation. To each sign there corresponds one definite item which is its object, the thing sigcified. 1115 A sign is often n signal ovoking , ,,. direct action appropriate to the order of its object. On the other hand, "sPbols are not proxy for their objects, but are vehicles --for tho conception -of objects," She continues, To conceive a thing or a situation is not .%he same thing as to froact tuward it+overtly, or to be aware of its pressnco. ... Of course a word may be used as a sign, but this is not its primary role. ... In itsel-f it is a symbol, associated with a concepti.on, not directly with a no pilblJ.c object or uuant me ikldrunental ~LJ.. L src~ce- betwoen signs and syjnbo~sis this difference of associ* at;i.cn, md consequently of their -use by a third party to the meaning f'dnction, the subject; signs announce their objects to him, wh reas symbols ---lead him to --conceive their objects. lg It is this central f'unction-the activity of conception--that is so important in symbolization. Symbolizatj.on is the acti-vity of' man conceiving his world, it is man's way of know:-ng. Througn the conception of symbolization man presents the world to himself and himself to the world; he enters into a relationship with the world. Clearly, this concept of s-ymbolization differs from the other, more common form, in which symbols functior, strictly as representati.ve of known factors, thus corresponding to the f'unction *of a sign a$ defined by Mrs. Langer. Such sy~nbols,includ- ing much of our vocabulary, occur only af'ter a language has advanced from its primary stages; it is the product of' a-purely conceptuaJ. symbol, In its eerly stages language does nc'c explain, it presents reality to its conceiver, as Ernst Cassirer shows in his discussion of language and myth. PQthicsl concepts are C not arbitrnrg attempts at entertaining oneself and others in the C light of physical phenomena, they "are not culled from a ready- made world of Baing,"

they 2~eno-i; nere products of fantasy which vapor off from fixed, empirical, realistic existence, to float above t?m actuzl world like a bright mist; to priniifvive consciousness they pmsent the totality of Being. The nwthica!. f crr~of conce-otion is not something super- o>ded to certain defimite elements of empirical.-existence; \ inste3.d the cx*i.mars "~;x~erience"itself is steeped in ,, the imagery o:? my& and- saturated with its atmosphere. f Lmgixagc is sr: integral pmt of the myth-making procedure; for the religious consciousnevs it, 4s impossible to haTm one tv"ith~ut the other. In that sense the myth-mal ring process is the 1 making process. Barfield, in saying that the poetic conceptualization must be traced back to the "myth-making1: period of language, asserts that the earliest meanings "ware not arbitrary creations of 'poets, but the natural expression of man's being and consciousness at the time. These primary tmeaningst were given, as it were? by Nature. I, 18 Cassirer attempts to clarify this experience by equating it with the creation of what H. ~sener'aerms momentary deities :

These beings do not personify any force of nature, nor do they xbepresont some special aspact of human lil's; no recurrent trait or value is reta.ine6 in them and transformed into a mythico-religious image; i.t is something purely instantaneous, a fleeting, emcraing md vaniok.- ing mental content, whose objncbificah~cnarid QLLI;:~Y'~- discharge produces the image of the ''morr;cx.r-,di.=y de2ty, ': Every impression that man receives, every wish that stirs in him, every hope that, lures hrim, evorg dagor that threatens him can affect him thm roligio?.~sly, Just let spontaneous feeling invest the object befoi-e him, or his own personal condition, or soms display of power that surprises him, with an air of holi~ess,and the momentary god has been experienced and created, In sta~liuniqueness and singleness it confront;^ us; not as a pzt; of some force which may man-ifest itself here, tnere an3 everywhere, in various places and times, and for difPerent persons, but as something that exists only hers md now, in one in~ivisiblemoment of axperaience, and for onlv one subject whom it overwhelms and holds in thrall .Zb The myth-making and language-making processes thus come together in that language as conceptual symbolization is able to grasp and hold what has been objectified in the mind of the individual. In

the naming ~f the "momentary gods" both the name aru8' the god stmd forth as one trilth. The mythic and linpistic fomn emerge ''in ,!,2J.\ a process or alnios t violent separation and individaatisn, Introducing the union of language end myth, Cassirer s-ays that

"the mythmaking genius 'hasf sepmake and individualized f oms only ir~so far as it 'posits' them, as it carves them out of the undiffercntSated whole of its pristine vision. "" The basis of both language and myth are laid in this one act. At a great risk, we could simpiy say that the process of symbolization in myth is a process of objectification. The risk is present- because normally, ob,jectification presupposes .the presence of a subjective ego which objectifies something. This concept of either a subjective ego or a separated object is foreign to the mytizic consciousness, which can only effect the activity of symbolization as it experiences an active relationship with the object of its intuition, losing itself in it in a mument; of intensity. Again, referring to the discovery of momentary gods, Cassirer describes the activity this way: Instead of a widening of intuitive experience, we find here -its extreme limitation; instead of expansion that would lead through greater and greater spheres of being, we hsve an impulse toward concentration; instead of extensive distribution, intensive aompression. This. focusing of all forces on a single point is the pre- requisite for all mythical thinking and mythical fomnu- lation. When, on the one hznd, the entire self is given up to a single impression, ia fpossessed~by it and, on the other hand, there is the utmost tension between -the subject and its object, the outer world; when external reality is not merely viewed md contemplated, but overcomes a man in sheer immediacy, with emotions of fear or hope, terror or wish fulfillmant: then the spark jumps somehow across, the tension finds release, as the subjective excitement becomes objectified and confronts the mind as a god or a daemon. 23

?'he self recognizes the object of its intuition only in giving itself up completely to the reality it experiences; the two fkse into an indissoluble unity. In this process both the self and the "momentary god" gain meaning in that each comprehends the other. The self recognizes the god as the experience of that which is imment, and it recognizes itself as that which has F entered a relationship with that "monentary god." One must be careful to qualify the process of objectification that has taken place because the self does not recognize itself as autonomous subject, nor does it recognize the god as autonomous objoct; both exist only as contingencies reacting upon each other, as two poles of a bi-polar unity.

The process of conceiving "momentary gods" 8% Usoner describes it is, according to Cassirer, the process of eoncoiving language, The two are necessarily linked for the god comes into

existence only as inan conceives ,and fixates it by g-ivhg it a B name, That nanze, be it for a god, or late^ in the evolution of man's consciousness, for another object of reality, arises out of the use of metaphor. The use of' metaphor in this sense is so diffsrent from its a.ccepted use tod~ythat Barfield chooses no% even to call it a metaphor, but pure mem ing, 24 Only the basic concept that the nams of one object may be used to denote another is the same, but this concept isl.appliod in a radically different way. Cassi~erargpes that a basic principle of a11 mythic think- r ing is that a part equals a whole. The name, therefore, of any -P -e entity applies equ.ally to all of Lts parts, Indeed, as any indiv- 1 idual part becomes the centre of attention, it is conceived as F separate ~ndcomplete in itself when tt recieives its nme. 6: E Indiviclual eqorLence, related unconsciou&ly to all parts of j that oxporiox;ce , receives the saxe nme. If, however, the part equals the whole, the part becomes the whole, conceived through the name of the whole. The s2milarity of the aspect fixed by the word causes all other heterogeneity mcng the perceptions in question tend to become .more and. more obscured and finally to vanizh altogether. ... By virtue of the "equivalence" principle, entities which appem entirely diverse in dirsct sense perception or from the standpoint of logical classification may be treated as sirnilars in language, so that every statemzt made about on of them may be transferred and applied to the other. 35 The logical relationship of separateness and mutual difference is absent from the beginning, however, "for in this realm of thought there are no abstract denotations. " 26 Barfield agrees with Cassirer for in speaking of relationships as pereived by

the primitive he writes, "me language of primitive men reports them as direct perceptual experience. The speakezl has observed a unity, adis not therefore himself conscious ~f a relation. ,,27 Then he says, "But we, in the development of consciousness, have lost the power to see this one as one." Another power re-- places it, and this new power is logical thought, which gradually grows as man's culture evolves. Cassirer explains it iike this: Yet in the advance of human mentality, this conjunction [the unity of all experience conceived through one name] , close and essential though it seems to be, begins to disintegrate and dissolve. For language does not belong exclusively to the realm of myth; it bears within itself,

from its very beginning,- another powep, the power of logic. How this power gradually waxes great, and breaks -its wt?y by means o? language, we cannot undertake to set . forth here. But in the course of that evolution, words are reduced,,tjore and more to the status of mere concapi tual. s5gns. Supplementing Cassirerrs study, Susanne Langer adopts Philip Wegener.!~termsz9 to explain the g~owthof language. Ensically she holds that metaphor, originally conceived unconsclauslg,~ Ls the source of generality in language. "It is the power whereby 1-age, oven with a small vocabula ray, manages to embrace

a multkmiXlion things. lt3' Gradually 1-anguage undergoes a process of emendation, thereby becoming more useful for discourse. Like the original conception-of words, emendation is also not a conscious prodl.ict, for, she says, "No savage society of unintellec- tua'L k~tersand squaws could ever build a language; they could only produce it by some such unconscious product as endless rnisu~dsr- standing, modification, reduplication for emphasis .. . and 'filling

in1 by force of a formal feeling based on habits. li3' As a word is used more and mGre frequently, and as it becomes isolated from its relational generality, it gradually undergoes a process of reduction until it functions denotatively. t'Wegener calls such

A word a 'faded metaphor f and shows .. . that all general words are probably derived from specif f c appellations, by metaphorical use; so that our litoral language is a very repository of 'faded metaphors . , n32 In the first chapters of his book Symbol -and Metaphor -in Human- Ex,perience, Martin Foss also points out that the result of emendatim is a negation of the principle of generality in a metaphor. 'it is the rationalist who is concerned about the denotations of words, -d he is active and imposing in his use of language, constantly refining the use of words. He mslros statements, and 5.n making them he stabilizes tile scnsnous flux; 11s dc1.Tmj.t~~marks clearly, and con- nects in a different relation what he has defined and dii'ferentiakoa. To xu80 thlngs distinct is to show their di,ff'erer;ce, cad so that rational-ist is concerned with no- t3ii?q, so iwch zs with drawing lines of demarcation and rc~wdingthese lines as esseni;ial. As the sensation- alisk was in fact unable to draw any line of demarcation, so the rationalist can do Little else except outline and demarcrte, And in order to make these lines clearer than nature presents them, he has to simplify, omit, select. 33 ?kc and of this process is %he comp1ej;e isolation of all' symbols as the process of demarcation continues. To counterbalance this, another aspect of the rational mind is drawn into play, and this is the "discursive" aspect. Thougn Cassirer sees this prin- < ciple acting primarily to overcome this isolation of the concep- L tual symbol, it is also active in drawing concepts isolated thr*ough rational denarc tit ion together , We can shm that all the intellectual labour whereby the mind forms general concepts out of speciric impressions is directed toward breaking the isolation of the datum, m+csting it from the "here and now'' of its actual occurencs, relating it to other things and gathering it md them into some inclusive order, into the unity of a "system, '! , ,, The apparently sirlgcilar fact becomes known, understood and conceptually grasped on1J in so far as it is "subsumed" under a general LC'-ea, recognized as a "case1' of a law or as a nmber of a manifold series. ... This synthesis cannot be achieved immediately and at a single stroice, it has to be worked out step by step, by a progressive activity of relating sepuate notions or sense impressions with each other, and then gathering up the resultant whole s into greater complexes, until finally the union of all these sepaate complexes yields the coherent picture of the totality of things. The will to this totality is the vivifying princ ple of our theoretical and empirical conception, 3i The store of man's knowledge resides in symbols in so far as they have not become completely abstracted, for it is in symbols that man first conceives experience, In the initial. conceptual symbol this knowledge is completely subsmed in the maan-

ing which, at that stage of ianmage, is inherent in the symbol i$se.lP. Ono mi gtit say that the symbal is so meaningful that it has no signi.fica~ce;the perceiver is so overcome by the expor- 28

ience of that which is mediated tkmough the symbol that for him the symbol has no active referent qualitiss, though these are

potentially Present. As language becomes discursive, this meaning bccames referential, lit becomes the knowledge of man 1s experience, though in so far as it is known through symbols, and in

so Faw, as symkmls in themselves remain isolated, this knowledge remains isolated. The function of the rational mind is to break the isolation of this knowledge, integrating it into a total hwmarr experience. Following this pattern of thought, Barfiold recogriizes that without the rational principle, neither reflective truth nor knowledge could ever have been, "%ut only Life itself. " Nevertheless., he realizes that "Ltne rational] principle carmot add one iota to knowledge. It can clear up obscurities, it can measure and. enumerate with greater and ever greater prec-

ision, it can preserve. us in the dignity and responsibility of

our individual existences. But in no sense can it be said to expand consciousness,'' This is the function of' metaphoric cou-

ceptualizatton, which he calls "poosy. 11 Only the poetic can do this: only poesy, pouring into language its c~eativeintuitions, can preserve its living meaning end prevent it Trom crystallizing into a kind of algebra. "If it were not for the Poetic of Prophetic character, '' wrote William Blake, lfkhe philosophic and experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, and stand still, unable to do other than repeat; the same dull round. " Like some others of the mystics, he had grasped without mclz difficulty the essentPnl nature of meaning. For all moaning flows from the creative ppinciple, the *a' noit*~,v , lzihether i.t lives on, as given and remer;:bsrod, or is re-introchcsd by the indivi2unlized creative faculty, the m~ilocy-pereivi~g, ~mts~ho~-m&ing imagTn~t ion. 111 Plat.ocic terms we should say thet the rational principle cm i i-1c.rease xnders i;andinrp, md it can i~c~en.~,~ true xiaion, but ircnn never-ym~oasc knowledge. i5 Y -- ..- .Barfield's seminal book 2s an ~ttemptto placs the dsvol- opment of language into a parspecttve which includes t;he poetic, correcting some of' the disdainful attitudes of philologists who earlier saw the Initial [periods of language as non-specif ic aEd ungainly. These attitudes ai?ise from the desire of thinkers to use language st~ictlyfor the expression af abstract thoughts. "This fact grows more and more apparent as one reads on," he says, "untll at last one realizes that, where Colaridge failed, Kr. Jesperson has succeeded in 'taming down his mind to think poetry a sport for idle hours. This attitude is ffnally C also entertained by both Cassirer and Langer, who are ultimately-7"- loyal to reason as opposed to the poetic mode of thought. ''If language is to grow into a vehicle of thought, a~ expressLon oP concepts and judgments, I' Cassirer recognizes that "this evolutLcc cm be achieved only at the price of fo~golwthe wcglth and f'ull- ness of immediate exprience. In the end, what is left of the concrete sense and feeling content, it once possessed is li%tls mom than a bare skeleton. " Then he cont-hues, Eat there is or?e intellectual realm in which the word not only proserves its original creative power, Sut is ever -9enewing it; in which it undergoes n constant palfn- g?nesis, at once a sensuous anc? a spiritual reincarnatiorl. This rogenerztion is achieve6 as language becomes an av- ema of artistic expression. .. , The greatest lyric poets, for1 instance H'diderlin or IIe~ts, are mon in whom the rnythic power of insight breaks i'orth again in its full intensity adob ject-ifsing power.

At this point Cassirer makes a statenent which appems to me to unc!omir;e khs whole foundation he has built up for poetic thoug3t: Btxt ehis objectivity hc?s discarded all materiil can- strai.nta, The spirit livsa in tho word of language =c ir. the mythical imac~without falling unser the contrcl sf rjf the?. 'ulhnt poetry exposses is risithar the rriy1;hi.c %:om- abstract determinations and xwlations. The world of poetry stands apart from both, as a world oP illusion and f antasy. j7

Ws. Langer agrees: "All forces that cannot be scientifically established and measured must be regarded, from the phf losophical standpofnt, as illusory; if, therefore, such forces appear t~

be part of our direct expe~ience,they are 'virtual, f i.e, non- aclxa'l semblances. "36 Speaking of contemporary dance, she recog- nises that ''the substance of such dance creation is the same I Power that enchmted ancient caves and forests, but today we invoke it with fzll knowledge of its illusory status, and therefore with whol.ly artistic intent. I' 39 Generally speaking, of course, Mrs. Langer reflects the L attitudes of most people today, but nost people do not have the insights izto Lhe history of laripage and culture that Mrs,

Langer does, She is correct in stating that "our primal world of reality is a verbal one, 'l4O but it appears as though she has allowed this verbal world to become strictly referential. Thcs L she has espoused the attitudes of empirical thought which she regards as inspiring a methodology which is "bootless for the study of mental phenomena." Instead of placing the centre of raslity in man's experience of life, she has placed it in language, not as it conceives reality in words and speech, bat as it, signifies that which the words of the language denote.

.4 Through rational language, human existence becomes highly significant, but essentia1l.y meaningless. Barfield holds that duo to our cor;ception of' language '!separation of consciousness fron the real world, is today only too conspicuous alike in phi losctphy, ecienco, li tcrature, znd normal existence ?I ~nolatedthus, suspended, as i.t were, & vacuo, and hermetically sealed from truth =d lifo, not only the proper name, but the very ego itself, of which that is but the symbol, pines and dwindles away before our eyes to a thin nothing--a mere inductive abstraction from tabulated card-indexed behaviour whose causes lie elsewhere. 4l In Symbolisn: -and American Literature Charles Peidelson Jr. recognizes that the premises of the approach presented by Cassirer and Lmger can lead to other conclusions. It is quite possible to take poetry as the norm and to regard logical statement as the fantasy; this, indeed, seems the more natural outcome of a philosophy which begins in u contrast between iogical sign and creative s~pbal. The literary symbolist is inclined to consider poetry as peculiarly symbolic, in that poetry (=d by oxtension, all literature) holds to the creative speech from which logic tends to depart, From this point of view, the symbolic status OF literature constitutes a positive vicory over logic, the reinstatement "concrete fact" in the face of abstract fiction. @ This argument about the locus of reality reveals the fact that though the symbolism of literature and the symbolism of resvon both have their roots in metaphorical thinking, their growth proceeds in opposite directions, until the full-blown products of both processes actually oppose each other, "Figures of spesch fly in the face of 103ic," Feidelson says; "their structure 5s ordered on a different plan. " He continues, saying, "In civilized Language at least, literary structure is a reshaping of the logical form into which words may also fall, It . . . has ~i cognitive walue quite on a level with the logical use of words and actually reshapes the body of speech from inside out and from head to toe, 1'43 Even in advanced cultures active symbolic cognition remains a princip1.e of lifo, for through it man comes to k~ouicdge,which is not primarily tho prodm3 of reason, r-.csLd in so far as symbolic cognition is at tbe root of man's experience of the cosmos, logical thought is necess,wily aberrant in determining man's knowledge. 'I1ho situation of man living in a highly rationalized world is somewlrat =alogous to meh in the . early stages of intellectual development since the conceptual or presentational symbol is common to both mythic adliterary thought. 44 The experience of deepest lyrical perception is identical with the mythic perception cf "momentary gods" as described by Usensr. 45 Mrs. Langerts analysis of the genesis of poetry in the poet's concrete experience of life demonstrates this activity. Every good work of art has, I think something that may be said to come from the world, and that bespeaks that artist's om feeling about life. This accords with the intellectuel and, indeed, the biological import:,.ncc of art; we are driven to the s-pbolization and articulation of feeling when we must-- underst and tt to keep ov.rselves oriented in society and natnre. So the first enotional phenomena a person wants to formulate are his own disconcertea uassions. It is natural to look for expressive materials mong the events 01' real emotion, events and objects perceived are prone to appear in n Gestalt congruent with the emotion they eli'citod. 46 Coming full circle, the last statement leads us back to

Coleridgels concept of the imagination, and to his assertion that the secondmy imagination is identical to the primary in the -kind of its operation. D. G. James opens his book with a gloss on this concept: Word-swo~thand Coleridqe based their view of the creativs irna;~inetionon a doctrine according to which imaginatio~!. is t3. primary factor in all knowledge whatsoever.. . . Taey heid that the Imz[s;ination oi' tho s~tistand the poet, when ri~htlysecn, is racoynized as essentially of a piece vit'i the most prosaic Itno:il.edc;e of tho world, and has t:~oreforoas much claim to be t&en seriously as the everydq perception of ob jects.47 Coleridgels further comments on the secondarg imagination, however, reveal that the nature of the secondary imagination appears to be different from that of the prirnary imagination, for unlike tha primary imagination,. "it dissolves, diff'uses, dissipates, in order to re-crexte." In other words, the re-creation is recognized not as identical with the original creation, tlcou.$~ the method of achieving it is the sane in some basic ways. If the primary imagination is associated with rational perceptionL. and tho secondary is associated with metaphorical perception, the secondary lrnagination must first destroy the validity of the rational world before it can assert the truth of its re-creation,

Though both the world of the primary imagination wd the worl6 of the secondary imagination exist togethe2 they nevertheless oppose each other. Feidslson asserts that '!figures of speech .. . cast through the bod7 of langxage a light that erases the

Lines drawn by logical discourse and creates new contoxrs iil the same stuff. Litercture can exist only -'a rsbol~rs.1f4' yhis resulranging is basic to netaphorical process, and Poss drms a deep distinction betwoen simile and analogy on the ona hscrl, anti metaphor on the other.

The simile and the link the unknown to the known, in an exuedient and practical way, closing the problsmatic entity into a fzvniliar pzttern. The neta- phorlc~lprocess, on the contrary, raises the problen oven there where we seemed at hom ~IU shatters 1;ne groimd on which we nau settled down in order to wlclon our view beyond .my limit of special practical use.49 Rather than being static, symbolic literature, by means of metaphoric thouzht, is active, a~dit m~stbe perceived not in its sip?:'Lf'yi:1g of concepts but in its active presentatlor, of by what it says so much aa by what; it does, for its symbols are not constant since their significant referent can never be fixed. Whitehead explains this by saying, The comeption of t'he world here adopted is that of f'unctional activit~,'Ey this1 me= .that eveyy actual thing is soxething b; reason 02 its activity; whereby its nature consists in its ~elovanceto other things, and its indivicluality consists in its synthesis of other things so far as they are relevant to it.50 "Whoreas two logical concepts, subsumes under the next higher category, as their genus-- moxinurn, pet ain their distinctive characters desp-ite tlze relationships into which they have been

brought, 1 poetic stmcture depands upon fusion, " says Peidelson quoting Cassirer. Then, borrowing from Poss, he says, "Two F poetic words, brouet into metaphorical rekntionship, actua1l.y lose their distinctive characters in the light of the whole meaning. ' Foss terns the symbols themselves as "only material; s they undergo a complete change in losing their f'amil%ar mdaning

4, 4 in each other and give birthbo ar~entirely new knowledge be-

yond their fixed and add-ible multitude. '15' A sylibolic work, there-

fore, cannot be judged by tine images it"con.tains, either i.n pa-rt,

or as a whol-e, for the totaEity can only be a function of the activity of' all the parts as they relate to each other. The mail- ing of the work mmt be discovered in the activity of the work itself; it is "the rnetx~Ln3rather than the meant. 153 Tho f1111 import or this meaning- can be known throuy, >mat Foon calls "world," a concept basic to mythical thought. This process of the infinite is not a denial of the materid enviroment, for "worldl is dependent on it in that it finds its source there. Foss relates the infinity of to inf'rini.ty as it is experienced in mythic creation where "the living creation is born out of destruction of the old" in that

the old is entirely absorbed in the creation of the new. In the li.ght of creation the [ratisnag togeth- erness of things de~elopsinto naught md disq- pears in the unity of an infinite process. The naught of creation stands for the totality OF relative symbols; it is the naun,ht of matter .. , . Matter is not omlkted in the process of creation, but is a necessary elerne . Yet it is this only when transcended, when overcome. ?3 Barfield, as woll as apeeing with Wordswoth and Coler- idge that poetic thought is not restricted to a special class of poets, also finds meaning to be mythological rather than rational. In a prssege quoted earlier he says, "It has been

shown thatpoetic values abound, as meaning, in the early st.agea of those languages with which. we are f ami1ia.r; this meaning has then been traced back to its source in the theocratic, 11117th- making1 period, and it has been shown that th.e myths, which represent the earliest meaning, were not t'ne arbitrary creation of 'poets, 1 but the natural expression of man's being and con- c6 sciousness, "' Foss describes this process as consciousness ever carrying beyond itself into the actual, with the necessary n~e~ilnglylng ''pemsnently ahead of the potential con- sciousncss as its direction and future. This meaning appears, therefore, a3 revealed. The "revelation, 'I however, "does not originate in a realm i'oraign to the entity to which it is adckessed and does not reach backward from a future, totally detached from the present, '15' Foss admits that the process can really only be presented in terms of life itself: Wherever life becomes conscious of its creativity, it is faced by a living entity, the "T~ou," and this Thotl is to the I a revelation of its own meaning and f'uture, It is always a Thouy only a Thou, as an expression of life whim carries the I forward and makes it aware of its destiny, Not self-conscf ousness, but consciousness of the Thou is fundamental to life. The I, to be sure, remains tho potential, but a potential for the Thou which reveals and expresses the I in its movement upward and beyond. In the process of life, expression means always communication with a Thou which is never .t"ully realized but remains an inexhau tible power, leading on into a meaningful future.5 8 In this sense man denies his egos9 in the creative metaphorical process, As Foss says, 'We 'forget ourselvest in the great tasks of life: whenever such a task calls upon us, we give ow- selves withcut; restraint. Just so, or even in a higher degree, we f'crgst our own selves in the process of the' p-resent which 60 signifies the metaphorical process of artistic creation." In the sense that reality is revealed to the artist, he exists as a receptive cor~sciousnessrather than as a projective consciousrmss, and as such he creates not mere "things1' but takes part in the ever creative process of life. "Only where the artist failed, the work is nothing but a thing," and "things," according to Foss, "fall out of the process of creative life,'' Ris~ther,tha ability to see nothing but things is contingent upon the generation of' the ego. "Whenever we are faced with things and rrothing but things, our own cc?nsciousness is in dmger of blsing itself turned into an object, '' says FOSS. "Tke ego is the co~:nterpttrt of matepi-al things, in relation to these things, in objective causal, mechanical or final relativity. It is itself merely relative--relative to a totality of objective things which it calls the lexterior world,l although the exterior world is not 'world1 but merely the limited totality of' spbol- ically reduced means, called ten~ironment.~The environxent only is the exterior world, and it is exterior with regard to the

object, lbl Barfield expresses this truth in terms of knowing and poetic creation: "In the moment of knowing, which is also tho real nzoment of poetic creation, the knower ceases to exist as subject at all; and, conversely, when he comes fully to him- se~f,as subject, he ceases to know. "62 Like Poss, Sarfield also relates self-consciousness with logic (Fossls symbolic reduction) : Th.e historical function of logical method has not been to add to the sum of knowledge. It has been to engender subjectivity--self-conscio~~sness. Once this has been achieved ... there is no more that logic can do. Self- consciousness is indeed a sine % non of undreamirig knowledge, but it is not knowldege,T is more like its opposite: and once it has been achieved, logic, as far as the business of knowing is concerned, is functus officio, 43 Barfield, however, does not denigrate logic or self- consciousness, for he understands that it is necessary for an appreciation of art, and this is basic for his definition of metaphor as metaphor is differentiated from meaning: Inasmuch as man is living the poetry of which he is the maker, and as long as he is so doing, it cannot be poetry to hhm. In order to appreciate it, he himself must also exist, consciously, outside it .. . . Now nothing but the I rational, or logistic, principle can endow him with this subjective--self--consciousness. Hence ,.. the rational principle is indispensable, if appreciation is to take place. The absolute rational prlncip1.s is that which makes conscious of poetry but cannot create it; the absolute poetic principle is t at which creates poetry but cannot make conscious of it.24 Metaphor, for him, is conscious conception, while meaning is unconsciously conceived. Consequently literature, as art, can only exist in an advanced state of language where the rational principle is active. Feidolson, in dealing with the same problem,

does not see it in terms of the history of laxguage, but in terms of the choice an artist must make between the loss of a reflective consciousness in the metaphorical process--which he terms symbolism--and the presence of the reflective consciousness in rational thought. "In practice," he says, "the symbolist will be caught between the consequences and the necessity of his net;hod--between a sort of pathless void, pregnant with significance [memingf, and a radically unknowable world of absol-ute distinctions. 1i65 Tho artist must be both critical and creative if his art is to have significance. And it must have significance, for without the presence of logical relationships tying it to significant existence, the work of art will exist as a process only within the consciousness of the artist relating directly with the object of his experience. pass describes the bridge Latween meaning, in thep~uityof experience, and the rational world, in its disjointedness, in terms of the imagination: "It is Imagination as the power of the poetic genius, which extends environment to world, uses the things of nature, but xidens them so that they lose their narrow appearance and grow into thte distance of universal greatness. Imagination is not an arbit-

1 rary capacity of invention, i.t is more a power of discovery: discovery of greatness in small things, discovery of distance

in Yrenrness and nwrowness, di.scovery of the infinite metaphorical Present in the fragmentary symbol of transitional things and events. 1' 66 He then goes on to a final refutation of the argument that this creative reality' of tho imaginati.on is naught but; fantasy. Imagination and the distance it creates detach us from our narrow environment and lift us into.a world of intensive reality. This reality has often been misunderstood as a;n 'artistic appearance, as a !make believe, and people have been led to the assumption that the satisfaction which tragedy conveys is the awakening from the dream- world of the stage and its horrors to a true and more balanced reality or eve~ydaylife. But just the opposite is true: the reality of the tragedy is so strong that it shakes tho foundations of our empi ical existence and makes us see its vain superficial.ity. •’7 The attempt, therefore, to reproduce the experience of the jmaglination as it is perceived in its non-empirical reality

in ti manner that relates it strictly to the reality of the ram tional mind is bound to end in disorder. The divisiveness of logic will be able only to dissect without hope of realizing a consequent f'usiog, for tho metaphoric experience as given can never bo achieved by merely seeking a totali.f;g made up of' the sum of parts. Indeed, Feidelson gives this as the very earmark of 1.iterary structure : We recognize literary structure as such by the necessity of rn~rltjf'~1cstatexent when we try to render the meaning in logical terms. . , . Nultiple statement is the effort of the miv vocal terms of' logic to measure the equivocal Lmguage of literature. 68

I This statement brings us back to the concern of the critics cited at the beginning oft this- sssay, for in their

attempts to fi~dliteral meaning in "R Country Doctor" a11

throe attempt to interp~ei;the story by approaching it on different levels, The beginning of Dr. Coopemants last paragraph pinpoints the difficulty: The two interpretations I have presented concern the same work, and in addition rely to a great extent on the same symbols, But they are not mutually exclusive; in the symbo3.i~art of Kafka two methods of criticism may, and indeed must, occupy the same sp8.ce at the same time. Kafka is ambiguous and difficult, but his material-- the stuff of the human soul--would be violated if he presented x. single dimension of meaning, ~llework has many tmntkzs, a weaving and reweaving of many themes, but it cannot be approached bluntly or single-mindedly , The difficulty lies not with Kafka as much as with the critical approach. Coopeman's and Bussacals essays are attempts to "measuru the equivocal language of literaturet1with the "uni- vocd terms of logic." As we have seen, rational thought can be divided into two phases, First the rationalist objectifies reality by setting one object or concept off from another In order to render it distinct from the rest of the environment. Then he attempts to integrate the now isolated concept into an already established system of thought, for it is only as the isolated fact becones a part of a system or falls under the con-

trol of an established law that it becomes known, Since Kafkats work does not fall readily into an established system, rational criticism must first delimit the material in order to see it cl-early, Then it must attempt to integrate it into some system of rational thought in which experience is already conceived. 69 Coopozmm adEusacca dellmit the material ky extracting thoso

symbols which will allow them tor fit "A Country Doctor" into some system. At thzt stags, however, the work is only half dons,

for Ccropsrnjon fceis that, lzo has violated the totality of' the work. Hence he attempts to overcomo the difficulty by'stating that knth of his intwpretations must be entertained at once--"they mu not mutually exclusive, he says, They are, however, nutuall y exclusive because one system of thou&t ( the psych-enalyticsi ) canzlot enter another system of thougllt (the existential) fur. tha,t would obscuye the lines of' delimitation which identify the two systems as distinct from each other and fpom still othor systems--systems which are necessayy for the story to have ''literal meaning,." Tn5s is reflected bg txe study itself, for the

to integrsto the story into the two systems sf thmght has dl.?-& cardec? that truth wicli obscured the Zfnes of demarcati.orr, Thc

then, wa re'curn to Kafkzts sho~t;~u~rative given earlier. As the narrator, by tho moon, the the str,t;-r;c

Mmy, =ci the church, he asks "Was ist es doch, da~ihr t.u.3,

the conditions af raticxal perception ir: whi.ch tho ego is ~j~mly established as a Exed entity by ralating to objecC~~as flxsd entities. Eem, as thc narrctor finds hi3 enuiror?!-lent ra1ati.n;; &,& M5-4\\,&-$ "- L4,Kcpaa io *--+~> to him/nnnt?diatod 'iy perception( throxch rrtrtionni c:~togorlor;iic &+k9 , 7hJD~fx, . finds the very eri~tencepf his ago throntened. !ic in fill.od fa&-' LJA

7 E wi.th tsrroir when, as Gassirer describes it, "external reality 13 not merely viewed and contemplated, but overcomes a man in

sheer irmnodiacy." AS the passage continues, it shows clearly the. active role of tho imagination in perception, Seen in this way the whole passage becomes a study in the creative role of the secondary Imagination. As the narrator begins to reflect,

one can see the mind struggling to "idealize and to ?.inifyrl that which is l'dissolved., diffused and dissipated." "Es ist ja wahr, " he seys, I1noch immer seid ihr mir iiberlegen, aber doch nur dsnn, wenn ich euch in Rme lasse. rt7 1 As he reflects, he gradcall-y regains the solidity of his rational ego as he actively ardors the objects of hls perception. Finally he says, "Es schaint mn wirklich, dap es euch nicht gut tut, wenn man aber euch nacbdenkt; ihr nehmt ab an Mut und Gesundheit. ,,72 Like this narrator, the Country Doctor is himself concerned with maintainbg an environment of rational solidity, and his concern for himself varies with his ability to maintain control. over his world. The reality of the doctor lies in the rational, where significance is given to things as they concern him. The

story begins with the words, "I was in great perplexity. " Then

th.0 series of c3.av.ses follows which explains the difficulty of

the doctor. This world is not boneficent, but it is solid. Though he is in a qumciry, it is a quartdry which his minci can

fathom. Ons cmliterally say that the doctor is not lost in this world; indeed he is so "found1r that he has nowhere to go, Rjs rntione'ily conceived world has so trapped him that he, is , rendered immabils. "I knew it," he says, "and I stood thcre for- side it is lafimt ia his own "hause," and it is revealed ue the doctor breaks the strictures of debilitating reason by Xatting his body rather than his rational mind determine his existence. Even as this takes place one notices a tension in the very narration of the story, for aeationa.3. activity is rendered in terms of the necessity to order existence. "My strides measure^ tho Court once more;" says the doctor, "I found no wag . out" (my emphaais and translabion). Then the non-rational is xleleased: "in my confused distress I kicked at the dilapidated door of the yew-long uninhabited pigsty," In doing this the doctor opns hixnvolf to experience unmediated by rational categories which constitute his ego; he enters a direct relation- ~~~&+&"~i&'~3~6&? " ship with his experience. This change is reflected by the new style in the narration: instead of logical reasoning strung together in causal cl.auses, the sentences bec~meshort and direct 111 a s-impls description of his experience. Ax the doctor and his maid sense the freedom of this new mode of existence, the consternation of the earlier mode falls away. But life is not; that simple, especially when the entire ground oL" previous existence is swept ax~ay. in entering a direct relationship with experience a new tension nrLses--the tension of fear and terror of t;hat which now become,? -t;hc all- enco:n$assing iimar,ence to which life itself nas been :;Lveri object of its fear. Further, reason can also determine that

, part of the self which is joopsurdized, for mason can isolate =d categorrzs sccording to the significant past, The fear present in direct experience, however, is the terror of mythic existence where one perceives a "Tkiou" which cannot be held. One can only behold it, ad as one beholds it one is beholden to it. The doctor does not Tee1 physically threatened by the groom; rather he feels threatened morally, Though he cannot pinpoint the threat in terms of his physical existence, he feels that part of the domain of' control that he has held is in jeopardy, And he is unaEle to ,rsgain control of the lost area, though he thinks ha knows how to do so, As he begins to think in terns of his rational existence, however, he realizes that to save Rose he may be placing the very purpose of his being, as he hns conceived it, in jeopardy. "'You brute,l I yelled in fury, 'do

you want a @nipping?1 but in the sane rrioment reflected that the man was a stranger; that I did. not know where he came from, and that of his own free will he was helping me out when everyone else had failed me.

With this the doctor enters into a struggle to regain the identity of the ego that he lost in entering a world of unmediated experionce, He strives to control tho world of his

experience, to control the "things'! he is confronted with, and thereby to conceivo himself as a @hirig, as ego, as well. But his attempt to become assertive fails: "I tm not thinking of pnyirip; for bho jourcey-j by handing the*gLrl. over to you." "Gee u.p!" he said; clapped his hands; tho gig whirled off like a log in a freshet; I couhii hear the door of my house splitting and bursting as the groom charged at it and then I was deafened and blinded by a storming rush that steadily buffeted a11 my senses. Evan that limited consciousi~essof the ego disappears as the experience of existence overwhelms the rati-onalizing f'unctions of tho mind. All sensa of space and time are lost ss the doctor is overcome by tho flux out of which the conceptual powers of man must; again and again tear the objects of their experience. The =rival at the patient's home brings back the doctor's sense of identity. Here he can flxnction according to his rational experience, True, ha cannot understand the conve~sationaf the patient's family, but this cannot stop him from doing tho duties far which ho has trained, In perfoming these dutie,s the doctor can once again regain control of that which has ovalwhelme d him. Tie unintelligible conversation, however, is not the only omen of what is to occur. Upon entoring the room of the patient, the doctor again experiences the discomf'orture of choking stricture, The experience that is to liberate him from that which overcomes his ordering faculties itself becomes unbemable, for "in the sick-room the air was almost unbreath- able; the neglected above was smoking." He determines to open ' the window to relieve htrnself from this oppressive condition, but ,l'i.rst he wants to see the patisnt--his duty is of prime import;m.r,a, fs~only through perfomhg the f'unction of a doctor can he reqatn the identity of a doctor, tharby regaii1i.n.g his sense of self as he had lived it p~iorto the death of the horse. The attempt is fruitless though; the ailment of the boy is not physical and cannot be cured by th.e doctor. The boy wan-ls to die. When he cannot r~gaimhis identity by healing the boy, he attempts to assert his self by becomg the savior of Rose, for it is only by relating to something othe~than himself that he can believe in his own existence, The family, however, skill see hirn as the healer of the boy, and thus he turns to the boy again. With the neighing of the horses, who have already lib-

erated him flborn his first impasse, he is able to find the real wovac? of the boy. As the doctor bsgina to recognize the true nature of the wound, his problems are compounded by the boy, who nor? xishes

to overcome hi3 illness, which has not a physical but a spiritual root, Unwilling to confess that his mnctions are raesixicted to physical ailments, the doctor attempts to assume an identity which will enable him to control the new realm of existence' with trliich he is confronted. Already he recognizes that his earlier identity is useless, That is what people are like in my district. Always expecting the impossible from the doctor. They have lost their ancient beliefs; the parson sits at home and unravels his vostmeni;~, one after another; but the doctor is supposed to be om-ipotent with his merciful surgeonts hand, Well, as it pleases them; I have not thrust my services on them; if thcg misuse me for sacred ends, I let that happen i;o me too; what better do I want, old country doctor that 1 ax, bereft of my servant girl! Truly he has lost his identity. PZI~ as he finds himself exposed before the world, the fani.ly mtl the elders of the village strip hin of his professional robes and lay him i~tobed with the bog, whose condition is also hopeless, Again the conditions of the extorior world fade as everyone leaves the room. The door is closed; the singing stops; clouds hide the moon; the horse heads become shadows in the window frames. The boy recognizes that the doctor has no ground for existence: "Do you know, '' said a voice in my ear, I h.s.ve very little confidence in you. Why you were only blown in here, you didn't come on your own feet. Instead of helping me, you're cramping me on my deathbed." Reflecting, the doctor agrees, confessing that his own condition is also difficult. He assures the boy that his condition is common, that many would welcome it. The doctor himself welcomed it in his difficulty, though now, like the boy, he is trying to escape it. So as the boy accepts his condition and becomes

quiet, the doctor, still naked, flings himself i10t onto the wagon, but onto one of the unearthly horses and urges it forward to the site of his earthly dwelling where he hopes to resume his earthly rpractice. But as the blizzard returns he recognizes the futility of his attempt. Never shall I reach home at this rate; my flourishing practice is done fop; my successor is robbing me, but in vain, for he cannot take my place; in my house the disgusting groam is raging; Rose is his victim . , . . Reflecting on his condition, he realizes that he is headed tovard

another impasse. Honce he now too gives in to his condition by saying, "I do not wmt to think abou'c it any more. Naked, exposed to the frost of this most unhappy of ages, with an earthly vehicle, unearthly horses, old mm thrt I: am, I wander astray. l' He experiences that once the dts-integration of the rational process has begnn, nothing can ctop it: "A false alarm on the night bell. once enswered--it cannot be made good, not ever?."

Understanding "A Country Doctor" as the disintegration of the rtltio~lalprocess makes tne story signl.t'icmt for Kafkars readers. By elating the' story to other experiences which man has conceived within the fratnowork of a sgstam enclosed by

dissection, however, is incomplete for it robs the story of all meaning itself. As the story becomes significant, it loses what is meaningful. This is the problem that confronts anyone wh~ attempts to explain rationally what the mind conceives ac-tivoly. D, G. James explains the problem in this manner: We all know how an mtist can transfigure an object whi.ch we have known, and to vhich we have given little attention, Two men may be "seeing1' the "same tning"; yet if' one, who has a strong imagination, undertakes to paint it, the other may quickly realize how differently the object appeared to the painter's imagination and to his own. The object present to their respective imaginations was really not one and the same, though no doubt they could, if they took the trouble, agree on en lobjectivet description of it, But such mi objective description, if it is to be agreed on, must be extremely unimaginative; for . . , the strictly "given" ar,d "dis- coverablel' elements are an abstraction from a whole pmsent to t~ieimagination, and become transformed when they .mo ye-integrated into the total object which the imagination prehends. . . . We must therefore realize that the total object is an object to the imagination; and that; what; of the world is "discoveruble" is a world eviscerated of imz-ginative content, if indeed it can be caLl.ed s world at a11.73 The work of the artist consists of clothing the potential nzewiing of his own experience in a revelatory form, thereby liberating that meaning from i.ts experiential isolation within him, me duty of the critic should ba to go into the fom 2nd approscti the meaning of the work i.tsolf'. The problem in "A Country Doctor" is thus not only to recognize that Kafka says that the world of the doctor is "the most unhappy of ages," he must also approach the very conception of this "most unhappy of ages," The critic must take "part in the activity of "the mean- = rather than the meant" b.1 entering the process of which the doctor himself is always but a part.

When the story is apprehended as a metaphorical process, its centre, consisting of the plot of which the docor is the subject and the "most unhappy of ages" is the object, dissolves, leaving just the activity of the narrative. The story takes on the quality of myth, the tmth of which lies not in its assertion, but in the dyndc of its activity in tho sense that John Dewey ascribes to myth: Elnpiricafly things are poignmzk, tragic, beautiful, humorous, settled, disturbed, comf'ort able, annoying, barren, harsh, consoling, splendid, fearful; are such immediatley and in their own right and behalf. , . . Any quality as such is fi~al;it at once initial' and teminal; just as . -it exists. is The dynamic of the story must be sought in the quality of the emotions, in the intensity of experience, in the rhythm oP movement. The meaning of the story is the story itself. The story becomes the readerls experience as it is presented and clarified in the light of the activity of Kafkals conceptualization of that which to him is immanent. Significance and meaning morge in tlie metaphorical process, not by providing a system into which all significant interplaet-

~ti~rld'f~ill ~j,r~~taneously, but by subsming all these differing interpretations, The metaphorical process is neither an adding tip of si,grrificances, nor a denial of them. "Life, energy, spontxiz- eity, is . . . indeed beyond [referential] symbols and thei~ familiar relations. But it .is wrong to seek this life by eliminating all symbols and by plunging tnto the darkness of nothingness. . . . The simple is not tho excluvion of the comp- 75 lex, it is the overcoming of the csmploxity." Though the doctor himself does not overcome the complex, Kafka, as author, doen. In his diaries Kafka repeats the well-known story of Zeno and the arrow: "Zeno sag% :luf eine dringliche Frage hin, ob denn nichts ruhe: Ja, der fliegende Pfeil ruht, "76 Kafka achieves

,-- -- -. A-, , - - -Ow--.-- > this active rest in th.e'realm of metaphor) which is "a process L-- " --- c - -r. .-. "-.. -- ---..".------.-- .-?L._.. -"& .--- - - of tension and energy, xanifested in the process of la;lgu.ge.': ,------C------____- .------._____.__.^I. -_... - A--- - '----- me rnebaphorical realm is a realm beyond quantity, multitude, and toge2;herness. The rnetaphori cal &;:hem transcsnds the many and realizes a simple aEd indiv- isible unity, although not the unity of a total 2nd complete object or symbol or word. It is the u1y&&y b&' of tensgon__@a_proce_ss.This unity of pwcoss r:,:ly matr esalize in a single word . . . but far oftensr it will find expression in passing from word to word, not . as a ounnning up and addition, but as ;R f'unction of indj-visible unity , . . .[The] knovn spbols in their relation to each other are only material; they undergo a complete change in losing their familiar meaning in each other and give birth to an entirely nGtw knowlodge beyond their fixed and addible multitude. 77 Through metaphor Kafka achieves an artistic unity which transcends the Aristotelian unities of space and time by introducing tho revelatory unity of an infinite present. What achieves continuity i.s not the riatural continuum of the setting, but the inner necessity of destiny, revealed in the life and cneracter of tho hero, and wherever this destiny manifests itself', contim~ityis f'olt, as the tension of a, representative life, indiv- isible, ainple and reaching in a :l a:sting prosent over spaces and timss. . . I!-1 the .face of thts heroic life, men and things lose their self-importance and indepen- dent existence and point beyond themselves to a sphere with regard to which they - are only ransitional stages of' one adthe same world process,7 1 The existence the doctor individual loses its centrality bnsofw as it remains a referential 3ymb0l of man fighting to 4 t assert his domi.nion over the environment by means of his rational % facixlty, Indeed, the story rceally continues past the point where the doctor perishes in the unending blizzard Ghich prevents him from ever reaching his home again. Kafkal s story concludes by entering tho realm of tragedy where the impure is destroyed in __= <--___-/------4 *A, ,-. order to provide for a new creation, and in this it once again and static dissolves as it provides the material for that which is unending in its activlty. It corresponds, e,gain, to Coleridge Is secondary imagination which dissolves and dissipates before it re-creates. "A Country Doctor1' enters the realx of FOSS s "sublkne, '! which "is not a quality of the things, of the enviroment, depicte3 md described, it resides in the process by which things and onviroment are surpassed. The sublime is not a matter of pleasurs or displeasure, bath of which are "limited to practicEil oxl;odionseg, and , . . belong ontirely to the realm of the purposive ego which has reduced itself to a dofinits orid and its i'ulf~3.lmorit in ax environment of suitable and unsuitable means, Pleasure is the reuc%ion of this ego to suitable memu md the easy Rilf il11nen-L of the goal; d-ispleasure is ths reaction to unsuitable means mci inexpt;2iercy of the envirormont ," Man, lmwo-mr, 11 properly understood, begins where the bodily rmchanism of ends with its reduction to pleasure and displeasure

is left behind, 118* Pleasure and displeasure is the realm of the - _ ll^_llllw^l--.--.". ^-.--. __ l-ll-_l^ll^--.------doctorrs limited experience, but his failure is the same as the c- - boy's: he does not have a "wide enough view." The story itself enters the infinite present af the creative process. This is reflected in its very structure, which is not broken up in%a logica1 segments, but consists rather total experience ~enderedir- a single pmagraph. Though the story begins in the past tense, it changes to the present. It changes back to past briefly as the doctor tries to rescue himsalf, but it concludss in the present as the doctor realizes that he is newer to return home. By introducing the actl.vf ty of life throup)~metaphor, d - -,--, ""? ------..-*..

Kafkac s s'tory presents a freedom which transcends-" tee- rest__r~c-giye ---"___ll_---.._-"_ I- -- thought processes of the doctor and others who would have the ? - _---- "------.------& boyfs wound and prloffer their side, but "can hardly hem the ax in the forest, far less that it is coming newer to them.;" Tho story frees man from reflective ratiocination which ties 1 the activity of the mind to man's physical being, and thus to

the realm of pleasure snd displeasure. This does not man that

manrs physic21 being must be denied, rather it must be affirmed for, as the story shm~s,it is only through it that man lives.

"Soul., says FOSS, "5.3 not an cntitg, fenced off from body ar.d

mind, I'

303y ;:nd SOUL belsrlg togather a:: symbol and mstaphoriccl. p-occss, lde live our pur~os~vebodily existence in a ::o~-~si~a:isonviro~menit with its short satisi'action, its orrtpt:; md full times, jto cgpty md full spaces. Eut this tillole nensuorls constr~jc-t;ion,and symbolic order is carried by e-tensi~n-of the present which we -:dl s?irit or--soul, trenscending 3ZW ,,'ans---0T7KiFT~xed relationships. Spirit overcomes sztj,sou1 overc~msbody. '3ut on the other hand, it is the sensuality, this body ~verwhich alone spirit and-----__-__- soul can expand and proceed,

of related parts, stretches a process of questioning, willing, ------I.--.-. - I loving infinity which cmnot Se explained by mind or by the --Cl-.I""I~.".. .- '" - . 1- ----C.__ -- _- -_II_.. .--_ . I physiological body-organizat ion. It manifests itself in both, _I--.-- _I___ll__."__r._ __.,"..-"-- although never exhausted by any of them. because it trwx~cends them in the consciousness and communion of I: and Thou, and this, indeed, is what we call soul or spirit.1181Kafka recognizes both tho physical and the spiritual in an aphorism in which he also asserts the transcendence of' the spiritual while accepting the necessity of the physical. There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what wo call the world of the senses is the Evii in the spiritual world, and what we call 3vil is only &he necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.*22 In the sense that Kafka affirms this life of' the soul !- which transcands both body and rational mind, he stands apart feon ordinary hrman existence which is caught up in the struggles of the rational mFnd. Hence readers of Kafka have correctly noticed a sense of' distance which many have ii~terpretedas a _I__--. _ _ ----.------sense of irony in his works, One critic finds the irony in

the classical sitilation where *he hero goes from his goal in . atte3ptin.g to gain it.83 Anolotler says that Kafkals heroes can only act as they do by beicg innocent outsiders, for "Der

Unwissende t~agtmehr. 'lE4 Still .mother says, "Franz Kafka aber

gestaltet cite Welt vom Bl iclipunkt ciner 'auserhalb unserer

Menocbheit 1 stohondon her. Er wei gert sich vom Lebens- und lUet:u$3tsairisstrom tragen zu lassen, ftritt zuruckl aus dem Strom der Z3iten und 'sieht anderos und mehr als.* die anderen, er ist doch tod zu Lebzei.tsn und der eigentlfch Uberlebende. I 1ts5 Raflrafs boclcs aro really meant to tear the reader out of' hi2 systonatized existence and to present him with a new existence which will render his earlier one uncornf'ort~ble. [This I is the purpose of literature, as he writes to Oskur Pollak early in his cwcsr: Ich glaube, man sollte 5berhaupt nur solchs ~zcherlssen, die einsn beigen und stechen. Werm das Buch, das wir lesen, uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den schsdel weckt, wozu lecen wir dann das Buch? Damit cs uns glzck- . lich macht, wie Ru schreibst: Mein Gott, gl%cklich wxren wir absn nuch, wi r ksim 'I3cltcher haten, rmd solchs Bccher die uns glzcklich machen, kznnten wir zur Not selbs~ schreibsn. Wir bra7:chen aber die I%cher, die auf uns wtrken wis @in Ungl%ck, das uns sehr schmerz-c, wja der Tod cines, den wj.r lieber hztten als uns, wie wmxz irir in ~xldc?rverstop en tr-tirden, von allen Menschen wag, wi a ein Selbstmord, ein Bgch mup die bet sein fzr dns gefror- ene Meer i.n uns. Das glaube ich.

I Like the Country Doctor, this thost unhappy of agesc' 1* L has a frozen sea whi.ch literature m?xst crack. Many hear the ax Ill Ill; I I In the distance, but wait in vain for it to come nearer, for I I I they seek only to establish literal meaning on the basis of ! I establi.sh.ed aptems such as psycllo-analysis cr religion, thereby thickaning, not cracking the ice within. POSITSVB BEGATION IN KILFKAIS -TZ TRIAL

1x1 his introduction to the work of Franz Kafka, Wilheirn

&rich gives a short history of the dislritogration of absolute

~ocialvalues in nineteenth-century Europe. He emphasizes, on the one hmd, the drive of science into the confines of man's inner life with the result that "Christianity 1 s Immortal soul,

Kleist 1 s absolu-be Ifeeling, Goethe 1s supsrenrpirical tDaixnonionpt 111

II etc., become a transparent, unmysteri ous nat;ural phcnomcno:~ tnat, 111 11 . . is subject Lo scientifically comprehensi.ble lai*~~.31 I I the other hand, he says that the novelistic art which dail-b I with these -tf~elr,espostulated ethical r-orms on which to bbss /I their critique of' society, for their work was socialiy orien3od. 11 Hoxevor, the further they progressed tovard the twentieth een- B tury, the nore difficult it becane to establish ncrns, for the social ordor that G0etb.e had so success2ully established as bao5.c

result wzs that the atiote gr.aduc.ti.ly succuri??~dto asqt4r:g tks criteria of th9 society in c~kiicht.ney worked, Ynus entering society as it was in reality. In order to re-establish crl$ical values then, the axtist was forced to becomc, cri_tj.cal of t;iloss relative systems of value which fettered mm even xore than the I ewlier ~.'nsolutevalues had, only by nega2;ively breaking d-oxrt 1 is humtmit;yts right, In Iiafka XQmich sees a writer who attempts e to re-establish this freedom.

I'ha early Kui'ka '!was not only an extreme Darwinist, but was actually s follower of Ernst ~aeckel?and for many years. was under the influence of the scientific view of life and the psychoi- oey of the end of the nineteenth century and the beg.h.ing of tho with its scientific orientation. 11 continxes, IIImprobable as it may sound, Fsanz Kafkat s earliest writing can best be understood as stemming from naturalism rather tinm expressionim. t I Por the e=ly Kafka it is above all a matter of 'Ides- cription" that records, and of exact reproduction of everything that exists, . . In the early story Wed- ding Preparations in the Country," from the period of 1906-1907, Franz Kafka, 1-ilte a naturalist, record,? acc~rratelyall the everrts that take place , , .; he tries to seize life as it flovs past and to record it with exactness by stringing the individual events alocg additively without their deriving a definite, recurrent significance and function in the tots1 work 2 through the cornpositional layout, 2

Martin Greenberg agrees with Ehrich. Pointing out Kafk~!s naturalisttc training in a German -Gym,asiwn, Greenberg goes on to show llaf~afsinterests in scientific naturalism from his

side of KaSkz! s, I' says Greenberg, noting that there is little trace of it in Brodfs biogrqhy =d criticism until mcently has overlooked it. Euk it was ver:; pramirzent in his forinativo years and rcr:rzline6 a part of him in some sort to the very end. The matter has impo~tttricebecauss it indicates Kafkafs 1i.terary zn well as i.ntellectua1 pxovcnance .4 The prime chnraoteristic of Kafkats nntu~alismis its emphasis .-.q I in Kafira's early trc~kas the naturalism evolves. Bocairse- of' tha purity of his vision and the rof'usal to add to what he w perceives a.s reality in the world his reality begins to di.ffsr ---. -L.,.ru-rol---uXw.\ MI,-. -.* -?----.).-a .-,--.Ls.---***- ---.--.%..llPRlr--.-..-.-I- "m*'>-a**- ...,

the most ordinary evonts thatj are given $,&, designation of whet- ". ' "--"''* .%. ' '.L-*-i- ,- -- *,.."" "... . ." .."..^ . . - --". --*-ra-** ..,%*a7T

Kafkata pro'cagoniats begin to foe1 reality as it really ha2psns to them, riot how, in the eyes of others, it is supposed to happen to them. In a sketch entitled "l~rl~l::~cklichsein"- the narrator 1-saves his room, in which a p>ost has appeared, On the stairs

. . he mots a neighbor, with whom th-is conversation ensuss:

"Sle gchen schan- wiedar weg, Sic Li-mp?" f'ragte er, mf. sej.316n UDCY zwsi Stuf'sn ~mst.,ebreitc?:enZeinan mrsruhend, "S'r'as sol1 ich machen?" sagbe ich, "jeLzl; habe ich e5.n Gespenut; in Zirmer gehabt ." "Sio stl,n,en das mi t de'r gleichen Unzzf'rieclerit~cit, wLe wsnn Sie ein Iiatrr in de-1 Su.ppc? gefundcn hz'cten.'' "Sic agcpen, Aber merken Sie sich, ein Gsspens5 ist ein Gespanst, I I "Sohr wshr. Aber wi.e, wenn man ;berhaupt nicht an Gasperlvter ~laubi;?" "JR,, msir,en Sie dean, ich glaube en Gespenster?" W as hilf t mir aber das I?: cht glauben? 'I' Physical exprience cannot be denied, no matter what attikudo

one t;.&ea, Enrich points cut that for Kafka. this is not; merely a philosophical probl~m,but a problem of his vsry

existence in the world as he reacts to his enviro~nient: ECs.f"ka, as a person, lived inbthis reslm of "tmth";

charrze.l-ers in "chis: once given, a fact of :life coula not bo

to Max Rrod, expresbj.on of Kafka rBoven7,s the -8~orbl.din its pure activity. Readers rooted Tn Yne rational comfort of contemporilrg life where the very existence of something which is not ra",.onal is put in question cannot but f'i.nd Karkafs work di.f'f2cult to underst and. Because our normLl. perception of ow environmens", \ is mediated through the ~ational. orders vhlch we hcvo beer, i-2 taught, we cam no longer expericrnce reality in a11 Tts stmkness, : ') whether that reality is physical or social. A epeeksr on the A butaclilmdfunk at the occasion of the eightieYn mr?i~rersnry of Kafkafs birthdate recogn-ized thl~,and stated that rather thm accept Kaflats perceptions ns tFc'th, we pr-eferl to dismiss what he says. Frmz Kafka ist der einzige Di chtexa izneezws Jdnr8hu-ndests , der die i.mrnar,enton Gosetze ur,serer sozi :rlsn 2nd pe-son- lichen Wirklichkeit Kritisch crk~nrit~md xnschaulich ins Bild gebracht; hat, . , Dah.e~is% el?. . dcr r6tsol.ha.f tests und erschrec1ccr;dste Dl c!il;er fuk a116 diejexii-gen, die nehr ode? weni.ger bewi.attlcos odsr unkritisch in diese Gesstze dcr WirlrlichkeLt be- stziclct sind odex* sich gar niit ihnen identifizii;ren. . * . Diess dssn den ~n3~h~~~eisbcrer;Schock erfahren, d-ap Franz Kaf'ka die 163hfheit der Wirklichkelt mtbullt, die Wa.hrhelt, die jedoch sc ~ertr2~lichist, $@ ihr 9cwu.$trcin sich gegon aie sperren und,*sie abdrhr-gen muss ins Berliess des Verbotenen, Anruchigen, GI-men- haftel=, T~rat1on:ilen oder gar pervers 11ekadent;en.lD

of Kaf'ke is to sea iiafkals wo~ksas allegory. 1 czn (10 no no longer compatible with bit] and comprehensible in terms of his own conceptual world. In Kafka, what has been stated and given form cannot--in his view-signify simply itself, but mst conceal 'beyond' itself an 'other 1, 'red ! meaning. Since, for example, the trial' seems no lon~erto correspond to tho outward forms of a conventional court case, something else must be 'signified1 by this trial. And the offort of the reador or interpreter is then directed at 'deciphering' this real meaning that is hiding the un~ealdiscussion of the trial. Consequently the work is understood as a secret 'allegory' for which one neefig only tho 'key' in order to 'decipher the meaning. Like %rich, Erich Heller points out the nature of this reaction, which is almost involuntary. 'I So deeply engrained is posi&ivism in the critics of this age," he says, ''.that even when they are genuinely moved by the symbolic reality which the author has created, they will soon regain the balance- of-- mi.nd_ - *.-regulred -.- I_ _ _ - for the translation _" __ I I --C__--- and by that they m - -- __r---x---.-cI which the artist h _I_c_-- - -- creation,- ltX2 In the following pages I will discuss the symbolic process that Hellor speaks about by examining Kafkals The Trill- as experience in the life of Joseph h., and to show that/ the novel ha:? neaning not through allegoriz ation, but through the 4 ac himself, One key to understanding the nature of Kafkals novel lies in properly understanding t;';3.e titlc in Gormsn. Tho trmslation of Der Psozess as The T~idis true to only a part 4 of the original title, which, in addition to denoting a court / \ hewing a2so denotes an on&oinvpsa title h ./- like "A Judicial ~roces=uld be truer to the origins1 tkan

-"---*".lLe the present title, through the present on3 i'o'!l.nwa Kal'ku'o manner of revealing truth in its stark reality, The suggssti.cn of process in the original eitle is'of utmost importamc in the work itself, for the novel deals precisely with the problem

of Joseph K. 's inability.-.+w-s. ttlnot 8s isolated. C pe- expanding reality encompassing an ever greater parbt of his --.---P-(sg-h -wRmmem-----., existence, until it becomes the exclusive condition of his life --C-Cduni~-urpur*ii*.i~P'^Uuud --which is his death. The difficulty that many critics have found .in discovering this very proccss becmss of 'their inability to free themselves from the static coxcepts of rational catsgopies has placed them in the same situation as Joseph K, Not only Joseph K, 1s situation is "Kaf1,;aasque" then, so is the 1.J critic f s ?.rho finds that situation "Kafkaosque." The irony of' this is, of course, that KafkaIs xorlrs are not nearly as "Knf'kaesquel' as is generally taken for granted.

From the moment of his z.rrcsk, Joseph i5. firldls tkm Court i.rratior,al, and therefore unworthy sf existenct?, The' C hook's very first sentence reveals the error of the Court, which -r;zusi bs following false testimony: "Somo:~e mdst hav~ before tile Inspector in ~rblein&rstner * s room he concodea that it mrry not just be a joke as he had previously alloved hixself t;o think. "I donct say that it's a joke," say3 K. "Bat on the other hmd. .' , . it CGT~~Lbe an affair of any great importance eitner. I argco @h%s from the fact that though I ax nccusad of something, I cm.ot recall tize sl.ighteut offense that mi@(; tic: cb,;;rgcd. sgninst n?en (p, 16). As time .- .-

Court, but at the sme time he bec,onos more aggresive in his . ,+,. + v . + - - . * '. ' " ' a-r4Y IIM~~'UM~-~*-~~~,-W- fight against it. At; the l'irot interrogation he tells the presidfng judge tha'i, he yecognizes the Court only out of coin- passion, so that hs cart descraibe it3 nothingness to tha nagistrete. ; rationally; his person21 existence is baaed on th.~order of a closed system in which eveyy object of concern is gl.aced into re1ati.anshi.p with eccrything else, 17: the Ust cl::a;3t;er Me noted that in rationa.1 thoup&C a now fact; "becmias Ic~own, understoo!;' and conceptualfy grasped only in so far as it is 1s-dbsamedt undor a general idea, recognized as a 'case' of' n Isd 01' 8z 8

(I membe~of a inmifold series, 1114When K. is nrrested, tl;erefure, I he at+,empts to unders"r,ind tho r;ct;ion brought against him by fitting it kto the rationalized order withix r~hiohhe lives 6 plane where he cm graEp ths meaning of what is taking plcce, he asserts a sphere of existence that his mind can conceive. He opens the drawers of his writing desk, in which everything is in the greatest order, rr~dgets out his birth certificate in order to prove the legitimacy of his lif'o, Confronting one of his accusers with this docmsnt;, he demands answers to his questions. '13~~thow can I be under arrest? Arid particularly in such a ridiculous fashion?" Whon his opponent refuses to answer these qlaestions ho says, "Youtll have to answer them . . . . Here ere my pgpers, now show me yours, an2 first of rll your warrxnt for arresting me" (p. 9). The rLglit to live end * ,- ~ ., -- ",."ee--w- act is, ft~rhim, a matter of legislation pre-n a /

ical mality. But this is precisely the non-reality that Kaf'kafs radica.1 naturalj.sm cannot conceive.

K.19 personal life, like his desk draweq is kept in careful order; it is divided into activities that ara p-redictzble in their regularity: That spring IC. had been accustomed to pass his evenix;:; in this tray: after work xhcncver possible--he was ue;:2ll;~ in his oi'fj.cs until r;i:m--l~e wocld take a snort w&lk, s2o5.s or with sorne of his colleag~es,and then go to a beer ho13, where until slevon he saht a table patronized m3s%%y by elderly men, But there were exceptions to this r~utine,when, for instmce, the Msnager of the B,nk, who hi@dy vdazc his !iili&er~@cand r*eliability, lnvitecj. him for a drive cr for dinner at his villa. once a week I:. visitoc! a girl called Elsa, who was on duty all night .till eerlg morning as a wvitresa in a cabwet duping kilo clay received her. ;risitors in bed, (p. 23) why K. enjoys their com9ang.

The company he bet at dinner in the evenings hrld always ir;?p13cusedhim as pmticularly cslculatod to inspire respect Lmc.i he never denied in hj.s inmost thoughts that it \!as r, :;retit honor for him to belong to sac11 a society. It consi ated clzost exclusivsly oi judges, prosecuting counsel, act lz~ry~rs,altlio~~gh a f etr quite young officials ax3 1rn;yersl clerks were dso acinitted; but they sat right at the bottom of' the table and were only elloved to take part in the debates ~rhen~~nest-ions were acldres8ed to t+en directly, such questi-ons bein,?; nearljr alwtqs put in order to divert the rest of -the company. (p, 256)

Josepn R, enjoys this compmy because it helps establish his

position in the business circles of the city. He takes advantage

of derined social cu-stoms in order to rise to the top mom

, quickly. Tkrou~-;hhis assoc5ates he lec?..rns ab0u.t correct social !(Ill "I attigudes, for T.JA ST-9 told that ''he wne very ccurtoo:zs %nd ~nodz::t I I I

I he ---Lie:; h3.1 to 6 ;lfarentinte bewee.: tiie various grcfien in t11o E~ /I /fill 1s~c.t.Ilie~.ax.chy wd hew to trezt everyone accorw-i-ng to 3S.s , I IU

Za~rger:I:,s-t;o~aer, Ii. becomes a man of note as he walks tlwou~h

the street:; with hi.8 arms linked into the Imyor 1s. He is ufi-

but or, his r,bil?t? tc i'oroo peo?le to colrer bofore hima and the office telephone stand 'befoxs me on my desk, poople keep coming in to ses 1x8, z.L.Lsnts and clerks, and above all, my mind i s always nn my trork and so kept on the slept, it would be 2n AC~IZ~=~pleasure to no if a situation lj-lra that cropped up in the Bank. (p.26)

The Bank is so irripox%ant' i.n K. 1s n -life -wmwD-.-*--m...-& that one might call it - -." "**.- --arrrrrVa--. - ----.. A K. 1s reison dletre. He prides himself that he is the chi-az" .ar*"~~dmc%-nmnr clerkk+hks mother even th3.rdzs he is president. "l%[email protected] about the Bank . . procccuppy hj.m e~clusively~~(p. 291) ashiswholeprivaS~lifeisorderedaboutit, It is threugkt his work in the Bank that he has come to join the company .of lawyers in the evenings; and he cont:i.nv.en in thcir comp~ny

because he thinks that sooner OP later the experience may

I I profit him, thougn he ca12iict take partiin nuch of the conversation, Ill 111 Ill Even now his prastige is often rl;ised iiy his beins able to 4 mediate in debates in which his prac%ical kmoxlsdgo is of value to the lawyers: It frequently happened that when two of the diners could not agree on a point of corrmercial law they appealed to K. for his opinion on the facts of the case, and h.fs ;1ane was then bmdied. aSout in all the retorts md counter*retorts and e-mn figured in the rrlosk, abstruse speculations long afmr he had ceassd ta follow the trend of the argumect. (p. 298)

In cases like this the existence of K. as a TaQraon has csased to matter, Cox* it is only his position as knowlede;.zble balk clerk that ce-rriea weight as 'hin narne is mentioned. This

I situation reflocts how K. views. his position in the Bank. On the morning of his armst, for instance, he is not unduly , I consernad thriS, he will be missed, "conside~ingthe comparabively hi.@: past he held (p, 12). As his case prcrceeds and as I ~ I ' 1-10 brsccmso rnoro an3 more tirod >!hi19 working, hs often hides I bchind the facade of business in order to ec;rry on his personal tasks. He is quite content that others view him only as a funct;ionary, pather than as a person with a value reaching beyond his mere position. Functional worth is equal to value in his utilitarian, rational environment inherenm).;s --*- *,-" -%---_*,.__m *-_ ' ,.".*, *-.. ..-*~.-.-..Yd,-w*M---

Of course, when the meaning of life is measured in terms of function, one finds himself in a vulne~ableposition, but Joseph K. enjoys this, since it means that the possibility of rising in the system is increased and his vulnerability decreased since he considers hirnself' a mean of high intelligence,

rivalry also points to a defined social order, which is very ,-'-p w Y'X.'%*.:r.*'.*- ".Y" .a+, llrI.Y--*-~- =------a-.-w--.- ascends in the social order is one's prestige enhanced. The c**i%~Mmt.,W*w --s--.*v,%-s. -- social ordm is en important aspect in the rational qualities .uarrur.----*~- I* ,,***

that the Court daes not organize its activity in the same 4- -nrru- way he organizes his own. The life of the Court is not corxerned rC if it really exists only' in the heads of the warders, as

Joveph K. says !it does. All that concerns the Court is rezlitg; all the conjectures of its victims concern it not one whit. The Inspector tells K.; "1 was requested to 'inform you of this )[his err~estl, I have done so, and I have also observed your peactior,n (pp, 19-20), This reaction of Joseph K., which the Inspector notes, will change as the process of the trial continues;

Jseph K. 1s boundaries of reality will be expanded to include what not< lies beyond the scope of his rational existe will rer,lLzs the truth of Willemts reply, "You will co - dl t ,,Ill feel it, to his taunt that the Court "probably exists nmhere no but in gau- own headt1 (p. lO),, !I Joseph K. cannot conceive the Court 8.s a fact of his 1 -4. u as --.- - ,a *...-"l .+, 1 .- ri r own existence because of the divergence between experience axid 1

Ilr+".--lUIII. -- -*- * - ' +** %,->a w, & -.+ +-.-*ex% -*. 4*4 e-dw-+& reason. Agaix, the first sentence of the novel shows hot: his 11 --w2FCAuB- I mind excludss the very possibility of his guilt before the 1 / Court. Rather than even entertaining the possibility of guilt, I1 he ~aticna3.Lzesthat somecno mst have traduced him. Further, 1 the legal system of his country, trkich he ca~understand with 11 11 ~OQE hi3 meson, not acco~ntfop any legal proceedings of this I 'Il

nature; hmCa ho arguss that he carir,ot be guilty, The vory I, ld premises OX' his thaughts function to exsludo anything that I Finds it i.rvlpossiblo to come to grips with the Court in contest- ing his case, even when his experience with it draws him fcrther and further into the Court. In drawing up his fir~stplea the real issue is excluded bec~usehe attempts to fight the

Court as he 7:rould a business competitor:

In a reltxt5vely short time he had managed to work himself' up to his present high position in the Bank and to maintain himself in that position and win recognition from everybody; surely if the abilities which had made this possible were tc be applied to the unraveling of his own case, there was no doubt that it would go well. Above all, if he were to achieve anything, it was essential that he should banish from his mind once and for all tho idea of possible guilt. There was no such guilt, This legal action was nothing more than a business d.eal such as he had often concluded to the advantage of the Bank, a deal wh?.ch must simply be: obviated. The right tactics were to a-void letting one's thoughts stray to one's own possible shortsomings, md to cling as firmly as one could to the thought of one's own advart sge . ( pp . 158-159 Even at tho end of his ordeal he still clings to the logical. necessity of hie i.nnocence. "Eb-t I an not gul.lty," he tel.?.~ tho chapl~fnin khe cathedral, "its e mistake, And, if 5.t cones to that, how can any man be called guilty? We am all simply men here, one as much as the other" (p. 264), The chaplain iPsres tho argument, simply replying, "That is true

. . but thatts how dl1 guilty' men talk, " Actual.ly K. furgets his arguments when he is directly confronted wi"c their flxtilit.y, like at; Titorellif s, when the: paintell tel2.s him his cese is simple if he Is indesd innocent: fight egainst countloss subtleties in which the Court indulges. And in the end, out of nothing at all, an enomnous fabric of guilt will 'be conjured up." (p, 186) Nevertheless, he continues to insist on his innocence, tho?xgh

he feels that in fact it cannot be so. Speaking of the ostensible aq~ittal the indefinite postponement, Titorelli tells him, "Both methods have this in common, that they prevent the accused

from coming up for sentence, " to which K, replies "in a low voice, as if 'embarrassed by his own perspicacity," "But they also prevent an actual aqxittal" (p. 202). K.ts difficulty in comprehending the significance of the Court is explained

at the beginning, when he is arrested: "it was not usual with him to lem from experience1' (p. 8). His mind, instead of 9 k helping him to meet his environment directly, erects a barrier *--=--- *--=------I , .- -.*". -- so that he j.s unabla to understand the forces that g0ver.n his -.w----lrrr* .-,- --* life.

by his reason, and his e-qerience, is clearly apparent on the '------"E.-ID~%? morning of' his arrest, Frau Grubachls living room, for i.nstance, is first seen as fill1 of rugs, furniture, china, and photographs, though with a little more room than usual. Yet, strangely,

when K. loolco about for a place to sit down,, only one chair, which is already occupied by one of tho warders, is availablo.

Further, when IC. is summoned to appear before the Inspector, he is taken to the room of ~rgulein~brstner, whom he hardly knows: "This room, as K. kncw quite weZI, had xaecently been W@I~~~C?~O IIO~IB l-€3t;8, end with whom he had exchanged ittle nore i;l?~na fear t~ordain passing" (p, 3.4). Latar that evening tzth13.e tfei l;j~,gfor b.or to came hums, he carnot even remexbsr oxo.ctly lih~tshe l.oo!cs like. Yet; wheu? FFFALZGrubach hini;~that she will have tc spook to the yoring typist regarding her nrorai eon&lct, K, defends her ~~ehemently,"In fact ,It he says, "I

word cf' Cxith in what you say" (p. 20, my emphasis). This cor,fl.:ct between. reason aid exper5et1ce also takes place bsfom the T.,Y~Y~~c~oTat; the time of' his arrest, Agitated by %he rebriire of- thc ~nspector,K. datemines to put an end to tho

the Tnspoctor tells him ihez he may tolephono though it wt:~?.,.j.d

5s 30, SO 11.0 rof%..ses to telephone, despL%e the fnspcotcrfs subsequent urging. - Those episodes that mn contrary to fi;, ls ordemd world

. . Xn&+l,e$, r:~.t;i.mo ,~BQ the Court; becozllos thw com:31~t;e1, o'r;,;et:rt: encompasses whole aroas of experience begins immediately &-i;er the arrest, during his first day at the Bank: "But on khis evening , . . K. resolved to go straight home. During every brief paose in the duyls'work he had kept this resolve in mind; without his quite knowing why, it seortied to him that the whole household of Frau Grubach had been tku.own into great disorder by the events of the morning and that it was his task alone to put it right again" (pp. 23-24.). Of course, the whole house has not been disrupted, and Frau Grubach does not seem as perturbed about the affairs of tne morning as he had supposed she would be. She simply says, "It gives me the feeling of sornetning learned which I don' t understand, but which there is no need to understand" (p. 26). K., however, cannot. disniss ' the whole affair so lightly, though he says he thinks even less of it than does Frau Grubach. The episode with ~rkulein~&stnar satablishos f'urther the compulsion that has overtaken K. He defends her be for^ Frau Grubach while hardly knowing the girl. Then he resolves to talk to her when he really has nothing to say. The longer she stays out, and the more reason he has not to bother her, the stronger becomes his urge -to see her. \+hen he finally accaata;her, he confesses that her room was entered against his will, but that he was nevertheless responsible i'or the 1 I entry, Presuming that K. wants to explain this responsibility of his for something beyond his wparent control, she asks I

I hirx to tcll her what had transpired. K. is unwi.lling to do 80; as the minutes pass it bscmes obvious that his motive for 111

I I seeing ~r&laj.ndrstner cmot be explained. Somehow the

necessity to talk to ~rguleinBflrrstner is- -rooted ---- in that area .of his existence which lies beyond the possibility of verbal

-___ I ------oxprsssion, an area of experience that is made manifest only in the physical activities of life. It seems as though K. has

-ZMs*'----*- a prof olrnd need for this non-rational 02when he w- kisses ~'rklein~

that area of Y. ls lira whi.c1?, also gives rise to the activity

( of the Court. The trial is not a legal action against K. originating outside hfs being; it is a "Pro~ess"arising out

of' the depths OF his life, intimately related to the physical

and mental xaeelms of his er.-istencc. The Court, indeed the

sub-

story itself reveals the process of myth taking place; the process wheps3.y man mtivcly conceives the world of his existence.

of that which Is j.rrmanent to him is gsthered into an ob jot% of ^ -- . .- . -' _ - which hs lived was not determined 3ole:Ly by reason, but that it was dependent largely on his expricnce of reality which itself was the result of many factors. In one of his reflections, . I Kafka attempts to grasp part of the complexity of the growth of man 1 s cosmology : The f%rstwarship of idols was certainly few of the things in the world, but, connected with %his, few of the necessity of the things, and, connected with this, fear or responsibility .for the thTngs. So tremendous dld this responsibi-lity appea- .&ha% people did not even dare to iinpose it upon one single extra-hmm entity, for even the medi3.tj.on of one being would mt ha-~ssui'fici,er,tly lightened human responslbili ty, intercourse lnri th only one being would still havs been all too deeply taintad with reswnsibilitg, and th8.t 5s why each thing was given the resp&sibiiity for itself, more izdeed, these things yere also given a degree of.' responsibility fo~nan. 1 ?

%hat not believing in ghosts is of no avail--"Was hilft mis. aber dieses Nicht glauben? "--ths neighbor answers, "Very sin<)j.y,

You mist merely have no fear. anymore whar, a giios*; mally -c._npcz:rs to you.tt Fju.i; this advice is useless too. The nw~atoransuere,

Ja, aber cias ist doch dio nebanshhliche Angst. Die eigcm-klizhs

Angst ist die hgst vor der Ursachs der Erscheinung. Und diest? Angst blsibt. Die hnbe ich gerndezu gropartie.in mir."" The rignifioc;ncs of this episode and of Kafka's reflecti.on above meet in ths word Ursache, LLtsral%y the word is a compounding or E, meming ori.gina1, an4 ----Sache, meal-ling thing or ;.subjee.t, 8 4 I randcrod Zrivnlid, because the fear itself' arises out of eomething zoncretc-r Sache, a thing wnich is rod. Roeson "llCllll

into 5.z~categoris of existence, it must remain a process , which is cccstanlly modified by tha experiences or life. I?ze

Yopeph K. attempts to separate cause and real-it;? by making realrty dependent on cause. Hhatever has no cause, he argAe,s, cannot; rationally exist, and since existence is deternine5 db<'C'C*mx" ,- hxl*.,, ^.-'.-%o 'C'C"* " li*, solely 'by reason, whatever has no cr~sscamot exist. Ke

of his lifc, Like- the Country - Doctor,-- tho Trial of -.Joseph ---- L.

as Willex says, d-ecrees that its officials never go sewchlrg for @.ilt,but that the l;i;rr is drawn by the guilty, md m~st send o13.t its wzrdors (p. 10). -KO's a;llilt lies in the fact th~t he has brolcsr? the law af life which states that life cannot -- * becorno rehced to the stasrs of rational order, Thus- his certificate serves to establiskr rather than disprove his gcli1.t. This .------3-rry- process of' incronsing gdilt expands ta porvade K,'s cr:tire

s vorld nrdc;:.: 'ivl cwthed~~lIC. cd.1~the necesai ty of --- a/ 75 \

this guilt a lie, and this, he says becomes a universal

principle (p. 276). As a consequence of his mental attitudes, ths Coart becomes more and more an objectification of his own experiences, fumtioning to control the orientation of K.'s life just as the presence of a primitivets god orders the life of its worahippor, who as Kafka points out in the reflection above, worships his deity not only out of fear of the world about him, but also out of fear of hinself. Jqseph K. is~htbetween these two fears: the fear L*-rrP 4 of the Court and the fear of himself; the first conscious and t . Hence, he cannot accept either of the alternatives to escape from Yne Court

\ that Kafka presents i.n the novel. The f fir~t..al~iv~28 ta

completely ignore----. the Court, to refuse to t&e his accusation _.------_-- -- -" ----. I_ "_ __^ -4 _____ - - .,.--- __ - __-_ --sly. In the unfinished chapter, "On the way to Elsa," K. asks the representative of the Court if he will 'be punished if he refuses to cms to the Court of his cm accord. Mhsn he;

and without; hesitation drives off to Elsa. The other alternative is to do what the Court asks willfully, as Leni urges him to:

'I. . . don't be so unyielding in the future, you can't fight against this Court, you must mabe your confession. Make your confession at the first chance you get;. Only then is a pssi.biiity for escape given, only then, 20 As mentioned though, neither

of ,th.esa aitarr+~ativosis ren3a.l.sponsibls, they only exist potentially. True, the offici ill tells I(. that he will not be punished for not o.ppsarj.ng of his own accord, ,but he also

says, "We shall hot: wflere to find you," adding, "It is not usnal to bring the powers of the Court upon one's own headH (p. 2901, K, tries to put the affairs of this trial out of

his mind, arid to keep them hidden from others, but he is unsuccessful in this, T"noughE,e tries to keep the matter hidden from his uncle, for instance, his uncle forces him to take the figkt more seriously than he has: "And. what have you got to say now?" asked his uncle, who had temporarily forgotten all his hasto and agitation over the letter, which he seemed to be rereading. "Yes, Uncle," said K,, "itis quite true." "True?" cried his gncle, "What is true? How on sarth can ft be true? What case is this? Mot a criminal case, surely?IT "A criminal case, ansxsred IC. "And yc7a sit there coolly rrith a - crircinai case hanging round your neck? " cried his uncle, his voice growing loudor xad loudera. "'The cooler I am, the better in the end," said K, wcmily. "Dontt worry." 7"lkat;~sa fine thingt;~ask of me," cried his uncle . . a . Your attitude . . . doesn't please me at; all, that ion1 t how an innocent man behaves if he :s in his senses. (p. 117)

The uncle then forbcibly takes fi. to ths lewger Hgld, t!ms enmeshing K, inextricably in the proceedings of his trial. As a fact of experience it is physically impossible for K. ~,h~--*--*---=--- "- to escape the trial, for he is implicated by his complicity ------,, ,+ ~.*.-.-n.-"'*an p--e.clMMM% which he cannot escape. In Kaf'ka ,is n.ot tho result of' k26 --5 60 radisal acts or s. It is the absence of "rr--~--~-- -d -d - '2 ?- '> '- /* these which pr-t. ; 6,,, --- - it Tho other dternative is eqdally izpousible to achPevc, " t: r, ,I , /-*

for K. fs ver:~ exi-stenco is predicted upon his guilt, which " 4. ? arisoa fYom th6 fact %hut he cannot recognize the Court, and F therefore ciw1ot accept it as valid. K. Is lifB is rooted in rhtional order, whereas the Courtls order defies reason. K. to afhl. Left in .I this situation, I<. ckiall.engss the Court with the only tJe8pon at his disposal--his rational mind. In this, however, h.o only falls deeper into the'clutches of the Court, for every victory

ir, fact hecomes a defeat. At X. 1s first interrogation he thinks he is making a strong impression on one part of the mdience because of their silence at his speech. So convinced is he of his power o~erthe crowd that he openly accuses all the members of the Court of being scoundrels bent on tyrannizing innocent

victims. But as he confronts them more directly, tnings ckiange:

- Had he been mistaken in these people? Had he i overestjmated the eff'ectivenesu of his speech? Had they beer! disguising their real opinions wnile he spcke, and now that he had corns to the conclusion of %is speech i:ere they veary at 3-r.ist of pretense? (p, 59)

Too late does he realize that all the members of the Court; belong to the same pwty: "So J cried K. , flinging his mms in %he air, his sudden enlightenment had to break out, every man jack of you is an official, I see you are yourselves tho corwlpt; agents of' whom I hasre been speaking, yru lve all come rushing here t;o listen and nose out wha3 you cm about; ale, El?kinp, 8 pretense of p8rby division.^, and half of' :;-ou applmdod merely to lead. ma on." (p. 60)

Lest 3ti.3.1 believes in the va3.?:.6 of his a.ccusation 0.t' ths

Court;, the Examining Magistrate tells K. as 1-18 leaves, "I merely -;.rnrlt;ed to point out . . . that today--you mil;. not yet invax5ably confe~son accused maa." This pattern of events is constantly repeated. K. 's accusation or t.iio war;dcr.s at the f3st Tnterrogation does

nothing but leed to his own torment when he sees the two being whipped in the Iixtnberroom ir, the Bank. During K, 1s first visit to thc law offices he accosts another def'endent: who is

so overccifio with horror that he cannot answer K. 's aixple questions, Ee thinks the man is struck dumb becmse oi' his own superiority, but later the merchant Block tells him Chat tho man is rendered speechless because he mads the sips of

both his own and K, ts destruction in the near future, One of the basic rules which K. lays down for himself

in preparing his own defence is that he must a1.a-rays ma;.n'kain :A position of advmtage over the Court, just as he mst in hie commercial trar~smtions. This, of course, is on9 cf tho prime concerns of his struggle to ascend in the competitive wo~~l$ of his rational existence, to which he conpwes the trial: This legal action was nothing nore than a business deal such as he had often concluded to the advantage of the Bmk, a deal within which, as always happened, lurked various dangers which must simply be obviated. The &ght tactics were to avoid letting one's "ihaughi;~ stray to one's own possible shortcomings, to cling as firmly as one could to tlie thought of one 1s advantage. (p..159)

He holds to this principle obstina.tely, even when it is appwent tkie-t it is false, In those cases he distorts his experioncss only obeying the orders of the Exmining Xagi strate. In .n attempt to retein his ndvmtage he 1s forced to rationaliz6:

lecting on this, he again sets hi:nse!.i' dmve the oi'i'icia?.~ oi' the Cou.rJ;. rsaction of the experience of his life against the type of existence he is leading, the truth that, as mentioned above, whi..fears himself, and 4) that tho Ccxirt. is there to rescue K. from his sterile, rational -.____._____L___1--* ,*arr--J"4arrcsrurw - -A. The first indication we have that K. lacks warm, pewanal. rciaticnships eppears at the arrest. We notice that K, is a bache3.o~whose concern for womon rests not in their social but In their utilitarian qualities. Upon waking, he rings for kina to brlng'hin~his breakfast. His relationship with Elsa is part of his routine. He has not visited his mother for alnost th.ree yews, and he is too busy to see his cousin Erna. The Pact that K, i.s arrzigmii before the Inspector in the rcom of' ~rhlein~Grstnar is indicative of his condition, The znature of' his guilt is :-evealed when be speaks to her that evening, Totally disregarding her wishes, he takes advantage cf he-

t irednsss, approaching her t'like some thirhsty arSmul Lapping greedily at a spring of long-so?lght fmsh water" (w. 39). For

him a personal. relationship, apart fron the routine of his 3~i1k life, is indeed a "spring of long-sought frsah water." He cmnck,

hovever, establish any ~aslationuhiplike this as ci conseqyence of the orientation of his life. Just bei'ore fall-ing asleep

that night he thinks a little about his 'beha.vlor, and rather

than rsa:~izlngthat he has failed agaln, ho is pieesod witn it, "yet,s-i~.rpriscdthat he was still not more pleased." The cixct re1 ationship Setween his trial and ~rkulein~hstner is noted

later !

thi nttir,~a11ou-t; his .first pl ca: he notices that his relatiom I 81

1 with ~r&lain0Grs'iner ssm to fluc+,uate with the case itself (p. 158) . Tho only explicit cha ds against him--- but which. he Fee.is the charge of arroatad \ - sexuality. The in.dica.l;j.o,n of abnozmality rsveal.ed. by his long, 7 death-connoting kiss on the throct of Frhulein 6.rstnor is reflected in the content of the law books used in his interraga- tion. He fi.nds an opportunity to examine those books t'ne next; Sunday, and. he recognizes the sexual indecency portrayed:

A man and a woman were sitting naked on a sofa, the obscence intention of the draftsman was evident enough, yet his skill was so small that nothing emerged from tho picture save the all-too-solid figures of 2 rmn ad 2 woman sitting rigidly upright, and because of the ba& perspective, apparently finding the utmost ddi.Ff icultg even in turning towazd each other. K. did not look at my of %he ather pages, but mere1.y glzzrcod at the title pap of the second book, it was a novcl entitlcc?: How G~eteT-J cs Plarn~odAIrer Husband linr;~. (p. 65) - - (i - - -s-".- \I I1 The title may well have read, "How Frauleh Burstner 'was PI-a~v.rd by Joseph K. " 1-10 is not content with the ham he has done 'ckilt; first night with j7rhein ~Grstner,but he continuclly tries to

oat her again, ostensibly to explain his actions. Little does ho seem to realize that he cannot explain his actions adeqvately. The armstsd picture is caused by the faulty perspective, and K. suffers from exact;ly this ill. 'he nature of that perspective is c.?-r;wly ahown in what happens ,just after he turns from the ltw books to ape& tc %he w aslzexvornan. _Ly-. In answer to the cornento, :'Theso are the mon xho are s-lpposad to s it in jud,cfmsnt on me, " the washemoman simply says,

'"ill. help gc;, . . Would you like rue to?" \*hen K, declines chis help, &LB settles herself' on the edge of the platfonm, makes r.oon ;'a;- I<. , m:c! begins r,oLr,plimantjng him, K, uncier- stands what she seems ti> be saying: "So this is all it mounts to,'' thought K., "she's offoring herself to me, she's cormpt like the rest of them, she's. tired of the officials here, which is i understandable enough, and accosts my stranger who I takes her fancy tr"th compliments aSout his eyes. " (pp, 65-66] I30 rejects har overtures until she tells him that she knows the Exami.r,ing Magistrate intimately. However, not until the studsnt comes to take her away does he really become anxious to win her favour. Even then his interest in her is not pep- sonal but only procedural, He wants her only in order to gain an advantageous position relative to the Court, Again he ration- alizes:

And her offer of help had sounded sincere and was probably not worthless. And probably there could be no more fitting revenge on the Examining Mag- istrate and his henchmen than to wrost this wornm from then and take her himself'. Then some nigllt the Exmining Magistrate, aftsr long and *duous labor on his lying reports about K., might come to the wornants bed and find it empty. Empty becsase she had gone off with K. (pp, 70-71) Even when he finally is confronted with a situation where he can have a wonan from the Court, it is the woman, Leni, who must tdcs ---3 t p, Of course the re1ationshi.p is perverted because K. accepts Leni not as a friend ------7C*- but ation. Leni, ironically, does nothing of the kind, for her purpose is only to trap K, for tho lawyer Huld. She is thus a prostitute herself, letting herself be used by both Huld and K. and thus the exchange of

Elsa f o~ Leni is completely in. keeping with the character of K ;, whose very existence is predicated upon the prostitution of others f0x3 himself. I1 K. Is desire for Frhlein ~Grstneris partially an expression of

-----* -----* I- r ixC-..- ., .rv^.rX-..*.-A- n.??"...--.m""""nc"nc \lc.rr-" a doep desire to rid himself of this mode of life which demmds ~-,.r-r-~.~~-+**~-*~-~-~m~~Wn)lUPbl;mr**9"r**9"r**9"r**9"r**9"m*iv-A* - . that others exist only for his use. K. longs ---m. for a malthy ! /3Dra--1m1e-w i**'tsU,* A@'--- personal relationship like "-t.PIIU~~M~.,","~~~ water, as his kisses of the typist show, but he finds it impossible to establ-ish this relationship for he cannot rid himself of-the perverted demands of his parasitic ego to gain the advantage over others. His first thought after his argument with Frau Grubhch already takes the attraction of ~rhlein~zrst- ner in this direction: "As he lounged by the windm; and shut his tire$ eyes, he actusliy considazled for a moment paying Frau llllll~ Grubach out by persuading ~'r6ulei.n&rst.rrer to give notice along with him" (p, 29). Nis failurs t~ achieve a healthy 11 relationship in the end is bct a revelation of the ambiguity a2 I/ 11 If 1 his motives, ?"nus his feelings before falling asleep that night I nl I are also mbigoJwas.

11,11 1111 Tne pattern of' K. 's use of others is shovn in almost zll /I111 11 his relationships. Tho accusation from the priest in the Cath- edral, cast aSuut too rmch for outside help," is not reztricted to K. ls Court procedwe; it refers to the manner of his life wLd thus to tae trial which pervades his whole existence. Frau

Grubs-ch, f.'or instance, is one of th~people over whom K. has ru: advantage, in fact, over all the tenants in Frau Grubachts

tells hap not tc fear.

Yo:). knew how Frau Grubach, who has the decisive voice in ti-::y matter, pnrticular1.y as the Captain is her ne$;c;i, ye:, kno;~how she alriost venerates rno md bcl, ; ctv tr s ~bs~l.iltXlycvsr*ythj.ng I say, Sha is uS.so dependent on me, 1 may say, for she has bqrrowed a fair .sum of money from me. (pp. 35-36)

In BY^ unfinished chapter this guilt arising out of K. 1 s wrong ~...L-P-*---~~-M-~ ULC_ attitude to his fellow lodgers is made explicit. In visions .".. --w,",.Lr.x'a --ic1--i*r*.-- uM1-*PU*."d. r. .x=> - % 'WILllk" of his trial he sees himself wallring through the comidors of a law court where he meets Frau Gr!lbachrs lodgers who always appear as a group, standing "shoulder to shoulder with open mouths, like an accusing chorus. " And right in the middle is ~rsuleinBCrstner ( pp, 206-207). In this conjunction, it is interesting to note that all of the accused in the Law Offices are men of advmtageaus positions: "All of them were carelessly dressed, tinough to judge from the expression of their faces, their bearing, the cut of their beards, and many almost imperceptible little details, they obviously belonged to the upper classes1' (p, 78). They are pres-mably all men who have taken advantage of others in order to attain their position of wealth. K. 1s attitude toxwd the three bank clerks shows how he fits into this group. In part of ar? unfinished chapter his treatment of them is presented:

"K. hetes Kullich, and not Kullich alone, but Rabenstoiner and

Kaminer too. l1 He does not hate the three because of their association with the Court,actually the reverse 2s tme: the trial is the result of K. 1s hatred of the three, it is a reaction agafns'l; KS1s physical and mental abuse of the clerks: I?e bslieves that he has hated them fromm the beginning, Their appear'mce in Fr'ciulein Bcrstner Is room it is true, first brought them to his notice; but his hatred is older, And lattslly K. . has bsrm almost sick with that hatred, for he cannrji; satisfy it. It is so difficult to get at thela, They are now the limest of' all tho officials; and as they are all three completely inferior, they will never get promotion except thrwugh pressure of their years of seniority a;?d even then more sloyly than anyone else. So that it is next to impossible to hinder their careers. (P. 2%) K. goes on to consider the possibility of complaining to the Manzger, in o?(?er to have them dismissed from their positions entirely, but ho rofrains from this because that is what tho Assistant Hmager would like in this case as well. However, he would use the three to gain an advantage over the Assistant Manager, if he would but favor them. Considering the character of K, then, one can understrnd the antipathy of the girl at Titorellifs studio, who tells the painter, "Please don't paint

I him, such an ugly man as that" (p. 107). /I 11 The principle upon which the Court comas to ixpeacb ISI I I

K. time after tine is illustrated in the whipping scene. In k I

I1 his first interrogation K. attempts to hide behind the corruptlon b of the two warders, Willem and Franz, ir~b~ilding his defence. I I

This abuse of the two comes back to torment him in the Bank, 1111 the very heart of his rational existence. He attempts again to obviate the situation by throwing the blme on the entire organization. 'In my view," he tells the whipper, "they ar -<- I** ,adt& Gh/i not gullty, The @liltlies with the organization. It is the -. --I high officials who =e guilty. I' The wsrders thenselves then . take up %his tack, crying, "That's so," but, like K., they car~aotsscupa their ~UG. It is simply not possible for K. to kccp thz Lumber-room of his porsvnal lire shut off from the too oppressive, he cavlnot order anyone to clear away the filth bhr~b+W whA~&~'khe dirtykaw Courts expose. Even in the cathedral he attempts to hide behind others--"Ve are all simply men here," he ' tells the chapl.ain. Eut fhe l aw 1s irreversible. At the beginning of the trial K, is told, "You will get to fesi it .'I On the 3u.ndtiy af'ter his interrogation, coxing out of the Law Courts >Ci~:;rehe has fainted, K. asks himself,

"Could his body possibly be medi.t;at;icg 2 revolution and preparing a new trial for him, since he was withstanding the old one with such ease?" (p. 90). He fails to rea.liza that it is not a new trial, but an inherent part of the original trial that i.s revealed through his pkjsical weakness. The-- entire Prozess is the revolutior, of his body against its suppression. Th$sUli.r- "body" is,

ill d -%k.-** ,* of course, not restricted to K. fsphysical organs; it includes ~-.w%W-dm* pqrnY-".%* Y* Si I 'i 4 l " * . . ' @'**-*M**,~ I,S, .tie totality of his personality which has been supp~esaeci b:: ~-~*~%x*~"*PPi" - rr I>*< X< <" '* i'L ~--..r*l--% h.,"w-/4Fm*wX,-m #,w*.ws its rational taslcmaster. It is the body that has been forced %o act contrary to its natur*e. Furthcmo~o,the rebellion dois not begin in the choked atmosphere of the Law Offices, it begins in Frau Grubacklts tenement building on the morning of his arrest, when he looks about for a seat but cannot find one in a room full of furniture.' The weariness of his body, however, is most notic- abl.3 in the csnLer of his business existence, the place where he most alwses it, and where he seeks to keep it in sub jsction even af'ter the trial has begun.. One winter morning, while KO is sitti^ng at hls desk por:deri.ng the afi'airs of the trial, k:6 poruonallg. In states of intense exhaustion, such as he experienced this winter morning, when all these .thoup&ts kept mzrming at random through his head, he was particularly incapable of ~esistingthis conviction. The contempt which he had once felt for the case no longor obtained. . . . We hardly had the choice now to accept -%hetrial or ?*eject It, ne was in the middle of it md must fend for himself. To give in to f atlgpc wcu1.d be dmgerous. (p. 158) is consistent riittl what is that his once

ordw~dthoughts keep mnnirq, at ~:.mrlorn through his head. No more are his faculties to be :nsvcc? ty reason; physical necessity- f---- becomes more and more hzfluential as tho case continues against;

him. As tim.e Fassss th& affairs of' the ~knkeven become i.ncom-

prehe~si'ole,to him. The same msr.r::ing a manufacturer comes to

see K, about 2 transaction simi1a.r Lo one he had concluded a

year before. I3u-t K. cannot follow the swift reasoning of the

man, and when the Aseisbmt tvlul&ger finally comes to his assistance, it seems "as though two giants of enormas size [negotintoJ7

above his had," as the two discuss t;he plms I14sj.de him. ' Tho feeling that they we negotiaking abom2; himself may riot bo wrong, for the Court cornea to pervade his lire? more all

the ki.m.e, nowhere can he escape it;, And as soon as the manct- . facturer is rinishsd his busi~esswith the hssista-nt Manager,

h6. does in f ect cane to zive K, sonlo advice th~twill draw him

yet cloeor into the cor!f.l:.i;es of tho Court. IfJhcn he gous to

Titorellj. then kic is tal.d, "You see, cvcrythint;; bsl.3ngs to the Court" ip. 188). ~courso-evarvtbin~bolor.(j~~~~Court t, 1% coni'sssss this in, tihe

I;~;C 6rr5-ces9 1,.:?2er0he operr!,.y ;-rssoci.c+.tarjhirnsalf trrith f'Ls il?.:i'ln- off ices rather than go to a sick-room. "1 should feel batter at once," he scp, ''1 tm *sure of it , . . for I don't usually suffer from these attacks, I was surprised nyself by this one. I am an official too 8nd.accustorned to office air'! (p. 85). He

is truly ru? csfZicia1--over others in tho Bnnk, and becau.se of hLs uttitudea there, over himself in the Court, But as he Secornes prosecutor of' himself, he loses his bearing- in the

ylB*a*U,.Y"LY"~Y~~zI~~~~I*-.II"I.-.IA"*~W~(~~*~~*~~~XI- *.uy_Iu,,, dyuyu"L ,\R outer world, kince he has alweys lived only through his parasit s, His dizzhess is the result of

loss of his bearings when he turns from his outer existence in hich he lives as he relates to other people in attempting

to gain an advantage over them. As he becomes- - _involved I_I-- in his 7---- - own life apart from others, he feels new senaatima of' being ------\- lost: "He felt as if Le was sezl.si.cl;. He re12 he was or, a 8k.i-p rolling in heavy seas. It was ~;sif the waters were dashing

against the wooden walls, zs if the roaring of breaking wmes cms from the end of the passage, as if thc pessago itself

pitched and rolled and the tfci-king c1isr:'cs on eithe~side rose

m~d.fell wi%h it" (p. 89). Being situated inside his own exist;-

ence-the Court--he feels entirely out of ha-mony with the world outside as shown by its pitchlng and reeling.

In some ways the trial wid. the consequent 511-ness of K. are simtlar to the illness of tho lawyer Xuld, whose ussoci-ations

with the Cozrt are appslrcnt2y ,just as baffling to kimsolf 9-8 K. 's

aro to K, Tlike Joseph I<. , he cra offer many raticnalizntions about the pmcedures of' tho Co~mt,but ca? suhstmtiate none of clients, whon he victimizes rnercilossly, in order to exist himself'. Most important, however, is the fact that he has an ordinary practice as vmll as associating with the Court. K. is uncorrmonly reassur*od bv the allimce between the Court and norWlna.Z:jlrrisplwd~?;zce, especially when Block tells him that Yuld mcy bs better .!:-I the latter than in the foxner. Little do either of $lxm roalj ze that precisely this iL 3 the disconcerting aspect about k?.d. Ne is really not qualified as a lawyer of the C1~1iri;bbecw.se this is not u rational Court; all he can do is rational ize, thereby holding his clients in subjection to .- * --. himself' 2nd to the Court. Rlrther, bach trjal is personal; _ -- - -CT as the doopkeeper tells the man from the country in the legend, "before the Lav~," the door is memt for him alone. The acthor- ities theriselves itrant to "olinina'ce defending counsel as rnucls as possible; the whole onus of the Defense must be laid OR the accused lzi~;lseli"' (p. 145), as H~ldpersonally points out to h. Huld can neveri help Block or K, to an aquittal. In victinizing others though, he is also victimizing himself. His i2Lmss hna striking resemblances to the weakness of those whom ho hold in subjection, a~dwell it might, for is he not also a member of the upper classes whose members exclusively make up the Court's victims? Fe is like the Country Doctor--he also has usurped motherls position, &nd ho too is unable to help his patient. His thought processes' exclude truth. Reason dismisses raa2j-tg as a superstition. Even Block, at waiting in the law offices, Block says, "Rut it's all nonsense." Then he tells K. what the people believe. One of the superstitions is that yoillre supposed to tell from a man's face, especially the line of his lips, how his case is 'goiug to turn out. . . . I tell. you it:^ a silly superstition and in most cases completely belied by the facts, but if you live among - i**'p' these people itls difficult to escape the prevailing !?V/, b/e) opinion. You can't imagine what a strong effect such wy)L, superstitions have. (p. 218) The peopls =a 36gh.t and rewax is wrong. The- function of the its funct-:on, at least i.r,sofm as it destroys K,fs ties to the enviroiment xhich supports him. K. notices that the lawyer's methods mount to this, "that the client finally li'orgets) the whole world and [ii-vgr] only in the hope of toiling along this false path until the end of his case[shall] come in sight" (p. 242). K. comes to rely less and less on others and more on himself as time pasp.. Initially hls uncle had found it p t~p4 4- ecriw>.in necesamy to get; K. to take his trial seriously, Toward the end K, becomes so self-reliant that he is willing to disniss

Hul.d, and Lenb with him; ne:ither are necessary any longer to keep K,'s mind on the proceedings. The process of the tr-ial is

The chaplain tolls him, "The verdict is not sudden1.y arrived at, the proceedings only gradually merge into the verdict" (p. 264). Eevertheless K. in his blindness !.nsists on his vfew of the proceedings, not realizLng that when he describes the Court to tho chaplai.n, he is describing his own shortcomings. Not; the 'Examining Magistrate but -he is a petticoat-hunter, He says openly, "If I could move same womsn I know to join forces in working for me I couldn't help winning through," In the light of K. 's misconception the, chaplain cannot refrai.n I"rom shrieking,

"Cani t you see one pace before you?" (p. 26s). In a reflection Kafka states, One cit7 disintegrate the world by mans of very strong light. For weak eyes the w~rldbecomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, far eyes weaker still it becomes shme- faced md smashes mlya~ewho dares to gaze upon it..21 The progression of this amb.iguous reflection parallels the process of tho world as K. perceives it. His power has disintegrated tho world as it stends before the novel opens. No real world exists beyond the social constructs which he affirms. As the novel progresses, however, the light begins to fade and the world becomes solid. Me is arrested in the morning--just alter sunrise; presumably the light should increase till mid-day. But the opposite happens, As the trial progresses the light is gradxally * ,-*&"_ - i"--%."--P -,=., *,***_ng blotted out by the elements of wind, rain and snow. The fading OTr~~.%X*~..,.,ullWr)~~ii~~*,~ _111 light is symptomatic of K. s faltering reason, progressively

***-**.-~-%*~nrYh-h-.iii*~, less able to control the objects of his conceived world. The rrjl E",$."<"*" 4.- 'I %*, -.;-*--~~~**w~~ -P"-Ve "*.. -.' ** walls reel about him, and the Assistant Manager appears gig=ti.c, as he negotiates K.ls existence over his head. K. goes to the cathodral in the middle of the morning, but the atmosphere is almost dark, and he has l;o resort to a pocket torch to sxa~ine the puintjrlgs in the darkened bi~ilding. Inatsad of get';,j.ng brighter, tho light fades even more as noon approaches; even the light inside the cathedral grows dimmer: There was no longer even a murky daylight; black ni&t had set ix. A11 the stained glass in the window could not illumine the darkness of the wall wtth one solitary glimmer of light. And at this very rnornont; the verger began to put out the candles on the high altar, uae after another. (p. 265)

Then svon the I.mp in K. 1s hand goes out, leaving only the glim- mar of n. silve;. image, which is immediately lost i.n the darkness.

ss place d,".m*%,*.- with which he can disintegrate the world. The power o& his mind has comtim~.llydecreased until, at the end, the world does .r-..~~--~"u"u "u"u~in*v. indeed smash him. Ko makes no resistmice as two men in Frock coats amd Lop hats come to get him; actually he is waiting for them to coma for him. Hu1fia.y to his execution he hssitates, ht then he catches a glimpse of someone who may be ~r&ctlain ~hstner,who reminds him of the condition of the existznce he has led. He corrcedes that he has always "wmted ,to snatch at tho xorld with twenty hands, and not for very laudable notives eithertr (p. 282). Now he is content to let the world roturn that injustice; to snatch at him with its hands. Re has left his unyieId3.ng stubbornness. ''Am I to leave this wcrld as a nm who has no common sense?" he asks. "Are people to say of me ai'tor I m gone that at the beginning of my case I waxted to finish it, and at the orld of it I wmt to begin it again?" Mow

I-.oilC the medi aticn of' reasor, which has i.so- +="t*" . "ei r -~.~lcrw"'7- .epp ~~"aa~ilw:w*xl/*~&&€dhtM~WxM4s&.. -. -r ' :-at;.,

K. has founc a new life that defies the denth-in-life from ~hl-ch I -h---"--=~-_U-wtirVCuVCuVCu I I he has been freed. A fragment fl9om iu-L unfinis-w entitlrc a Ill "The House" clearly protrays the difference belxeen the two 3radss Ill I of life, IR a dream, his new experience is contrasted ta his earlier experiences in the stultifying atmosphere of the law offices. Hsre he is being pulled through the courks by Titorelli:

In the twinking of an eye they were in the Law Courts and flying along the stairs. upward and dotsnward too, without the slightest effort, gliding along as easily as a buoyant craft [email protected]. And kt the very moment when 1;. looked down at his feet and came to the conciucion that this lovely rnoticm had no conmction with the lxm-dmm life he hsc! led until now--at %hat very monent over his i;t;at head the i;ransformtl~ionoccurred. (p, 30')) order, and now the transf omation occurs: "The .light; wnich until then had been behind them changed and suddenly flowed in a blind- ing stream tot~ardthexa. K. looked up . . . . He was in th.e corridor of the Law Courts again, but everything was quieter and simplel- and there were no conspicu.ow deta-ils. He took it all in at a gl.ance, detached himself from Titorelli and went his way." He has gained the li.ght,with which he can disintegrate the world from a new perspectlve. Now he 2s one with the world, *------.. " ---. - .- so he does not experience an opposition to it!. Ha no lorrger

.**a a < , .%,hw4L4- --* "a ~ -- needs it to stand apart from him so that he can use it to establish his existence. Wilhelm Emrich points out that K, is robosn here, as is illustrated by his change of clothes. ''In Kafka," ha says,

11 clothes always express a definite form of e~istonce,~!sad K.'s clothes are different now. 22 He was wearing a new long dark suit whi.ch comforted him by its wannth and weight. . . . In the corner of one of the passages he found his other clothes in a heap: the black jacket, the pin-striped trousers, and on the top the shirt stretched out with crumpled sleeves. (p. 309) Emrich also notes --another dream of Joseph K.ls which also points to rei?emption in death, It is entitled only- "A Dream" and, rass.fm with the parable, "Before the Law" was published in Kafkats collection "A Country Doctor," In it an artist is unable ta inscribe s. tcmbstone while K. watches, but when K. finally undnrstartds the artis-i;!~predicment and cratjls into the grave, he is just; &la to see how "up above, his name, in mighty f'1~1.u~ishes, raced across the stone. '! Emrich gives this rsascn for Kakf at s failure to include either of these .endings in the novel: "Inelusion of the dream would have gone against Kafka's conviction that in phenomenal existence on earth every truth Is pervertd to a lie. Truth and redemption bocome visible only Zn death, at the sight of the self upon the gravestone. ,, 23 How then is man to live? In the novel reason perverts

--.~*rw- --.~*rw- .% the tputh, it comes between K. and his experience. But man can wmS"B(-ijl, *&T*NP~P~,IVL&"+~'~~ 2.4 *,**,>* d- ,'-. ^**' ~2- "," 4. impossibly live without hqs rational faculty, for a social existence demands discourse, and discourse is predicated upon a denotative lmguage, Kafka recognized this, and thus he w~ote, / There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the worid of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only 211. the neceusitq of a moment in our eternal evolution, The use of the rational mind to orient oneself 4n the physLcd be viewed bagi-nnimr, he

come to grips with the problems of his physical. existence, unCi'l " - * -ur * %*=&*-- ~.W-=----*,YZ~~~

As long as he even remains alive, he cannot find full release-- he can orient himself toward release, as he does in the last chapter, but he cannot take his own life, even though he knows that this is his duty. / I'kxwugh the use of metaphor Kalfka is able to present. th5.s I

96 aatcstic meaning, Since the meaninig of the metaphor lies in r< its function, the Conrt is both good and evil: good in that it II_ .LC forces-X. into the 'truth; evil in that it forces him to die. As a metaphorical work, -The Tria1 also f'unct ions as that G L " $-* I" disruptive force which Foss describes as the essence of metaphor, CL xt, 4" in contrasting it to the simile and anology, which function fw$ \" within rational. systems: For it may now be stated: the simile and the analogy 13-nlc tho unknown to the kncwn, in an expedient and practical way, closing the problematic entity into a fmiliw, pattern. The metaphorical process, on the contrary, raises the problem even there where we seemed at home and shatters the ground on which we had settled down in order to widen ou view beyond any 1i.mi.t; of a special practical use, $5 Caught in the world of practical existence, too many readers of

Kbfka rail to notice tho metaphozical thrust or The Trial, which disturbs the static concepts we have to our environment. For many tjne work is an allegory, which like the simile or analogy, links the unknown (the novel) to the known ( the perceived environment) "in an expedient and, practical way, closinq p~ohlernatie-- entity into a familiar pattern," The novel tnus becomes psychological, sociological, or theological, whereas in truth the novel works to burst these categories+ in order to add a I& ole new dimension to human experJence. Insofar r as this realm cannot be reduced to familiar patterns it remains problematical ckd nmst be approached in its ongoing activity, for it remajns constan?; only ln this. In the fact thzt the work rcmaks problematical, it typlfies what Ccl.eridge nxxst htzre meant when he said of: the secon3ary imagjnntion +,;l:-:t"it? disbolves, diffuses, dissi>ztes, the static structures we have established, for it dafies one- dinensional meantng. The Court is not one definite "thing. " It is what it does. It forces K. to leave the world of the bank; it forces K, to negate his false social life; it forces K. to accept it against his will; yet it permits K. to enter a new freedom: it accepts K. when he comes. Kafira is un- 3 doubtedly a social writer, but not in the narrow terns of the -- _ ------comman problem of sociological alienation as a result of the ---- -" --______- _ , "__--- -..---.. ,- - - ..<" -"-- ---..-a". " technology or bureaucracy of our age. These problems are J ,----"C-----'-----"-- -.----"c-- --- " _ .. - - ~..-- ",'

subsumed in the larger problem which does not go beyo~dthe ,, , . individual person -2.-.-.*,- .-.-,,-.- Cassirer describes this metaphorical representation in terms of the mythic coneciousness: Gvery part of' a whole is the whole itself; every specimen is equivalent to the entire species. The part does not merely represent the whole, or the specimen its chss; they arc identical with the totality to which they belong; not merely as mediating aids to reflective thought, but as genuine presences which actually contain the poygr, significance and efficacy of the whole. Martin 3'oss also describes metapkmr*ical rep~essntationas opposed to rational representation: The idea of the "People," whereas it comes to 1 ife in. the history of mankj-nd, is a mythical or religious idea. It was a rationalistic misunder- stsinding that made the people a proqdct of convention, addition, comparison, or agreement. . . . Every person, transcending his purposive, reduced, and me,rely symbolic ego9 is a concentrated, purified, and widened unity of life. He is not less, but mors thm tho single men and their ap,gro@ate He in not just s part, bat more than the whole.5'r

After di scu~singthe fallacy of a cli..tmt itative rathe~than a q~nlitativoview of reprecontatio~,he goes on to say, The metaphorical representative . . . is not part and na addition of part8; he is no tool and he has nobody to release him fron his responsibility. He is alone, he is uniql~e. If he fails, all is lost. He must foe-L~ah~,bound~^_rs~~p~~sibilityfor thos e Tor w-h~-h,hcrs,t~~cl s , He i. s guz1 t y "'T6i?mV"- and takes the blame alone. JRf'g "lTf'Cj '3'9**tllrtngePoils, --- .--*-+.--v .. --?- . but it is not the &anger which threatens his own existence; it is the, dwmnf 7QSinRf;h~_.ca,~-se for whicLhaahhas, He is more poverful and more haxble thm the symbolic representative. The latter is very little, a mere instrmont, but he is proud to take orders from a bigger whole and to fulfill them. The true repreeserrt- ative is unrestricted,.. his responsibiliTY-TSS his brcxer, bu€-RT3"task snppasses the possibility 7 sfluml& and leaves him to the humility &..J 28 of, an infinite- -- service, Kafka himself seems to have been such a man,as Milena reveals " - .-" -,--.. =--.-,- - - - him in hey'letters: always thinks himself the guilty

and the weak one. And yet there is not another person in the whole wo?ld who has his tremendous strength: that absolute,

.- , irrevocable, necessary drivetoward pes-tie, purity, t~uth.... ------+.- That is how it And Kafka's protagonists are metaphorical ,------_ .-*-. - -- --.- --

representatives; their success or failure is the success or ,;*& _I^Xr _ failure of mankind, and that is why Rafka's works are so serious.

Joseph K. is not only one individual anlong a thousand. a-who is ------fighting for fighting. He is "'.-... w.,, *""---<* _ ..*-- also everyone attenpting to tdce cd.vmtage of everyone else--

n terrifying thought in view of the necessity of this activity even as it is negated in the novel. Yet as K. is brought face to face with experience the hold of the perverted order

about him is loosed a3 the disrupting medjation is obviated. L-..-- T%e metayhorical movement of the work which emuhasizes psima1 i reality brcaks the power of xtional though$ which holcis ovsr~g.bhingin subjection. Thus the' doath of K. is not a defe ctsry.

''Logic is doubtless unsha.kable, but it cannot withst= d a man who wants to go on living. " Max Brod is undoubtedly correct in emphasizing the optimiam as well as the pessimism of Kaf'ka.

'IPha very existence of the rnetaphori cal re a1 itg which subs~unes the social reality opens K. 1s way into that pew, ever-expanding .-.- - - - all-pervading good which in his f if'ty-fourth reflection-. pfka projected as the spiritual inevitability: There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution, The dilcmtia of Joseph I;. in The Trial is similar to the clilomnla of Pie-rre GlenGinring in -.-Pierre or, The Irmbi,pities.

How is men to live rrllen 14.fe has lost' all meah:;, mci ?~?~en the search for th3.t lost meanin5 leads to a complete denial cf man's very abLlity to live? Ster lierma~i.Ielville had wr?tts~ not F is too honest a~idcxmrageous to try to do f one or tho otht3r.l I Molville never did corns to a solution other than the one he points to in his works--the solution of death, as ne intimates to Hwthorne in 1856. Mmy of Melvillsls protagonists find the life they mils-i; lead a physical impossibility. Like Kafka,cs Josoph I<. , Pierre,Glendinning9 expmding awareness, for instance,everitually drives him to willful death. Melville parallels Kafka not only in dealing with the

impossibility of' finding truth in normal life, but also in developing this theme through, myth and metaphor. His concern

:?or ,t~?;eand free will is shot through with the truth that the reality of' man's experience is determined by each individ~~alos

unique approach to life; reality is the resnlt of ~-rlr?ll's ac.t;i.se canception rather thxn his passive perception. Moaning in

his works lies not in what something is but in what something

does, Indeed,-somsthing Q only by virtue of what it does. I

!TI.&I I 1~t2.r2s riot an arbit,rwy .?cct, it is the conseqpenca of' I

experieme, as is sho:.~n over and over both in Mel~~ille1 s .

four most meta.phorica1 novels md his numerous shovat stories \ written bet~een11348 and 1856. ~illsli,in Mardi, is much more

thm 3 Po-ynssian albino, silo is the goal of Tajils quest. iier existence cie-koarrl-ines the quast, and as she ceases to exist as 1 I1 - / I a reality, tk~onovel loses its metaphoric force, degenerating i into an allc:yorlcal treatise on the social and philosophical crew, which accepts Ahabts conception of' &he whale as the focal point of its existence. imd confidence ialThe Confidence -Man is finally the experience that virtue itself is a cheat, that truth 5s a lie. Pierre deals with the problem of truth in a slightly different nmnner from these three novels. In addition to presenting the activity of finding truth in the activity ofthe plot, Nolville examines the manner in which an author attempts to rind t?=.i~.t*lapart Zrorn the process of' ~evsalingit by giving it simpe in a work of art. The novel thus raises technical problem wh2ch aro compounded by a shift in focus as Melville move;, from a primarllg cirmatic plot to predoniinantly overt description and assertion. In the end, however the result of

Melville 1s continuing philosophical dilemma emerges more directly --thou.gh less artistically--than in any other of his r.rorks. The deeper man delves into truth the more falsehood he finds, despise the of his oxn existents.

"For Yne more and the more he wrote, and tho deeper and the deeper that he dived," 1-felville writes, Pierre saw the everla.sting elus iveness of Truth; the universal lwrkinz insincerity of even the

t-~;reilS,ost' and the the p'west :rritten thougats. ILke Im2vish cards, the leaves of all great books were covcrtly psc.bd, lie was but packing or,o set the more; ad that a. vwy poor jaucd set and pack indeed. So thzt there vns no-lhilz,~kc3 more spurlzed, t:l.~n his owG ti~p.ir*~tions; mth lng he mora ::bilorred thm~tne 1of't:est part cf ll-Lmself.2

cannot 15.~0in this co;n3Ltion, ru~dtk.7.1~ Piorlae nas no of life ovexonos the metGp!mr i.cal nctiv.ity of tlm novel; the process of revelnt-lon Paltars, overcome by rational assertions. Melville's own thoughts seem to fall to simile and allegory, concerned more with presenting a t-ruth than revealing truth in its imnedi..e.te activity. Thus the end of Pierre fails to rise above the negation of the hero's own death. The novel begins conventionallg, not only in terms of smviromnt, but also in terns of literary tradition, for it is placed firmly in the pastoral tradition. It fulfills a promiss that Ilelville had made to Ves. Hawthorne in answer to her letter of December 1851, in which she had praised Moby- -Bicli:, It:--~ut, My Dear Lady," he wrote, "E shall not again send you a. bowl of kalt water, I'he next chalice I shall coomend, wil-l be a rural b6wl of milk. lt3 The first pages cre almost stereotypes of romance pad a quiet country life, Thsre me some str;m-,e smxnor mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shd.1 eaxly walk for-t;n into the fields, md be wor~der-smitten with the trance-like asrjoot of the green and golden world, riot a flowex st.i.rs; the trees forget to Tsnve; the grass itself seems to have cease$- to grow; and all Nature, as if suddenly becarno consc5ous of her own pro- found mystery, and fcelinq no refuge from it but silence, sinks irito this t~onderfbland indescribable repose, Such was the mornins in June, when, issuing from the embowered and high-gabled old home of his fathers, Pierre, dewily refreshed ad spiritualised by sleep, gaily enteraed t'ne long, wide, elm-archsd street of the vi-llage, md half unconsciously bent h?.s steps tovprd R cottqe, which peeped into view nenr the end of the vista, The verdant trance lay Tar and vide; and thrcvql~:t nothirq cane b?~tthe brindled !c3.ne9 4r.esmi.ly wtin2or5m; to t:leir [email protected],Sollov6d, not dr iv@n, by rw';idy-cheeked, white-footed bogs. 'is tc;uchod 'md beiri tchcci b-7 the 1ovelirass of this silonce, Pierre na:?red the cottage, nLd .li.ttcd his eyes, he sui:'tl-,r pmsed, i'ixed his glznco upon ono upper, open casement there. Nhy now this impass ; oned, youthf'ul pause? Why this enk-indled cheek and eye? Upon the sill of the casement, a snow-white glossy pillow reposes, md a trailinfi; shrub has softly rested a rich, crir?sori flower a~ain.stit, Well mayst thou seek that pillow, thou odoriferous flower, thoxght Piorre ; not an hour ago, her own cheek must have rosted there. "Lccy !" "Pierre!" As hewt rings to heart those voicos rang, and for a moment, in the bri~hthush of the morning, the two stood silently but ardently eyeing each other, beholding mutual ref lsctions of a boundloss admiration and love.

Scarce older thew either Romeo or Guliet, and with rione of tiie-ir problems, the two face the world with a boundless cheer. In the fifst chaptess of the navel Elelville very consciously sets out to estsblish the impeccable heritage of his hero. 14at content to ~irnjjlyportray the rural setting, he stops to emphasize its significance: In concl~~sion,do not blame me if I hero make ye~etitlon,and do verbally- quote- my own words ia"saying ihat it had been the choice fate of Pierre to have bean borr? and bmd in the bountr . POP to a noble imerican south this indee+ --more than in my other lmil--hs indeed is a nost rwe ~.ndciloice lot. (I, 4,Tielvillels emphasis) Melville then spends some pages in emphasizing the superiority of Amepican aristocracy over that of the old world in order to provo Piorrel s worthiness. "Should she choose to glorify herself in that inconsiderable way--our America will make out a good gsnoral case with England in this short little matter of laqe estatos, long pedigrses L mean, wherein Is no flov.:'

NalviZle prose?nt;a Pierro t s cmcestry, shcwin~him to bo Yns

cuPmlnotian or zlVce now world generations. Over an archcd window En the hail of the manor hangs a tattered British banner or two, captured by his grandfather, whose nme Pie~re now proudly carries. This qrandf ather, a Kajor-General in the Revolutionary War, has albo won battles over Indians in scuffles befo~ethe break with England. But no victories can turn him from honorlnz man's basic virtues:

And all this was done by the mildest hearted, and most blue-eyed gentleman in the world, who according to the patriarchal fashion of those days, was a gentle ,whi..';e-liaired worshipper of all the household gods; the gentlest liusband and the gentlest father; the kindest of masters to his slaves; . . . a forgiver of many injuries; a sweet-haarted, charitable Christian; in fine, a pure, cheerful, childlike, blhe-eyed divine old man; in whose meek, majest?-c soul, the lion and the lamb embraced--fit image of his God. (11. 3) On his mother's side Pierre is also the grandson of a general,

and is therefore of double revo2utionary descent, But, like in his grandfather, this manly blood is tempered by the deepest element of' all culture. It had been a maxim with the father of Pierre, that all gentlemanhood was vain; all claims to it preposterous md absurd, unless the primeval gentleness and golden humantties of religion had been so thoroughly wrought into t;he complete texture of the character, that he who pronounced himself gentlexan, could also rightfully assume the meek, but kingly style of Christian. At the age of sixteen, Pierre partook with his mother of the Holy Sacraments. (I. 2) Tkre diynity of Pierre 's breeding is further accented by Melville s relimce on the content of the Old .md New Testaments in .des-

cribing Piems and his ancestry, thereby raising Pierre 1 s illustv3 otl.sness by association. In addition to calling the eldest Pierre Glcndirming a patriarch, further allusions are micie to the Iiobrews , Gc,d 'Y chosen race. His mother is not only called Mary, but she is f'urther compared to Christ la mother by tho narrator's description: she is among the purest of women, whose vanity "in (i life of nearly fifty years had never betraysd her into a single published impropriety, or caused her one hown pang at the he~xt." So ordered are her feelings, especially to her only son <\?hose father slready rests in heaven), that Pierre's reverence for her is "invested with all. the proudest delights and witcheries of self-complacency, which it is possible for the most conquoring ---virgin to feel" (I. 3. My emphasis), She thanks heaven for Pierrels obedience and praya God that he might never be "called out to be a hero of some dark hope for1orn1l

(16. Lovely, blond Lucy, Pierre ts betrothed, is repeatedly referred t~ as "heavenly1' and "angelic," By the standards of men, the hero of Mslville's novel can only be termed as among the fommosi; of the human race. He embodies all the graces that traditions of civflization have cultivated. Amid the description of grandeur, however, warning notes appear continually, as if to mar the effect of the p~aise. Fhmgh the country is a glorious benediction to Pierre, the nar:?ctor hints, "we shal.1 see if that blessing pass from him as did the divi.na blessing from the Hebrews. The apex of the religio~xsdlusion, in which Pierre is compared to Christ kinrself, a7.30 casrias a direct wmning: "Such, oh thou son of nmi are the perils and the miseries thou callest down on thee, when even irt a. v~rt;uov.scaGse, thou steppast aside from thoso a.~-.bitrarylines of' conduct, by which the common world, however h~isormd dmtardly, surrounds thee" (x. 1). The first intimations are much milder though, as the reader is told that one little uncelestial trait is the hearty appetite of Pieme, espaci ally for breakfast . Yet.when one remembers the youth of Pierre, and that his manly brawn and muscle loudly clamor for attenttonthree times a day, this vary vice beeornos a ~oyal grace and honor. ma$, however, only points to the truth that appearances ma7 be deceiving, cnd that even Pierre Is country breeding may be other than it seems. Thou.?& llHature intended a rare and original development in Fieme, '' in planting him in the country, "hereby she proved amblgus~~sto him in the endt' ( 1. 4). l?~~rther,though Pierre is a thorough-going Democrat, the namator hints that his democracy may praove '!a little too

I-adical altogether" in tne end. IWc~ing zt description of

Fierre 1s haritage, the narrator cautions, "Now Pierre stads olz this noble pedestal; tm shall see ii' he keeps thzt fine footing; wo ~11~11see if Pate hnth not just a little bit of a small word or two to sRy in this worldtf (I. 4). Prom almost the first page of the book, Melville bugins to questicn tho order that he goss to great lengths to establS.nl-1.

9e hints constmtly that surface truths are not to be trusted, and that no rnat'c8.r how d-eep tradition reaches, truth may lie beyorid it,:: r=;~e. Truth is a product of experience, and that is somothhg Pierre lacks, for them is a "hiatus" in the "~iweotly- writ nanuscrlpt of Pierrsls life" since "a sister nad been < om~ittsdf-rm tho te:ctf' (I. 2). Tho fi~llelstappreciation of

Pierm1s hwitaqo cannot suffice to fill that: vacuum, Tor the n%u?ratorpair:ts out, ':l!o ?~hoj s sisterless, 5.s as R b~lchalor

< before his time. For much that goes to make up the deliciousness of a wife, already lies in the sister'' (2.2). All of Pierre's material possessions md all of his pride of heritage carnot make up for the blow that nature has dealt him in keeping him sisterless, Being a double bachelor Pierre cannot have entered re& life yet;, for he has never been exposed to the experieime of the heart and its "heavier woes, that . . .. both purge the soul of gay-hearted errors and replenish it with a saddened trubh" (V, 1). Nelvj.lle reveals the impossibility of bachelor imaginat;ions even conceiving wos in a short sketch entitled "Paradise of' Bachelors," which he wrote a few years latar: The t2nin.g called. pain, the bugbear styled trouble-- t;hose two legends seemed preposterous to the bachelor imaginations. ?low could men of liberal sense, ripe ocholarship in the world, and capacious philosophical and convivi a1 underst mdinrjrs--how could they suff ala Lhemselves to be imposed upon by such monkish f'ab es? Pain! Trouble! hs well talk of Catholic miracles. k As the reader sees shortly after, Pierre is a man of liberal.

sense md ripe scholarship, and woe is foreign to his nature. "Yet have P never known thee Grief," he says, "--thou art a

legend to mc" (VII. 7). I2 Pierre deceives himself about his true condLtion, h5.a mother has a similar fault. One day, when Lucy brinp a bowl of' stxawberriea to tho Glondinning manor Mrs. Glendinning com:?r;res hersolf to Lucy .and finds herself superior, She

feels that "in a cert;ain intellectual- vigor, so to speak,"

s!te is tila ''os%enti~1opposite of Lucy, whose sympathetic mind

and porsozl I:.?d baen cast in one mold of' Wondrous delicacy." Essc; the narx%ot;orinterposes ngr?i h. Rut hero I4rs. Glendinning was both right md wrong. So far as she here saw a dlfferenca between hsrself and Lucy Tartan, she did nct err; but so f~--~mdthat was very fw--as she thought she saw her innate superiority to her in the absol-ute scale of being, here she very widely md imcasuri'.bly -erred. For what may be ~.rtiftticcllystyled angelicalness, this is the highea t essence conpatible with created being; and tzn~elicalncsshath no vulgar vigor in it And that thing which very often prompts to the diaplq of -my vigor--which thing, in man or woman, is at bottom nothing but rmbition --this q.rality is purely earthly, and not mgsllcnl. (111. 3) Ltucyls xath@r, as well, is a little given to calculating her sqmric:--Lty in riches of earth, rather than in those of heaven:

But even 1,1~cyherself Ls perhaps not withvut taint. SLe is a child of tho city in spite of the fact that she spends her swrrmers at. her arnt 1s cottage in Saddle Needom. She is a womi'a, like Pierre's mother, wno is intent on basing her , secu~itgon isc-tom she can c'ontrol, and for her this means rny~teries;i'or har Sho ties to Pierre shall be based on that trepidation %hat; 3. feel, I do conjure thee, that thcu wilt ever contin~eto .do :is thou hast dons; so that; I may ever continue to laow u.3.1 tl:-a.t; scitatest thee, the airiest and most tvlnns:ient t':?ou&t, that ever shall sweep Lnto thoo "-+c:rl? .the wide atmosphere of all things that he13 ~r.0??%.?.5.it;~. -:lXd I doubt thee here ;-- co.i.?.lr":I over. think, that thy hemt hath yet one ?T'?.vE~G ncck or c-orner from me ;--fatal tliscm~chant-;1n.g day Por me, my Pierre, would that bs. T tell thee, Pierre--ad Itis Lmel;s own %e:!i' that now speaks th~oughno-- only in iinbounded confidence and interchmgings of all ~StZsst;secrets, can Love possib1.y endure. , . . Did I cnlg know of theo, what the whole comnon v:orl,.:l ;:lay i~~low--whatthen trere Pierre tx me? (11,';5) Li.-i;tls cioes LQcy Iaoiq that the profoundest depths of the hv.man hem% svsr lie beyond the power of even the most willing to bring tliss.!:. to the surface, even for an 'Lnstanl;, Reason grasps for complsts kn(nraled@c; life md. truth must be content to leme

which Lucy t:esi~os, for she :is really asking P-ierre to del5.c~~ up the control of his experience: "Than, swear to me, do=

Pierre, -C;h~..t;thou wllt never keep a secret from me--no, never, never;--SWC:W!" 'l'i1is ~issa~lton the fortress of life 1s secmt can, of cGnrse, avail nothing but f'utility. ' Sornet;hing seizes

03 my haart, have xm-r turned it to R s$one. I feel icy cold

h4wd; S will liot srmar! " Life 1s mysteries ma not to bo . sbtajned jvst by demmd.ing then, they two the product of pain- i ~nuclrher own ever-sweet i.nterpreter, as the mere supplior of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as

he pleases, each man reads his cwrr peculim lesson according to his om1 pecr~liurmind e.nd mood!' (X:*T. 4). Pierre ccmnat te2'1. Lucy about th.a dwlr face, for that dark face is a secret of his

life which. he has not even reveal.ed to h-irnself yet. -

But psrhaps that face is comprehended by Pierre anyway, for '!heyo it mo,y be randonly suggested, , . . whether some t;iir;gs that men think they do not know, are not for all that

thoroughly comprehended by them; amd yet, so to spoak, though contained in themselves, are kept a secret f~omthenselves?" (33. The experience of his life is to be the affi~mat~.on of that face, which will initiato him into "the wisdom .i;lic.t is

woo, " =d the woe that is madness. 4.' In hmboring a secret at the vital centre of his bei~g, Ficr*re sets himself apart not only from hy,- but from others who pretend to control the secret processes of life itself.

LUC:~+~Smo.';her in not only purse-proud, for instmce, she j.s dso

u xatc'i-i~:aksr, over attenpting to improve on the efforts of Kzt-

we. Tho~~gh110~ program ~'CP L:ncy and Pierre is, l'iri some rle:;rsot'

3.lrcady ox*i:aked In heaver~,lies.- .- Tmtm years ago had Bacal

mrkinq plans .?or tks two, If the marriage ware indeed set in also belong to tho preposterous world: they are naval gentleman who not only attempt to control the affairs of nations, but the affairs of their sister as well. Coining home from sea one day

and finding Pierre on the sofa not very remote from Lv-cy, they remar*k, ''This is decidedly improper." Pierre Is mother is mother who shuns the labyrinthine ways of deeper life, md sho insists on I ordering hai- environment by ironclad rules of tradition and dogma.

As the experience of the face grasps Pierre he realizes that I his mother has excluded so much of the real world because .it I

doos not fit into her pattern of strict control that she em1 nsvar understand him. She was a noble creature, but forned chiefly for tho zildea prosperities of life, and hitherto mostly used 1x1 i.ts unruffled serenities; bred and expanded, in all develo_nmcntc, a*1deP khe sole influence of heredit- ary forms znd world-v-sages. Rot his refined, courtly, loving equable mother, Pierre feXt, could unreservedly, and li.ke a hewonts heroine, meet the shock of his extraorc7trlnaxy emergency, mcl applsud, to his heart s echo, a sublime resolve, whose execution should cd.1

doxn t;he asto-nisinment and the jeers of the world. ' lie too plainly saw, that not his mother had made his mother; but the Infinite Xaughtiness had first fashicned her; and. then the haughty world had further molded her; nor had a haughty Ritual omitted to finish her, (V, 2) His fears rre born out by the action of his mother when the

reverend ib. Falsgrave comes to consult her about the case of

belly Ulver who had born a child to the man of anothes wife,

Religion doos not lead her into a. reality beyond her own con-

fined spiritnal locale, it is nothing but r tool wh.ic11 she usas to order her social surroundings, in spite of Pierrsts ar ,~z!lent s : "1 will not think now of the mein, " said Plesra, sJ.owlg, and looking away from both his nud-itors-- " let us speak of Delly and her Ln- font--she has, or had one, I have loosely heard; --ths5.r czse' i.o miserable indeed. I' "The mother deserves it," said tho lnd.y, infle~iklg--''~ndthe child--reverend sir, what ere the words of the Bible?" " "The sins of the father shall be visited upn the children to the third generation, Iff Y aid Mr. Falsgrnve. Wherr the minister adds that this does not mean that they nnrst

refuse th.e si-nleas child assCstmce, Mrs, Glendinning continuos, '$1unc?e~vtand ycu, sir, . . . you chink me too censorious, Bilt if wo ontirely forget the parentago of the; ch?.!d, smd every w~yreceive the child as we wmld mzy ocher, reel for it in all respects tho same, anu attach no sign of' ignominy to it--?-~ow thm is the Bible dispcnnetlon to be fulfilled?" (V. 4) As we have seen, the Tunctian of' man's reason is bent tor~sz~d

the orderizg of a3.1 experkence into a defined psttern ir, which every phenoma-mn becomes known in relation to o%!:er defined phenemcrm ~bmtit.6 Hrs. Glendinning has achieved this closed.

systsm, md she directs all her affairs according to it. Lucy also finds herself' with-in the confines of a systematized exioten.ce, and she ferns anything o~tsideits bounds. When Pierrs refuses to give up his secret so that she can in- cmJporaSs it icto her frame of referenc.e, she becomes afraid,

Ti-[at over which one has no control because it stands outside ttiiK conscious patterns of existence, threatens to force itself

into axpr,:c~i.cneo, thereby sbattoring the structures of one Is

secv~ity, Pic.rre himself fears thj.s, so when he reels the bonds

* thst unite 'Lucy to izirn begin to disuolva as Lucy begs him to

EWC~?~,i'~ crG8yk~ up, attempting to bring under control that which ~hreatsnahim by trying to nubjugate it to the most powerful force with which he still feels secure: "God help thee, and God help me, Lucy. I cpn not think, that in this most mild and dulcet air, the invisible agencies are plotting trea8on.s against ou'r loves. Oh! if ye be now nigh us, ye things I have no name for; then by a name that should be efficacious--by Christ's holy name, I warn ye back from her and me. Touch her not, ye airy devils; hence to gow appointed hell! why come ye prowling in these heavenly purlieus? Can not the chains of Love omnipotent bind ye, fiends?" Whsroas Pierre is willing to fight that which is immanent to him, Lucy just wants to flee from it, "Up, my Pierre; let us up, and fly these hills, whence I fear, too wide a prospect meets us. Fly we to the plain" 1 5). Truly that which she perceives is too wide a prospect, bu.b it is not physical, though she can flee from it by forcing her mind to disown it8 apprehensions, just as Pierre's mother does, Unlike Lucy and his mather, Pierre does not wholly reject the expe17ience which threatens his comfortable ltfe: it has an attractson for him, because his is not a prosaic mind, but a poetic one. He senses that the experience of the face, which he comes to symbolize metaphorically by calling it; Grief, is somehow identified with the sweetmss of poesy. "Yet I kavs never known thee, Grief; --thou art a legend to me.

I have ZCE~~Isome fiery broils of glorious frenzy; I have aft tasted of Tevery; whence comes pensiveness; whence comes sad- nssa; whoece all delicious poetic presentiments;--but thou,

Grief! ayt st53.1 a ghost-story to me" ( 11. 7). The poetic sc0~6of Fia~~e~slife is not relegated strictly to poetry itself, but consists ~f that area of his self which is willj-ng

to move beyond the confining strictures of life as it is

systematized by those about him. Hence, when he first sees Isabel, he cannot but afcirm the emotions he feels. '!The terrors of the face were not those of Gorgon; not by repelling hideousness d.id it smite him so; but bewi.l.deringlg allured him, by its nameless beauty, and its long-suffering, hopeless

This poetic nature which &ivss him to the affirmation of the face of Isabel is not totally unrelated to his physical nature as well. "Ke wn sensible, the narrator rela%es, "that this general effect upon him, was ~lsospecial; the faca sone- how mystica:Lly ~ppeslingto his own privato and indivkdual

affections. '' Tne story continues,

Resicks , vrh3t of' general enchantment lurker? in his strs-rlqe sensations, seemed concentringly cocdensed, =d gointed to a spew-head, that 111' pierced his he=t with m inexpllcn-3le pmg, liii whcne-t.rer -tihe speci nlizing emot;ior,--to call it !I so--sei.zed the possession of his tho~e;hts,and. Ii!l waved iu:';e. hta visions, a thousand forms of b;~- gone times, and many En old legenday f~mily scans, w'lich he3 had hoard related by his 5laerPy relatici-is, sane of them now clead. (111, 2)

These "tZ Id. rever4es1! c?ro not the same as the memories of

stories. told i5-m of 3is g-rmdfather~smilitarly feats, They are secrets that he will never share wlth his mther, for, "not . red. oxper-isnce is not even found in the sight of the face itself.

Eat his pr;csfo~~ndcuriosity pad interest in the met-ter--s&rar~pe as it may seem--did not so much appear to be embodied in- the mournful person of the olfve girl, as by some radiations from her, embodied in the vague conceits which a5itated his own soul. ~11eFelu-eked the subtler secret: that-..2 P~OITO had stri-cren to tesr &way. From -w:thout. no -$ronderful effect is wrouvht witnin ourselvus, unless some interior res onding wonder Gets-- it.-[ 1x1. 2.' hbohasis adde-%r%- to as6 sentence. ) This -principle of the active conception of reality is the basis of the development of Pierre's affairs throughout, Oat of this pz~inciplearises the truth that perhaps "some things that men thinlr they do not know, are not for a11 that thorron~~;klycomprehended by them" ():XI. 3) . It is a principle

2;'hc.k Pissrw 1 Y poetic nature had followed since c.hi.3dhood, in c as we told, man constructs his fate. "So, io youth, do TJC ~ncons~iouslyact upon those pcculiar principles, which . . . shall systematically regulatr? our maturer lives" (XX. I-). *om smly youth Pierre has thus been subjected to two principles, the prosatc of hisenvironment, and especially of hPs mother, and the poetic of his own soul. For nineteen years now, he has

1.ivod in tho prosr;ic, and for a good period of thzt time he has 3.onged to s~mehowadd a new dimension to his 21fe. That now dimension appears in the parson of Isabel, who is the answer to his prayers. Thus, ere entranced i.n the gentler bonds of a lover; thus often would Pierre invoke he~venfor a sister, (I, 2) Melville reproduces the emotions of Pierre in the mind sf line reads13 by a constant forah~dowing. By refusin;; to foll.ow the progression of the story chronologicall-y, hs presents the ~ctivityas it occurs fn the soul of Plerre, which is not bound by time and space but only by its own psyeholog3..cal necessity. The first inimations that Melville presents concerning the attraction of Pierre to Isabel occur before Isabel has even. appewed in the chronological se411eizce of merits, md the presentiment of danger comes not from Pierre, but from his mothsr, whose thankfulness unconsciorasly projects her fears which are to be realized later. "EGW glad I a%,!' she says, thinking of Lrxcy, blonrte and blue-eyed, "that Pierre laves hex1 so, and not some dark-eyed htiught inesu, wit11 71 eouZd ~CV~T live in peace. '' (I. 6) Though this "dark-eyed haughtinesst' does not denote Isabel here, the darkness is presented as the opposite of' the Telicity et Saddle Meadows, and thus, whorl transferred i;o Isabel later she becomes a negation of Vlzt which P5erre experiences in his youthful naivete. Introducing

Xse.bel j.n this manner, FleZville pmpares th.e reader for tae poetic runderi-ng of Isabel, by which she bocomes a totallty of experience to Pierre, for even bei'nro she oppezrs she represcrltv a tiweat.. Flcxt the concept of Isab~lis int~ociucedby L~:cy, t::iiic she t;nsi ;PTsrre arc out In Lho wicloness or hil-Is. hgairr tl;o Let US hi6 homewcurd, Piorre. Somo nameless sadness, faintness, strangely comes to me. Foretaste T; feel oi' endless dreariness. Tell me once more tile story of that face, Pierre,-- that mysterious , haunting face, which thou once told'st me, thou didst thrice vainly try to ahu.n. . . . Pierre . . . tell me the story of the face,--the dark-'eyed, lustrous, imploring, aiourni'il?. tsce , that so myst j-cally paled and shrunk rt thine. (11. 5)

The experience of the dark-eyed face 1s thus presented by the two people closest to Plerre before it ever kppears in reslity. Later this is augmented by Pierre's association of the face with grief when the image of the face overwhelms hin as he retreats to the pine tree behind the mmor. Presented prior to her chronologf cal appearance like this, she seems Lo transcend the norms1 rai;ional' categories of time and space within the ox:pi;xatence of Pierre before he aoes her at the sewing bee, She beooncs 2 postrc necessity before she is revealed as a phgslcal re dity .tn the novi?l..

PleTr.s:s aff'i.rmat4.on of Isabel whetz ke reads her latter '

- s tke~elno~~ii fo~85one crzncltislon; it is both a psyc~olagical. prc'i L., a pcs<;;,.c: I,~~~~~.~. i-rrl. ." *-, r>.nd tims a mythic ss!;llitg, The flobill as of specter-boatsn ( 1 2) Pierre 'has here entered the world of Isabel, ~13.0 has not been brought up in the world of reason and convention. Hex world pe~spectivedoes not isolate her from her emlronment through the process of rattonal objectification without her being conscious of it. She must tell herself that the snake is not human, but that she is; when she sees the li,ghtning flash, she must tell herself, "The lightning is not human, but I m human" (VI. 5), Eqen this simple objectification is unwelcome to her, for she would be a part of the flux of the univorse. 1 pray for peace--for motionlessness--for the feelin: of myself, as of sons plant, absorbing life without seeklng it, 2nd existing without individual sensat2on. I feel that there cmbe no perfect peece in inC.ivich~alness. Themfore, I hope one day to Pocl myseli' bank up into the pervading spirit mimatlng all Ulings. I feel I an1 an exile here. (VI. 4)

When Pierre first receives the note, he Finds hj.mself in a confltct between rational. and poetic modes of bohaViour•‹.

On tizs one hmd he tells himself', Piem*e! thou apt foolish; rebaild--no, not that, for thy shrine still sttanas; it stands, Pierre, firmly sts.116-s; smcllest thou not its get undeparted, em- bowerlng bloom? Such a note as thine cm be easily enough written, Pierre; impostors am not unknown in this curious world; or the brisk novelist, Pierrw, xi11 writo thee fifty such notes, end so atoai !~rsIlingter.rs i'rm hl.s m:rc?or 1s cps; even as -t;?g note SO st~tu1p;elyxaae ";tlLnt. osni manly eyes SO ,wid; so ~;1172ed, and so ariij, 1)ie:tare-- i'~olis.%Pierre l

fit Ets cc~;cl'ort&lo pattern throu@-1 tho process ai? YE^ ion- Oh! noclt not the poniarded heart. Tne stabbed man knows the steel; prate not to him that it is only a tickling feather. Feels he not tks interior gash? What does this blood on my vesture? and what this pang in my soul? (IV. 2)

-4s Pierrs Traes himself from the bonds of thought patterns that would hold him From Isabel., he gradually accepts her as the physical objectification, of that which is immment to him. 1rJh~rea.she had recognized and repulsed 'it partially with Iacy in the hills, where he had tried to conjure it away, he now concentrates a11 his thoughts on her. He strives "to condense her mysterious haze into some def bite 8nd corrprohensible shape," (VII. 7) but even this becomes ImpossiSla. Ha cannot rasi st giving hinsol.f conqle-5ely to that which he has af f lr.med in the unconscioun .wsa of his mind. After his fi.sst vislZ; -to her he cannot find my rest in the world about him or even within himeal-f.

He co>;.Id not bri-rip; himself to confront any face or house; a plowed fTeld, any sign of tillage, the rottepi stl~mpof a long-felled pine, the slightest passi-r:g tr~ceof man was uncongenial and. repelling to 'ni.m, Likewise in his own mind all rsmenbrmces and Irnagini~gsth~t had to do with the conmon and ~,enerall:,unnnity hau become, Tor the tine, in tine nost sizi,xiar manner distasteful to hint, . . , [&re3 :n the most withdrawn and subtlest region of his own essential spirit, Pierre coula not now find one sinplc agreeable twig of thou~htwhereon to perch his weary soul, (VII. 7) Pierre responds to Isabel the way the magical kwitar responds to her breath and carresses. Pierre is [email protected] up in that, mi- versa1 oacncss of which Isabol speaks longingly. ks !'all the four winds of the world of. melody Loreal3 looso . . . only in n still nore srlbt?.lo, and wholly inoxplicuble way, Pi~rro r; ,'i,;,ld illnisoiC surrrsunlod by ten t,liousa?ti sprites a~dg!lcm(?o. md his whole soul [is] swayed and tossed by supernatural tides (VIII. 2). Pierre's noble nature has ever striven to uphold tho higheat v:i.rtues that he had been taught enmated from the will

of God.. In Isabel this training and his motions merge as he

finds there both En outlet for noble action and an object of veneration wnich attracts him by a force previously unknown, "That intense and indescribable longing, whlch her letter by ii;a very incoherencies had beet embodied proceeded from no bass, vain, or ordinary motive whatevsr; but was the unsuppressfble

wid amis5s:r~blecry of the godhead through her soul, commanding

Pierre to fly to her, md do his highest; and most glorious duty in tb.e world." The call pervades the wkole world, for there

is ''no veto of the earth1' that can forbid the "deep voice or the bein5 of Isabel" calling to him "from out the inmerise d-istancas

of slzg md air" (X. 1). Is8.bel is more th,m a single person; the "being of Isabel" c

02-ies of tho mfnd, as Pierre realizes before he receives her

Q "For me," he says, ! thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseachinq countenance of mystery, underlying all the < + surfaces of visible time ar~dspace, (111. 2). To Pierre she see.-m

to be R c~eaJCumunaf'focted by physical reality, for thcugh he

kncr;s that by deduc6ive reckoning she must be oldor thatn he, he is "conscions of a feeling wl~ichindependently ~lwono~mc~~ him her ser!ior in point of Tirne, Iscibel is eternal, ''s child E i is a ~ealltyof innate knowledge whfuh lies beyond analysis and.

synthesis. ''In thaj.r pmcise tracings-out; and subtle causations, the strongest and fiercest emotions of I.ife defy all analytical Insight," says the narrahr (TV. 1)

For there is not faith, and stoicism, and no philosophy that mortal man can possiblz evoke, which will sS,md tlie final test of a real impassioned on- set of Life rind Passion upon him. Then all tne fair pkilosophic or Faith-phantoms that; he raised from the misi, slide away and disappear as ghosts at cock- crow. For Faith md philosophy are air, but events me braGs,. (XXI, 2) In Isabel Pierre e.x.periences this quality of life, these events of brass. To deny these would be to deny the whole world, Pos it would be a denial of a reality reaching down to the batton of his soul. It is an entirely different reality from anything he has e,:pc2ienced befcre. ''Oh, hitherto I haw but pj-led tlp

wor6.s; 'omght books, and bought some mall experiences, and

builded me ic iibrariss," Pierre confesses, :'now I sit dokn and

read.:' He realizes that, to his detriment, he has Seen too eo:l- corned about matters of the mind. ''Well may this head hang on my breast, '' he signs, "--it holds too much. He continues, ~61.1mxy niy heart knock at my ribs,--prisoner impatient of his iron bars. Oh, nen are jailers all.; jailers of themselves ; and in Opinion's world igno~antlyhold their noblest pxrt a c~~ptivoto the vilest. (Ir, 1) Ssefng his error, Pierre give<;himself over to experience

that defies the strictures of the mind, As if illumined by slec:tr~icJ.t;~,ha now suddenly sees the world differently, unaltered by tho shock. . . . kt hor changed aspect, when first revanl-ed to him, PLerre had r('1zed in a panic; and now, when tho elestrica.1 stom hacldgone by, he retained in his r!j.ncl, that so sucidelzly revealed image, with an infinits mournfulness. (V. 1) In seeing this all so clearly, Pierre is forced out of the world of the past, The conviction that he must loavo home now though is the cillmination of a process of' estrangement that has begun long before. From the moment he first sees Isabel, he is drawn away from his mother, even though he cannot understand why. "Was this his wont?" he asks himself when he lles to his mother after leaving the sowing bee. "What inscrutable thing was it, that so suddenly had seized him, and made him a falsifier

--SIT, a fzlsifyer and nothing less--to his own dearly-beloved, and confiding mother?" (PIT. 2). His relationship with Lucy undergaes a similar experience: "God help thee, and God help me, Ii he says to her, but he knows that he cannot divulge rizore thm he c9168~dy has about the face. Up~nthe receipt of the Xbtter, Piarrs begins to understand the reasons for his dilemma: his mother*, and ~the~s,ho realizes, do not live in the same world he dosa, Ind.eod, his mother does not communLcate with e,but only with her image of him.

Sac 10~8thme, agf--but why? Bad T been cast in a cri~p3ejsmold, now then? Uow, do I remember thcit in hcr mccj",carossing love, there ever glsmed some scsiy, @itteri.ng folds of pride. Me she loveth wit11 pride 'Y love ; in me she thi.nkr, she seeth her oxn curled ~ni!I.:a~z;hty beatxty; befcre my glnss she atmds, --pride !s prie,stess--and to her mirrored. inage, not to rim, sLo offers up her offerings 01' k?.ssea. (Y, 3)

She 1.ivor 5.~1 tho world of her const~iction,refvslng to own sny ot;her thel? ?lor cwrt redlity, Shs di.slilros tho portrait of Pierre 1s father painted before her marriage became in it he appears differently from the way in which she knew him: "It is not he, she would emphatically and almost indignantly exclaim . when more urgently besought to reveal the cause for so unreasonable a dissent from the opinion of nearly all the other connections and relatives of the deceasedi1 (IV, 3). In his fancy Pierre considers ~evealingIsabel to his mother, but he recognizes the futility of attempting to caus9.a change in the edifice of his mother's creation:

And as Pierre thus in fancy led Isabel before his mother; and in fancy led her away, and felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mout~h, with her transfixing look of incredulous, scornful horror; then Pierre's enthus- iastic heart sunk in and in, and caved clean away in him, as he so poignantly felt his first feeling of the dreary heart-vacmcies of the conventional life, (V. 1) Thfs conventional life deprives men of' that which is next to them, and it now deprives Pierre of his paternity: 'Oh heartless, proud, ice-gilded world, how I hate thee," he thirkb;,, "that thy t;yramnous, insatiate grasp, thus now in my bittemst need--thus do%h rob me even of my mother; thus doth make me now do3clb1y an& aryhan, without a green grave to bedew': (V. 1). He feels himself '"driven out an infant Ishmael into the deserk, with no maternal Raga to accompany and comf'ort himn; he now realizes that "not long will Joy zbide, when Truth doth come, nor Grief hsr lclggard be. '! Then, realizin,~as -1mll why he ha:3 been .forcod to leave he cries inwardly, "27he heart! tho b.e&rt!

!$is Cad~sanointed; let me pursue tho heart!" Conf ~ontedvi. tli the choice of "God or Lucy" he cannot choose Lucy, for she Goo is of this worid of reason and convention which stultifies the Be casts aside all previous ccnstraints, and defies even the strongest canventAo~lsby deciding to I.eave Saddle Meadows with his sister in tho pretence that she is his wife, If the conventional

world wlll exclude the unfortunate from its domain, he will affirm them in his, and thus he even chooses to tako belly

UXVG~alon:~, So radical is his break that he destroys even the

nost pr~eciousof mementos in an nttempt. to affirm tile new Life

of .the heut that It3 will. lfve. 'tHowcan. lifelessness be fit

rnemm?ial of life?" he asks. Now I kn~wthis, tha.t in commonest memorials, the trilli ybt fact of death first disclosas in some secr7et way, all the mbi,guities of that depart-sd %king or pPson; obliquely it casts hints, and inslm ates surmises base, and eternally incapable of beins cleared. Decreed by God Omnipotent it is, that %:.tth should be the last scene of the laat act of manta play; . . Therefore, never rnoro w131 I play the vile pigrnjr, and by smsll memorials after death, attempt to reserve the decree of death, by essaying tho poor perpetilating of tho image of the originnl, Let dl die and mix again, (XII, 3) He flings the portpait of his father, the very thing which told

him of bls relationship to Iszbel, into tho firs, uneasi1.y

notins the linements of' his father 1s face sta,rir,g at him in boseacbing lmrroll as it tiiszppears forever, Too late he grasps

intcj tho fim to attenpt a. rescue, Failing that, he rushes

back to k!;a chest, and flings his family papers into the P:L:a!ss,

I1 I?-Lnus . . . I fling fpesh spoils; pour out all my ~nemoy,y jn ons Ilbation! . . now all i~ 126

Little does Pierre rsallze the impl.ications of stepping from one realm of existence to another. How shall his poetic heart thrive in t7ii.s "banteping, barren and prosaic age"

(I6) ' Listing r. multitude of ills that Pierre foresees, but fails to take seriously, the narrator compares him to Christ: Such, oh thou son of man! are the perils and the miseries thou callest down on thee, when, even in R virtuous cause, thou steppest aside from thoso mbitary lines of conduct, by '~d~Lch the common world, however base and dastardly, surrounds thee for thy worlclly good. (X, 1) Pidrre, in his nobility xmst indeed be a savior, for, having grasped the truth himself, shall he let the world about him suffer iil error? Already in his room in the manor when hr: had first received Isabel 1s note, this truth had challenged ?I lr-n as he had opened Shakespeare1s -Hamlet-. - and read,"tThe time is out of 3olnt;--llh cursed spite,/ l'hat ever I was born to set it I!His duty is not only to Isabel, but to all mankind, as Charlie Mf llthorpe sqs," It's my ophion tho wx'ld is a3.1 wrong. E?st, I say--an entire mistake. Society demands

Avatar, --a Curtius, my bog! to leap into the fiery gulf, arid by perishing himself, save the whole empire of men!" (XX. 2). But PSerro nus st lecwn more yet ere he is motivated to "gospslize the world anew, and shor~~them deeper secrets than the Apoc- al.ypse ! (IX. 2). The news he will tell the world will not. be the "good news" of the heart, for the invisible powers 2.0 not hear htm up. The threat of his invocation to them on the eve of his first visit to IsaSel brings its consequences. "If ye forsake we now, " he cries in his despair, f arewull to Faith, farewell to Truth, farewell to God; exiled far away from God and man, I shall declare myself' m equal power with both; free to make war on Ni-~fh-l;and Gay, ard all thou~,htsand things of mind and matter, which the upper and nether firm- ment.s do clasp. (V. 6)

The vulnerability inherent in Pierre's turn from the norms of society, even though they fail ta provide for the possibility of' complete adherence to truth, is revealed clearly in the fragmsntwy psamphl;et of the philosophy of Plotinas Plin- J.imon, which Pierre finds in the coach on the way to the. city. The philosophy of Plinlimmon is not at all a new way of life; it merely asserts the conventions OF pragmatism over the calls of idealism, In this, however, it is of high significance to

Pierre's sitnation, for it is a .t;arr,ing against absolutism of any kind, whether of the heart or of the head. The purpose of ideals, acccrding to Plinlimmon, are not that an attempt should be made to attain them, but only that one reco,gni.za that one's own realities are not absolutes. "But why then does God now and then aend a heavenly chronometer . . , into the world, uselessly as it would seem, to give the lie to all the world's time- keepers? Because Ye is unwilling to leave man without , some occasional testimony to this: --that thoT).ghman's Chinese notions of things may answer well enough here, they are by no means universally applicable. " (MV. 3) Plotinus points to nature to support the validity of his philosophy, thereby pointing toward the f~olis~hnessof Pierre 1 s course of action. 78Snshort, this chronometrical and horologicai conceit . . . seams to teach this:--That in things terrestrial (11ors20gicalj a mon must not be governed by ideas celestial ( chronometrical) ; that corkain minor self- renunci.ztions in this life his cwn mere instinct Pox his own ovory-day general well-beini: will teach him to make, but. he nmst by no means make a complete u.ncond

Pierre s not knoarin.9 the number & his pl~ogosed,residence is the first hint O? troxblo. Ye expects the correct house to be revealed to him, .for he has come to the city by the light of the revela- tions of tmth th::t he has rocoived. Here, however, no light sl~incs,onpecialiy not the light of cousin Stcmleyls cottage, houso itself shines, but not for Pierre, for Pi.erre has cut himself off from this world in which his cousin makes hls home on the somd basis of social convention, In affiming Isabel, I . I Pierre has moved 5nto the truths of mythic reality, where the world of the senses corresponds to the truth of the imagination, 1 I where the physical woxbld is the world 0:' mmis own cancept5.on. Now Pisraee must learn tnat the city does not belong to his reality, but to rational reality which exists for tlne good of I

8. wholo population, not fo~the '4incideiitalbenefit or one, 'I as

Pliz?limmon has stated in his pamphlet. The problem of Pierre's and the central central life I problcn: of $he work t.rl?i_c!l he hopes to complete in the city are the sme, The narrator confesses that Pierye has still much to Learn, Tor he has ''not as yet procured for lii.mself that enchmterls I-rmd of the soul, which but, toitchixg the humblest I e:rpo-rionces in onots life, straightway it start;s up ail eyes, in On the third night after ar~ivingin the city, however, as Pierre sits by e, :Lofty window of a beggarly room in the rear building 02 the Apostlest, he comes to the realization that all he has dons so far is rubbish: "Trash! Dross! Birt!li Standing in front of' the trunk containing his papers he cries out to Is- abel, "In ten d-tiys I have lived ten thousand yews. Forewarned now of the ~wbbiahin that chest, I cm not s~~monthe heapt to ouon it" (xIX. 2). Eitherto Pierre had not had any experiences which could have led to the conception of' poetry of true value, w:t?%ov-t which not true art exists, for the nwrator warns that . . . though the naked soul of man dath assureCly contain one latent element c.f intellectuzL productive- ness: yet never was fnere a child born solely from oxe parant; the visible world of" experlenca being that procreative thing which impregnates the niusos; self- rocip~ocallyefficient hermaphrodites being but a fable. (XVIII. 1)

Pierre's situation now is analogous to his sitv-ation In Saddle

3bcciowil~whm he first seas Isabel s face. Tnere he had been conlfortdd-e -in a life of convention and ezse, in which he had LB~z~&lc to puff away with a Havana flavor the profits that his pxXs of' ;doetry brought hjm, !?hen, suddenly he had been con- frmted 1.~7th the truth of life that forced him to reorient his e~tireexist;ence. The apperr

Pierre was certain that he was doing riglit in making this choi.ce, for it had cn it t'ns stmp of approval of tba greatest power of' iraturc itself, for ha had been drawn to testhis fl~turepath h:~. a power far greater than himself. In questiolzing his nind, ?re 1?8i! come to a x~erilmkable ,ecrlogicsl curiosit,:; rmich ho h~dszzlier n:md tho Eemon Stone.

, - iup ::a n barn . . [~t)Has shaped somethj-ng like n len.ft'ricned egg, but flattened more; and, at the ends; po i.rltcjci r*mre; md. yet not pointed, but irregularly wads=-sb~?ed. Somewhero new the middle of its under LO!;":eye was r, lateral. ri(?ye; ond ?n O~SC?-IP~point w-::?es9 tila.1; 7;d.sncing rock and callod on it to test his ways:

I$--~f' .i;l~e mj.sex*les or the undisclosable things in me, &all 57~i3~lliiilol3sf3 mg from my m~~ood~sseat; if to LTOW m;yseX 811 Virtue 1s and all Tr~ri;h's, be bat; to make F, t~exb3int.;, distrusted slave of me; if Lj,f% is %o prove a bnrdm I can not bear without ignominious crin~ings; if indeed our ections are all foreordained, imd lf' we are ~SS:;la serf's to $'ate; il>i'?~isi.'r>l.e devils do titter at us vfilen we most nobly strive; it Life be a checting cirem, mri vi-rtue as unmemi;~e;md unsequeied ~5thany blessinf; as the midnight mirth of wine; . . .--then do thoi~, T:t?to Xnssiveness , Call on me! " ('JII. 5) The eq?erisr,et?a of his heart in Saddle Meadows had overcome the expariencss of his conventional existence to such an

8xtec-k thst ize bn~.bean f'orcod to admit his entire extistence up to that pcriocl of time invalid in the face of his now Irnow- lad~;enow. Sitting in the hsck room of the Apostle's, Pierre undergcss anctber such exper~icnco--but now the experience of his heort, upon which he has gambled three lives, is being call-od in question just as rudical.ly as had his previous life.

!he world of rationalized social existonce which, though it may prove mcrally inmfficient, nevertheless still governs his physical existence, for hem he finds the truths of moral existence do not apply. Thus Pierre meets the central problem of Life: truth is known by experience, not by reasofi, bxb life in govcx8ned by reeson, not by truth. Herein lies the

CalJ.~cyof tho vast majority of men. \.Chat is fittec?. into rationii3. syztems of though% fs called truth, but that is inc~eiy

.:IThs nasralxr* points out tho cow rather than many been regarded by h.opeSfi persons as the one fun~lmental thin^ most earnestly to bo pr~yod for as the greatest possible Catholic blossing to the world;-.-almost overg thinking nan must have been some tho or other struck with the idoa, that, in certain respects, a tremendous mttitsks may be lurking here, since a11 the t.roxl1.d does nos13r gregariouc.Ly aclvcmce to Truth, but only here and there some of its individuals do; ,md by. advancing leevo the rest; behind. (IX. 1) In mestin,?,Isabel, Pierro has found the beginning of truth by :iisc:ovnring that truth is not the same as reason. The be$ii?nixr, ?~osrevor,is not everythins, but it seems that, For

truth ti.= experienced mythically, and mythic ttxperrience is

concsj.vo? iq terms of totalities of sxpe~ience,rather than

frmments.'.. The experience of the city d-efies the totality of

t3e mythic sxperi.ence of Pierre, thereby cfillinfj the truth of

;I ye ;.l.owens, tha% have hidden you~selvesin the h!..scLc tlrx*,r: of the ~?i5ht, I call to ye! If to i'ollox Vlr tus to asr uttermost vista, where common souls never .TO;- 'L? by that I take hold on hell, a35 the ~~.t;tel-r.;ooLvirtue, after all, prove kt;s? Stt-krayiric; pande~to the monstrousest vice,--then cSd::e n ~xdcrush me, ye stony walls, and into om plf I.et all things tumble to,rr_ether!" (xIx. 2)

5210 vc3~yboas cf' his xaliance on the heart is called In questioc. . now truly lost.

Pierre's plight is serious, for he has lost both the reality of the heart and the reality of the hoad, for in afi'irnling this he has b'een denied by the heart, brrt in followj.ng that he has been called in c,uestj.on by the head.

Enrlier his inrnost emotions had told him that Isabel was his sister. Jndced, his inmost enotions had found their fulfillment in *he 6ark fece, for Pierre had perceived the Htmsuppresuible an5 ~xrmiztakablecry of the godhead through her soul" (X. 1). He had perceived that human life truly comes from "that, which all men me agreed to call by the name G_ad; and that it par- takes of the unravelable unscrutableness of God," Bs had been co;&r,nt with this for he felt its truth in his soul. IrL af riming Xs &el he had no$ q;;;eutione:J; "what, ': but only ''hor,rfl, m&rue, he had begun to distrust himself, but "t'nis distrust; was nut sf the heart; for heaven itself, so he felt, had smctif'led thzt with its blessing'! (I. 1). IJow, now~ver,

71oa~en has gonu, and with it the security of his heart cmC the ccnvicLion that he has done right.

PJ! I now 3 catch glinpnes, md soorn to half see, num,ehow, thco.6 the u.tterrnost icieal of moral porf'ect i OR in rma is tr:i:!e of tne mark, Tho dext--gods trample on trash, and Virtue ma Vice me trlzsh! Tss?)el, I will write such thln~s--T will pxpelize t!m world mew, en< show 'tinem deeQc17 secrets than the ApocaLypse! (KX. 2) Eut Pi-orre is not yet ready to show the c:(eep secre58, for !.m dose not kno~?them himuelf', Just because he undert?tznds bonks liiq3 ..- The Lnfcrno-9 ?lamlet,-- _--9 or I; better now doss riot

mca th-lt .lie already has a net; i;os~sl: While Pierre was thinking that; he was entirely transplanted into a new and wcnderfill element of Beauty and Power, he was, in fact, but in ona os' the stages of the transition. That ul%5msite element once fairly gainod, then books no awre are noeded for buoys to our souls; our om strong limbs support us, end we float over nll Sottoxlessnesses with a jeering impunity. ? 31d not see . . . that all the groat books in the wor'?ti 31-e but the ml.l;ilzteci shadowmgs-forth of irr~~Lsihleand etornally unembodiea images in the soul; so khat they are but t5e mirrors, dis- torto(?ig reflecting to us our aim things. (XI. 1)

As he sit3 down to his books, Pierre begins grahally to sense the results of his having cast out both head and he crt; becanse of their superf icialitg. Laboriously digging inbo jz5s sou?. to find truth, he ultimately finds it as empty as n glrmdered Egyptian sarcophagus. %ex nilllon things wer-e as get uncovered to .IWIO 01cI my lies buriaa in cloth 0x1 cloth; it takes time to unimap this Egjptian -.. XBC W~OW, forsooth, because Pierre began eo sac: .t;hro:z@ the first superi'iciality of the ;i~~li!i?e Tondly weens he has come to the un- Ir2yared SU~S But, as far 2s any geologist ha yet zone (iotm into the world, it is found bo cansist of nothing but surface stratifiad on :;v.rfs.sc?i, , fjy vast pains xs mine into the . - . . P-?,),.:- L-w ,_,, lcl; by horrible groping wo come to the cmtrzl. Toom; wFth joy we espy "cho sarcophagus; but; lie 1i.f-i; the lid--md no body is there! -- Rppclll.rigly vacant as vast is the soul of man. (;[XI. 1)

02i~j-nalLyPierre hzd followed truth aid it had taken h5.m to Zs abel, Ksw, F..zvf n,~a.c!iieved tihis goal of truth, "he enti.?r..al.;~'losea the clirectLng compass 0:: hls mtnd; for arrived Thils Pierre lo %he soquol to Melville's llobg-Dick, where

1ih:lls an6! the crow only I.ive in anticipation of getting the white wha3.e, whlch !-?lab ~RYgranted supernatural reality just as

Fierro h::s grm-Led. it to Isabel. In -&hab's case, the whale

destroys tl~ose1.~50 seek him; the shlp goes ucm in the vortex

into ~rhi~hl!C!iT'~,b hnc dirsctoci it, Pierre is ~;.3_eodram into

the vortex as he is att-acted k~ T~snh1,~ but he does not go

dobm unfJiX be has h2d time to e>,:ni.na its sction. In Pierre tblville defies tho advice of IsLmacl in ths t!Tr~works"

tc;15od, be reflects on how his search had bepn.

IIe rexerlbered with vhat tenderness, TJ~_th Qhat love 2nd. sj~arjnc-??;'for mankind, .and what pity for himm ;;-d-ilk ~.rdwoe, 1.6 had first begun to con- templaze those idens wnich aitarway5s becane the inspLratton or his lifo: t-rith trbat Fsverence hr had then lookc6 into tns heart of man, vtewin!; it as a texplo orig;nnll.; iiivi-ne, snd, inme-~erdesecrzted, still to be he14 sfzcreci S:l u brot:ler. . . Then ensued t21z.t vest In'celle c i-*.l:rl :!cvelopmnt, rrh tch in its pro?ress, dist~mbecthe co~-triter~~oCssbebqeen his mj.n(d and hemt. The Idea. tthzt ponsossed his 'Life kud operated as :I meas ci' edus-?ti.on; it - had gono on c~lltivn+;l?ng3.s nmrers tto tLxlligirest point of vhich theyrmrh ~r~scoyltib3.e; It hi?.!.: raised l~imfrom the level 0:' an unlei;cemcl laborer to stand on a stsr-lit e;6.nefi*:t?, .i;h.::IC"ler) tho philosophsrs of the ~3zrti~,Iz3on :I:. $11 the :lore of universities, might vainly strive to clmbar after him. So much for the intellect! But where wa3 the h.bart? That, indeed, had trithered, --had contractsci, --had har2sned--ha2 perished! It had ceased to pLmtdre of the universal throb. He had Lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity.ll

Pl.erre becomes nuch 3 man as he delves dovrn ever deeper, heeding not the world about him, catti-ng hinself off completely fro% the affecti.ons of others: People gaze at him in passing, as at some inprudent sick man, willfully burst from his bed. If an acquain- t:uico is met, mcl t~ouldsay a pleasant ne?cmongerls word in his ear, that a~quaint~ceturns from him af2ronted at his hard aspect of icy iiscour'besy. "Ii~dhe~~tsd,~mutters the man and goes on. (XTI. 14)

7.?~zl:e Ethan 'Ermd, he had besm hls way with the highest intentions, ccr";.In he vas doing "the will of hls God. Now.thj-ngs 2re chzai~ecl: "Xith the soul cf zn Lthsist, ?le wrote down the godliest things; with the feeling of mfsery addexth in him, he created

The c?-mqp that has taken place in Pierre is not the result of only tho forcos of fate approaching hin from wit;hout;.

The ii~t;~~~y17all~a11 rmnd that he could not; overleaptf are the ia:-:ll.s hs has co:?structecl, for he had revealed them after the f5rs.l; inter-7ier.r with Isabel already, when ha had invoked tke

Terror Stoxc. !$?.nt he had a~kedto be swed from by being crushed by the hnge stone does cone to pass. These were the words he sacrificing myself for Duty's sdre, my own mother re-sacrifices me; . . . --then do thou, Elute Nassive- neso fall on me. (VLI. 5) It is not this stone, but another that falls on him. As Pierre an2 Isabel are about to-leave Saddle Meadows with Delly, Isabel. asks, "Tell me . . . do I blast t~hlereI look? Is my face Gorgon's?" (XII. I). Neither s?m nor Pierre realize that Pierre will indeed become stone because he has espoused her cause, but the agency of the metamorphosis lies not in Isabel but in Pierre,

She is his cration, as she tells hixi just before Lucy comes to join them in the city:

''Thy hand is the caster 1 s ladle, Pierre, which holds me entirely fluid. ' Into thy fomns adslightest mootis of til~l~giiC,thou pourest mo; mc1 I there solidify to that f'orx, mci take it on, cincl thenceforth wear it, till once nioTe thou rnoldosl; me anew. (XXIV. 2)

Becm.so im is E stme (?lei-re nems flstone'! in ~rench)fie casts

P-ioyre1 s entire environment ~.mder&oesa. rmtmorphosia

as ?le delves ever deeper into the vnf'athornable truths of man's

T!.' ' --L~s:IS i.t~eLf'h7.t the ~cvelationof the prior empl;iness of

Pierrs ' =: existeizce , T?cna;10 hzs cast out both head and heart and sun, thm once feel himself af l6aE i.n himself" (XXI. 1). Pierre is caught in that infinite void bstween reason, and the innate lmo~Ledgooi' tho heart. 3ei foels truth, but he cannot know it,

=d thus his book ccm never be completed. He cannot wvite tho book whereby he was going to "gospelize the world anew,': for, that which now ~.bsorbsthe time adthe life of' Pierre, is not the Sook, but the primitive elernentalizing of the strange stuff, which in the act of attempting that book, has unpheaved adup,g.mheci in his soul. Two hooks are bein? writ; of which the world shall onlg sse om, and that the bungled one. The larger book and the infinitely better, is for Pierre's own private shelf. Tht it is, whose unfathomable crav- ings drink his blood; Lhe other only demands his ink. B-ilt circ~mstmceshave so decreed, that the one can not be composed on the paper, but only as the other is writ dctr. in his soul. ?nd the one of' the soul is elephantinely slugc;ish, and will not budge at a breath. (XXII. ik) Pierre has reached the conditiocs in which it is impossible to live: Tlus Plsrre is f astensd on by two leeches;--how then c,m the life of Pierre last? Lo! he is fitting himself foY the highest life by thinning his blood and cellaps- in8 his heart. FIe is learning how to live, by rehearsiq the pmt ol" death. Tile impossibility of living is not only mental and sphitual, for Pierre's writing is based on his experience in physical life. In deciding to write for a livelihood, however, be has also I_ exintance threatei2ed as well, for he can impossibly embody the activity oi. his s?irit in the book. Pinally he sees tba-t "the wiser :or;! tlio profounder he sjrould grow, the more he lessened tho cl~r*rice:sfor bread" (YLII. h). In she uidst of thcso difficulties Lucy once more qpears, thereby tying Pierre to the world of convention, and thus pointing to a way oi' salvation, for she promises to 0a.m money by painting portraits. She sets up a contrast to Pierrels life with Isabel, for she is the worn&? of conventional reality who can sustain the body, but; who is incapable of leading to truth since she can only follow her perceptions ia her srt. Isabel, on the other hand, cm.not fit into the conventional warla, for her wt draws her out of the world. In a moment of' jealousy she, of'ferss to rjval fiacy by teaching students to play the guitar. '' 'Ny poor, poor Is~bel!1 answers Fierre, '' 1 thou art the mistress of the naix~al,sweetness of the guitar, not of its inxrsnted utifieea;

=d -5hese me all that the sili-y pupil will pay for learnin,:,

As they passed through the low cwched vestibxile into tho street, a cl:ee?m-bu-rnt , g~mesomesailor passing, uxclaimed--"Steer mall, my lud; 1 tis a narrow streit

Is ehc'J. :a opcn to mstuphorf.~ncwin;r,s which Lucy cmnot comprai:end. 141

Meadows. Lucy!s presence now turns hlm back to the world he has leSt, md ths turns him from Isabel. Though ho had already told Isabel thtit he anti she were but siblings in common humanity, he had still persisted %n considering himself responsible for her lie had never freed himself from the first conviction that she was indaed his sister, With Lucy as well as Isabel on his olrn now, hs enters an art gallery in which he sees a portrait ontltlsd '!A stran,zer1s head1' which bears a striking resemblance to the porbait of his father tht Pierre had burned, The

11. portrait hangs opposite a portait of "The Cenci of Guide* which presents a contrast within itself. The wonderfulness , . . consists chiefly, perha~s,in a striking sxggested contrast, half -identical with, and ha3 f-armlapus to, that almost su-pernat~wslone-some- ti-nss vislble in the maidens of tropical nstions-- nm8ig soft and li@t bho ege3, with an extretlely fair coq~lexion,veiled by funoriallg jetty hair. Sut with b1.u-(3 eyes and fair complexion, the Cenci! s hair is golden--physically, therefore: all is in strict, natural keeping; ~inich,nevertheless, still the more :intensifies the suggested f'anciful anomaly of so sweetly and seraphically blonde a being, being dcmb:Le- ' hoodad, as it were by the black crape of the two most horrible crimes (of one of which she is the object, rmd of the other the agent) possible to civilized 'ndrnruzity-- incest and parricide, (XXVI. 1)

Fze blcn6 md the dark meet in Pierre's soul, and by their juxtaposition :in the painting Pierre arrives at a truth he has hitherto not found. Confronted with the enormity of what he has done,, wild thorrghts race about ir, his heart, thoughts, though they we drsvast sting, t'nat me rwt; "t?hol.ly unwe1c;orne to him. '' aside, 'and coming to the plain, palpable facts,--how did he --IU~OVJ that Isabel was his sister? (XXVl.. 2) Not only Pierre feels the rift that has occurred, Isabel. also feels the loss of the life she had found in Pierre, m-d she also feels Lucg.'s power iiraring Pierre z~myfrom her.

In the room at the Ap~stl.sfsshe had felt herself powerless before

Lucy, but now that she senses her power over Pierre waning she longs for the world she has left--the world of the sea, for thnt

'lLook, let us go thr*ough there! Bell mst go tl- rough there! See! see! out there upon the blue! yonder, yonder! far away--out, out!--far, far away, and away, out there! where the two blues meet, and we nothing- Bell must go!" Again Lucy is unable to grasp the meaning of words that do not; conf orrn to her physical conceptions. It 1FJlny, Isabel, 1 " she murmurs, " 'that would be to go to far Ehgland or 'France; C;!

"hcl what friends have I here?--Art thou my friend? In thy secret heart dost ---thou wish me well? And for thee, Tisrre, what am I but a vile clog to thee; drazging thee back from all thy felicity?" (XXVI. 3) Pierre has indeed found the confines of Isabel's being tog close, and he has found the presence of Lucy appealing, t'nus completim; the circle begun with the first sight of Isabel's face. Nevertheless, the return to the innocence of his first love Is imposs i-ble, as is the return to tne tzorld of conventional physical existame. Even more, he finds thnt physical existence impon.ciibl.n w21e11 he returns to his room, for there he fi-nds two Glendinning Stanley. Both letters accuse him of lyimg--of F L i denying truth, that to which he ilad dedicated his life. Now Piorre 5s f'or~ced tc accept the one truth that has faced him from the first moment that he conceives of a reality outside the con-

Pines of his order in Saddle I?eadows, At Pierre Is first readir?;g h of the letter from Isabel the narrator comerits, "Ay, Pierre,

mt be - i now inde~d thou hurt with a wound, never to completely i I healed but in heaven." When he had now so suddenly called to Isabel md Lucy to accompany him in his walk, moreover, Isabel had cried, "That vile book it is finished!" Pierre's answer than is more than a negation of her inzerence:

I1 ,rot-7 ~33," said Pierre and, displacing all disguisements, a hectic unsumoned expression suddenly came to his face; .--"but ere that vi.le book be finished, I mast get en soma other element than earth. I nave sat on earth 's saddle -bill I am wezry; I mrxst naw vmlt over to the other saddle ewhile. '' (XXVI. 1) Physically they go for a ride on a sailboat, but mentally Pterre is now ready to leave this earth's saddle forever. Both Lucy md Isabel have proved insufficient, for to follow either one exclusively has proved impossible, and to take one and leave tne other had proved equally futile. Hence he calls out to the two when they come to visit him in prison at the end, "Awayl--Good

Pagel and Bad Angel both!--for Pierre is neuter now" (xXVI. 6); He has no choice but to die, for life cannot sustain negati.cn.

Pierrs has reached the state which Melville was to portray in "Bartlobg the Scrivener" about a year later, Lib Yartlsby,

pierre aimply comes to the point where he says, "1 prefer not to, ''

and. thus, 1 ikei Bwtleby, he dies. Pierre or, Tho Ambiguities, l-iowever, in some ways denies the possibility of death, but sees it as a fulfillment. In the vision of Enceladus which Pierre has near the end of the novel, tho hero is compwed to ."loses who struck a rock in the wildelmess to provide wster For his thirsty poopls. Though he was prevented

frorcr .zoirzg into the promised 1md because he had hit the rock

instead of speaking to it, Hosss was nevertheless taken up by God and his body was never foun6, Pisrrc too cannot enter the ' truth he seeks while alive, but the book he is attempting to write is one of those "rner~e immature fxleshman exercises, wi?.ollg worthless in themselves, except as initiati~esfor entering the

great Gniversity of .God after death." (xVIII. 1). At the begimixig

of tho novel, 'i~hanthe nnrrztor builds the b~cfrgroi~~dfor Pierre1s poetic natu.pe by -emphasizing his democratic hepita-ge he hints

%bat; Pierre's drive toward a life which cannot exist on-earth

is also introiiuction ta another life, for the hr:ritage 01' Pierre is in itself a lire-in-&%the Democracy is based on the

premise boat death but yields life; For indeed tho democratic element opepates as a subtile aci d mong us; f om~rerproduchs nev thin2;s by cor~odin,? the old; ss in the south of -France vordigris, the primitive szztc~5.alof one kind of green paint, is prociucsd bg gray@-vineyar mured upon copper plates. !Tow in ~enerelnothiny can be more significant of' decay thn tho idea of corrosion; yet on the other hand, nothing c,;m mus.3 7~i~i:ilysuggest luxuriance of life, thaa the idea o? green na a color; for green is tho peculiar si.cnot of all-fertile lxature herself. Yeroin by apt analogj we behold the marked momala~~snessof kmerica; 7-hose cn~racterzbroaci, we need not be stmprised, is xiisconceivsd, tr:lon tro consider how stran~elyshe con- trtdicts b1.1 prior notions of h:zrn

Hawthorne was right, Nelville could not rest without a belief, lie haci to have a god. In Hoby-Dick he had one. I called him the Rncient of D~Ys. The job was a giant Is, to make a new god. To do it, it was necessary for P'lelville, becaus6 Cnris bianity surrounded him as it surrounds us, to be as Anti-Christ as &fib was. then he denied ih Q, he lost tho Ascient. And Cbristimity closed in. L This Christianity is a mutiplied curse in Yie~re. Its function

/ i in tho noml in saalogous to the function of religion in the life of Pierrefs mother, where it serves to constrict rather than to expand reality. The chief tenet of Christianity is the resur- rection from the dead, which is what X~lvill-ezi'firms in Pierrc. However, he aff inns it not as a truth of existence but a3 a dogma, vi11ic.h is denled by what really happens in the activity of the novel. It j.s part of a structure which is forced onto the novel

re-bhcr than growing from within the novel, such as the open atrue- turo of Noby-Dick-- arises out of the activity of that navel. In --Piopra the structure does not permit the open activity of Fo~.inZi~zthe progressive revelation which carries Pierre to his doom. ifeelvillo seems to have had a defined idea of the signif- ica~cecf that revelation of Pierre prior to the metaphoric activity or its occurmce in the novel. In short, Melville is caught

betvrcten rnt;ional and metaphoric modes of thought, a fault seen most c2.narly in the persistent duality which often does not arise out of tics activity of the characbers, but is forced onto that actft-ity hemy-hmtledly by the narrator. In the first chapber alrec,dy omens abound concerning Pierre s downfall. First Pierre s relationship with his mother is set in question: Thus freely and lightsomely for mother and son flowed on the pure joined current of life. But as yet the fa-ir river had not borne its waves to those sideways repelling rocks, where it was thenceforth destined to be fowver divided .into two unrnixhg streams. (I. 2) Three paragaphs later, Pierre is seen gliding toward m~turitg,

"thought1 ess of that period 02 remorsel.ess insight, when all these delicate warmths should seem frigid to him, and he should madly dsmwld more ardent fire s ." Two pwagraphs later: "Pierre I < little foresaw that this world .ha.i;h a secret deeper than beauty,

and Life some b~mdensheavier than death. 'I Ey this foreshadow- ing the movement of the novel from innocence to experience, already a very comon theme, falters under the added wsiczht- of the f'oroknowledge of what must happen. The consciousness of the narrator does serve to "tilienate" the reader from the narrative thus provide for the ~mbigxity

which plays so large a role in the novel. Xevertheless, at ti.rss the ambi&ty suffers, for the narrative comments destroy that which they are to create by omphaaizj-ng the double vision. Tke

story tends to become rational rather than metaphoric as the narrator presents philosophy rather than dramatic activity.

liblsrille had this problem in Mardi as well, but there it was rzot

hemmed in by a closed structure like in Yie~re,for there the plot is carrled by the events of the voyage throuqh the islands

of Mjiardk. Il'urthemore, in Mardi Melville had not yet formad so da2ined a philosophy as he puts forwmd in Pierre, for Che

whole book is a voyage of discovery, as he points out in the. chapter cullad "Sailing On" Oh reader, list! I've chartloss voyaged. With compass md the lead we hod not Pound these Mardim Isles. Those who boldly launch, cast off a3.1 cables; and turning frorc tile common breeze. thatfs fair for all, with their own breath fill. their own sails. . . . But this new wcrld here sought in stranger fm than his who stretched his vans from Palas. It is the world of the mind.

In Pierre, however, Melville has a compass, and thus the "chartless -vop~esl'in which he expounds his philosophy are

extraneous and take the reader away from that which is meaningful by its very activity to that which is rne~8l.ysignificant, fn an excellent analysis of Melville's refusal to keap from intruding into the story in Pieme, Charles Feidslson Jr.

states tha.t Melville had really dismissed his hero before he had even begun the book. He knew beforehand what Pierre Mas

to .find out in bitter agony. "If the Melville of Mardi-.- is not yet sure what he means by "significance," thcugh he strongly suspects what it will entail, the Melville of Pierre knows all too well. "13 Knowing the significance enta5:ls losing the "mean&", for significance belongs to rat%onal knowledge, which is static and foms a point of comparison or even an

absolute standa~d. This is, of course, what Pierre seoks, h-i;

r,m~notfind. He attempts to find it through introspection, which, rather than leading him to something that shall become a stcndar6 upon which he can come to base his life's activity, leads kin to a bottomless continuum in whLch he loses himself rather thra finding hirnself . In writing the story, Melville is but mother Pierre, Tor he also cannot leave the intrcmgeskion 'in wriieh he buries his hero. Zgze diffsrance is that E4elviLlc knows from the beginning that he will find n~thingin Pfepre, and he becomas contemptuous of him, and finally dismisses him just as Pierre dismisses his hero: "Cast thy eye in there on Vivia; tell me why those four limbs should be clapped in a dismal jail-da.y out, and day in--week out, week in--month out, month in--and himaelf the voluntary jailer! Is this the end of Yhilosophy? This the h~*ger,and spiritual life? This your boasted smpyrezn? Is it fop this that a man should gsow wise, md leave off his most excellent m.d calumniated folly?"

" IIJhence flow the pmegyrical melodies that precede the march of these heroes? 1 " asks Pierre, lflF'rom what but from a

Feidelson points out that here Melville is not on1.y contemptuous of his hero, but in writing of his hero the way he does, Melville shows that "he is really contemptuous of literary fom in general, " He is not satisfied . . . to disappoint conventional expectations and thus $0 suggest the "creamy chzos'' from t~hichall fern emerges; he must devise a preposterous story, so patently absurd that it casts doubt even on the serious use he would make of symbols. If the style of' Pierre is grotesque--by turns mawkish, pretentious, aid eccentric-it is the style of' an author who suspects from the begirining what his hero di overs in the end, that all lite~ature is meretricious. s.5 In Mardi Melvi.lle had been careless of farm, but there he ha6 been searching for that which would give form to his work. Heere llelvi.lle is also careless, but now it is out of scorn for what that form will revesl. Melville is not interested in ravs:iling--he just; wants to toll. He poi-nts to two modes of ravolation i.n literat-ure, but then denies both: practic erl distinctions, under which a11 the rast must subordinat,ely range. By the one mode, a11 contempora~eouscircumstances, facts, and. events mu~tbe set down contemporaneously; by the other, they are only to be set down as tho gonoral stream of the narrative shall dictate; for matters which ms kindred ir! tine, mag be very irrelative, in therrlselves. I elect neither of these; I m cereless of either; both are well enough in their wq; I write precisely as T please. (XVII. 1) As a consequence of' l~lelvllle~scarelessness wo do not know thrt Pierre is a writer until after Melvllle can not cmrg -the acticn of, Pierre aid Isabel. my further, so that he is forced

to shift the direction of the development drastically i.n order c to continue to depict Pierre's drive toward disillusionment. Xt almost seems that Melville determines to cast Pierre as a writer only after Isabel fails as a centrs for creative activity in the navel. It is also this attitude that causes him to re- nounce all colnpilnctions about narrative style in parodying mm's search for truth. Describing the inhabitants of the church o.f the Apostles he wspites,

Often groping in vain in their pockets, they cavl not but give in to the Doscartian vortices: while the abundance of leisure in their attics (7;.Clysi~al and figurative), unite with the leisure in their stomachs, to fit them in an eminent degree for that undivided attention indispensable to the proper digpstinq of the sublimated Categories of Kant ; especially as Kant (can't) is the one great palpzble fact in their pervadingly impalpable lives, (ZIX. 1) This carelessness also laads Melville to deny by his

structrire and tone what he affirms with his words discursively. At the very and of Pierrets tortured attempts to write, one day, in u semi-conscious state Pierre sees tho myth of Encela&xt ~ttemptsto scale the Mount of Titans. In hia explication of the myth, the narrator points out that "whoso stoms the sky gives best proof' he came from thither" (XXV. s), thus giving the prontse or th6 truth of the defeat of death through und- 138s striving. TkrFs, however, is undercut by the very manner in which the myth is mcounted, for the myth only finctiona

di ncu.rsive:Lg--i t has no import beyond its one-dimensional sign-

if'icanco wlii.ch states that Pierre wjill never achieve his task.

The sme holds true for the drem about the amaranth and the catnip, %is becomes perfectly static, for Mslville supplies the comparison which freezes metaphor into allegory. '!The eat- C nlp md the rmar~trlth!~'says the narrator,"--man's earthly household peaco, and the ever encroaching appetite for Godf' (XXV* 4). As soon as Pierre has affirmed Isabel, she becomes a atatic sign as well. ~t the bej3inning of the novel Isabel is clearly p~esentadas the congruence of Pierre Is active, sub- jecti.ve conception adhis affections, and as such she ia par-l; of' the development of Pierre that is inherent in him Cnm the beginn5.n~. However, when her ole as object of development 5n Piemst3 experience is finished, by Pierre's renouncing Saddle

Meadows znd affirming her, she becomes an individual entirely dsvoreed fwm the activity of Pierre 1s search for tzwtn, Though this may corres~ondto our normal, rational experience in which dsgtred objects lose their attraction as they are att8h3~J,it is hardly consistent in the novel, In the narration

01' her pc...s'i; she tells Pierre that her actions are entire3.g ?JP:>~~.~T~F~.>c.s,[pvernad b:? forcos beyond her control : 1 have had no training of my sort. All fiy thoughts well np Za m9; I how not whother they pertain to the old bewilderinqs or not; but as they are, they are, wid 1 can not alter them, for I have nothing to do wi th pu tt;in,~them in my mind, and I never affect any tkiou~hts,911d I nover ~jdulteratomy thoughts; but when I spodc, think .forth from t.he tongue, speech being oomstimes be1'0~0 the thought; so, often, my' own tongue teaches me new thinqs. (VT. 5) &%ex2 Lucy E-ppews ~tlthe i~postles,hc?i.~sver, Isabel becomes a scimni~q,jealous shrew, intent on pl-oving her superiority ove~

'iucy by 3xmmnci,ing Pierre 1s attentions. Again, though this may be ro:llistic, .t;):t? fault within the book is mace obvious by a

c~npari.scsr_of key and Isabel, The roles of mythical and ratiknel person are reversed. Thou* Lucy's appearance in the city is not rationally expected, yet it is true to metaphorical

expar5 enoe, for Lucy appears 2% a time when Xwre mustffind an

alternative .t;o the life ilo is leeding. Lucy supplies this, by

arriving to fill that need, first by providing an o~tlookfor earning money, and secondly, by providing the possibility or a ywtial return to the physical world, thereby supplying one'pole GT that dua:Lity which pervades his experience, This, however,

sete i;l;s shortcoming of Isabel 1s person within the novel, intc shwp contrast, md thus Isabel's loss of mythic power is

fn1.3.y PCirc~+l~d.As Is 2bels activity becomes openly conscious, she fails to the level of overt allegory within the story, thereby

also rol-cing tncy Lnto the sane role. Melvil3.e goes so far as

to cr.13 L;I~:II go~dand bad mgels. 'C~aonicallyLucy's heavenly influence is mas% closely

assac f.3t Cwi.th the Very earthly inf lzenca which f inal1.y lends i as well.. ' Gic~or God?" had been his question ear lie^, With the

negatzton of God now though., Lucy is not the only factor to sntsr his life; witn her come Glendinning Stanley and Frederic

Tu~tm,md in them Pierre sees his final escape from the rocky prison oi' his dimensionl-ess soul caught in the barpermess of' the

poles to which he has fallowed his inner compass.

When those things now swam before him; when he thought of all the ambipities which hemmed him in; the stony walls all round that he could not overleap . , . the laat lingering hope of happiness lickeci up from him ss by flames of fire, and his one only prospect a black and bottomless gulf of guilt, upon whose verge he imminently teetered every hour;-- then the utmost hats of Glen and Fre6eri.c were jubilantly welcome to him, (XXV. 2) Pi,e~rehas roached the end. !'Murders are done by man5 acs; but

the earnest thoughts of mder, these aro the collected des-

ppacloes, was such; fate, or what you wf 11, nad made him

such, 8u.t such he WZS" (XXV. 2). Pierre murders the two arrd i then gives himself up to prison, where ha takes his own life,

I a2 ong with that of the tvo women. The book ends in complete f- negation: Tor book nor author of the book, hath ang sequelt' i. (XSTI. 6). Is&ebls assertion "It ts wibig~musstill!' is un- , convincf~gbecaso the ambig~ityis only rational, not metaphoric.

Melville hns shown conclusively that life smof; tibide the tmtk

that he f'irt.3~in his own soul--especially if that truth is that there is no truth. Pierre ends with nothing, Joseph X. in

rile Trial also ends with nothing, but he lifts up his hands bo- --a- ..--..- ca-aso he ha:~ something to sag at the moment of his death.

Josspll b, is ready t;o "enter the great University of God,' CONCLTJSIOB

Both Pierrs or,- The Ambiguities -The Trial end in similar sftlxations of suicide-murder, As though Pierre realizes that he cannot live any longer, but that he also cannot take his own life, he determines to have himself killed by the law of the outer world with which his entire existence is now in conflict.

By killingpredmic Tartan anci Glen Stanley he acts out of 8 ,sense of desperation; the murder is his only way out of the dilemma. As Pierre goes to meet h.is death in the persons of

Glen and Fred, he is met by people who affirm life. He passes Y'haqhty-roliing carriages, and proud-rustling pamen- eders, both men and women" (XXVI. 51, but ha is not a"c'crac;ted to my of these, for his experience tells him that tho f'sf;reans of glassy, shawled, or broadcl.ot?~life'! as they brush past each other in two opposing avenues are but "long, resplendent, droop- i~gtrains of rival peacocks." He has learned Soloqonls lesson that "all is vmity and vexation of spirit," and he is not deixacte5. from his Ciestiny of death in a stony prison, Even in prison iw locks fo~ocrdto the judgefs sentence, ''1hng by the neck till thw Se dead,! Phen Is2.bol comes to visit him, she recognS-zes that the roaponsibtlity is not really her brothsr?~,and that he does not really deserve to be k:un~, so she at.texpts to take the responsibility herself, ' 80% thou art the mwderer, I' she says,

%ut thy sistes bath mrrdersd thee! (V. 6), Tho cry, however, uocs not ~*cso:tvotile proble~01' w"-rothe~I?-i.errw ora the world 5.8 -~53 154 rasponsible For his inevitable death. BQ~the csy does reveal to Lucg the true mhtionship of pierre to Isabel. Ber collapse does not solve the problem of responsibility, but it does force

FJ.erre "v see even more clearly hj.s dilemma. Re ~li.zingthat a solu.t;ion is bqond all hope, he tears the cix.ug from Isabel 1s breast.

Losep?~K. 1s de~thprlesents the sam problem. L%ks Piorre, K, knows that he has no choice but to die, yet he is una-b1.e to t&c his life witl~o-atthe assistmce of others. On the way to his execzltlorl he also meets the life which ne has found imal-id, bkt he also turns from it. ''He followed the direction taken by the ~i.r?~ahead of krtm, :' says Iiafka, "not that he wanted to over- take her OP to keep her in sight as long as possible, but onlg thaL ::3 iai&t nnot forget Llm lesson 3hs had broaght into his mind'' !p. 202). The zp2earmcs of ~r&uieinB-&stner has the sane effect; on K. as the final collapse of Lucg has on Pierre, md. k51s hs moves on toward his daatn within i;he stone quaxry. !!!he physical slte of his death is zs lifelesz as is Fierrets. As he is ?mid clown in the quarry, the same questions about the responsibi2.ity of his dea.tn t~oubiebtm as those that appear him who had not Isf i-, him the remnant of atrsneth necessary for the deed. (P. 285) In the end, Pierre does kill himself. K. cannot. He leaves 1 the final task to those who have made life within the physical

I body Impossible. Not only the end, but the whole progression of the two

P stories is somewhat similar. MelvLlLets book begins wLth a very f co~zventionalsetting, which is seconded by the pastoral tradition ! and the Chrlstfan values. As the work progresses, th5s convention is shown to be insufficlent becasue it fails to meet the demands

N that are placed on it by the personal necessities of the hem.

\ The conventions are gradually shown to be not only insufficient,

but morally evil, for they deny , the necessities of life to th~t33 who do not fit into the establisked patterns of society. Nrs. - Glendinning and the reverend Falsgrave legislats against bath

Dell7 Ulvor and Isabel in orde~to rmintain that life trhich

they have established f os? themselves. They live by exclilding that which is foreign to their rational minds. Pierre's felicity

with his mother is possible only as long as he does not affirm

what she excludes. Re must even hide the picture of his father which portrays a reality beyond that which Mrs. Glendim&g has expe~icncedin her marriage to him. In ref'using the portrzit, she ~lreatly~tefusos Isabel the right of existence. Pierre at?cem~ts to af'fir?l-Lif'e as ha finds ik. If Isabel is his sister he recog~izesa rasponaiL3:i-1.it-y toward her which he must carry out rcprdless of the consequences. In thus giving the lie to the wo~ld.lze places himself outside tke only posnibility of h~unan

socbsl existence, und thus he must Sinzll:~(lie, progression takes place in The T~ial, Joseph ctministrator in a normal bank in a normal. cilOy. life, which he has caref'ully orde~edbetween hi.a business md his p~ivateaffairs. Suddenly he experiences a reality which exists outside the comfortable socur-ity ~hieh he has en.joyed. Like Nrs, Glendinning he attempts to deny the truth of' that realtiy by simply excluding it from his consciousness, 'men this proves impossible, he attempts to fight it openly, just as Pierre is tempted to do time after time. As

the case progresses, Kafka gradually reveals that it has social 'implications, just as does Pierre's case, Joseph K. is living his life at the expense of others, just Like lks. Glendiming, Palsgra.ve, and Glen Stanley. The conflict that exists between

Pierre and his social envirorment is the conflict that ex2sts between the Court and Joseph KO's social environment as it is revealed in K. l-limself. K. constantly wants to maintain contral

over others, to keep his ' advantage, If just as Mrs. Glendimiins want;s to maintain her 8-0-poriority over Lucy and Pierre. Jus%

P-s JOSB$I 3X. threatens to have Kullich, Rabensteiner, and Kartllnex dismissed f~omthe bank for his own advantage, so PierrsIa mother wmms hirn, Beware ~f me, PTerre. ,There lives not Vnat being

in %he world of whom thou hast more reason to beware, so you contj-nue but a little longer with me" (VII. 2). &adually, however, the Court wins, just as Pierre triumphs over his mother.

But the more K. is won over by the Court, i-.he more difficult becomes his physical existence, Like Pierre, the wiser he grows, the less tire his ehancos for bread; the more time he spends on his First defense, the f'urther his mind is drawn way from the financial intricacies of the Bak. And finally, like Pierre, ne realizes that the true life of the Court is so far removed fro= tba false life of.the physical existence which he must live if he is to continue to exist, that he has no choice but t;o die. The ambiguity of both books is based partially in the fact that the authors pea9 ize that the position of their protagonists is false. Melville knows that Pierre is a fool, and Kafka knows that the demands of the Court me impossibl-e.

Both authors stmd bqclr and secretly laugh that myone can be

SG naive ss to even enter into situations within which Pierre md1;. find khemselves. Spedcing of more than merely the necessity of e,u,nerie:,.co as well as imRgination, the context in which the following paragraph appears, l.:elville says, "There is an irifini.te nonsense in the world on a11 of these matters; hence blame me not if I contribute my mite. . . . Still, it is pleasant to chat; for it passes the time ere we go to our bedsii (XVIII; 1). Actually Pierre is rather vain and slow-witted, for, as a youthfu.1 author, he considers seriously having his works published by snch eminent editors as ''Wonder and Wenn, "Peter Pence" and "Donald IXrnc?onald,"not realizin;; that their very nemes connote their mediocrity. One reviewer senses the depth of Pierre's writing weEl, and he assures readers that Pierre is "blameless fn rnors.1~and harmless throughout. " laen Pierres shows reviews like this ta elderly literary friend, the friend tells him ":Pie~re, this is very high praise, I pant,

hem the first chapter of a-The ---Trizl. And he himself laughed so much that thore were moments when he coi~Xdnltread. my further."' The fact is th~tJoseph K. is so naive, so stupid, tha% he is mmy. This is pointed out in the novel by F~enz: "tsee, Willem, he admits that he doesnlt know the Lm and yet he claims he is innocentf* (p. 10). In the same sense the Court is ~"unnytoo--it takes itself very seriously when it is really something of no consequence. 'And shall 1 be punished for not having come to my own accord?^" Joseph K. asks the official who telephones him one day when he has made up his mLnd to see Elsa. K. smiles in anticipation of the answer, which turns out to be negative, j~rstas he had e-pected. " ISplendid, 1': he says, " IThen what motive could I have for corn- pl-yin~with this sumnions? 1'' (p. 290). The situations of JosepPl

K. adPierre Glendinning are indeed so utterly impossible of ever beir,g solved that they are nothing short of ludicrous,

A:zd theraein lies the ssrioilsness of Melvillc and Kafka. 1 59

The ludicrous situa.t;ions of' Piems and Joseph K. m&$W dim

fron tbs Ludi.crous siat;uationof modern man who hw moved his centre of reality fpom the heart to the head. Once the problem'

h6s been discovered there is no way out; "IAll hops abandon,

ye who enter herel Melville quotes from Dante (IX. 2). Yan has constructed a world in which it is impossible to livo; that

). world exists, lor he can improve it rationally, and he has a

conception of it in his mind-yet his experience foroes l~im to qxesti-on it. Once the country doctor gets to his patient, -J there is no longer my problem: I confirmed whak I already knew; the boy was Kt3s01111a, someth:ns a ~ltmwmng'with blis circulation, sat?~ratedwith coffee bg his solicitous mot%er, but sound and best turned out af bed with a shove, (Xy emphasis) When, ho.risver, the doctor re-examines the patient, this time

with kke assistance of the whinnying of the unearthly horses to assist him, he discovers the truth.

In Xsright side, near the hip, was an open womxl as big as the palm of my hand. Rose-red, in mmy variations of shade, dark in the hollows, lighter at the edges, softly granulated, with irregular clots of blood, open 2s a surface mine to the daylight. That was how it looked from a distmce, But on a closer inspection there was another complication. . . . Poor boy, you were past helping. I had discovered your great wound; this 'olossonz in your side was destroying you.

\$?.enthe doctor is willing to forgo what he already knows md

ko examine the case as it stands in its phgsical reality, and %n dattiil, then his previously constructed reality col-lapses. EoXm PoLitzer begins his cri-tical- ailtobiogrnphi cal 2 btudy of Kaf'kals work with a one-parag-raph sketch found in Kafka's paprs after his death. It reads EIP follows:

It was very early in the morning, the streets ~1e~a.nand deserted, I was on my way to tho rail- road station. As I compared the tower clock with my watch I ~calizeuit wns zllrerzdy much later +,hamZ hcl thought, I hed to hurry, %b.e shock of this discovery raatio me Tee1 un- certair, of the way, I was not very well acquainted with the town as yet, for.t=:nate!.;y there was a policemm nembg, T. ra-1 to him and breathlessly asked him the way, he smLled :md said: "l"rom me you ~zrmt to learn the way?" "res," I said, "since I c,mnot fin& it nysalf'.- "Give it up, give -it pn," said he, and turned away with a gmat sweep, litce someone who wants to be aloae with his laughter. '$3 G-lven the si-tu3 tion where the ' time is out of joint," one mag not attempt to reconcile the two clocks as Plinlimrnon's pamphlet

I- on ho~ologicalsmd chronometricals shows. Plinlimon dram this comlusion from his stv.dy: "By tnisrence it follows, also, that he who findi~g in hilnsslf a chrono~etricalsoul, seeks practically to forco that he;rvenly -byme upon 'c3e earth; .in svch zn atkempt he czn nevw succeec!, with 8.n zbsolutc ZXK ax essential success. (:ZV. 3)

A cas~alstud-y 02 Nelville 2nd Kafka. could not arrive

2% a greater similmity in these tvo zuthors them this--thbrb is no sol.u'cion to th5.s dichotomy between that which one Is mind tells one to bo true, cvld that which one experiences to be tuue.h- T;la sctl..tion, if my, mu.st 150 outsids the realn? of' physical. possibility, for none of either Kri3rcr'a or Fklvil.le1 s sto~ieswhtch bro~chthe problem end with a solution, ThoufSn mecaning to his life. The Pequod sinks. Pierre dies thnout-e a mrder-suicide. And at tne end of his 1ife &lslvillswrites one final story, -Billy Budd, where the innocent victim is hanged from a ship's mast. 2xe stories of iCaf'ka end in the same way, Gearg Bendoman jzlmss from a bridge in "The Judgment"; Gregor

Smsa padnally fades to nothhg but his shell in "The Meta- morphosis''; a great iron spike from the torture machine drives L- tknrough the head of tne officor in "The Penal. Colonyf'; the Ev-nger Artist starves to death. The obvious conparison sould therefore be the death

0.2 Bartlebyi as he is caught in the Latr Offices of Kafkals Courtr Bartlobg~ssense of alLenation is apparently just as extreme as Joseph H.'s. The nwrator feels that the scrivener i-s "absol-~telyalone in the universo,~~2nd no com1wlcatj.on seems possible in order to break this isolation, It is not only tha-t; Bartleby wit'i.,drms from the world, but the ~iorldalso with- drms from him. ?&en he refuses to vacate the lawyer's premises, tho lcxyer moves, cau.sing aartleby to be evicted. Eowever, even here there is arnbi-gui-ty, for Bartleby chooses not to take part. in the ac-bivity af the Lax Offices: "I prefer not to, " he keeps rep2ling. The lawyer s attitude itself is mbivalent. Brwe

Franklin1 s interesting study of "Bartleby" shows hot? the lawyer S actions crs lziucia.ble and blmewortlzg simultmeously. Frmlcl in in%rociucss his study by an excqt from $fatthew 25 in which Christ st:~.l;os that the good thzt men do to the lowest man, that is dons to him. This is Franklin's intexpretation:

i:~the story of BarBleby unFolds, it becomes increas- ing:i.;r :,pp;wont that j.% is -in pmt a testi-n? ot' th5s rne3~,*~-2QJ' Cr1rist;. The nm~atorlssox1 depe~asFmm his nc%ions toward Bartlebg, a mysterious, paor, lonely, sick stranger who ends his life In prison. Can the nap- rator, the inan of our wopld, act in terms of Christls et3ics? The answer is yes and no. The narrator ~Zllfills tila letter of Cimistts injunction point by point; he offers xoney to the strmger so that he may eat and &rink; he t&es him In, f innlly off eying iiiin not only his office but zlso his homo; when he sees that he is sick, he ~t-~exptsto minister to him; he, clone or all. m:-i_vrl;in!i, visi-ts befriends the s ti3zn;er in pri.son, 6 Rut lie harcily fhlfills the spirit of Christ's message. Indeed, lie does ~ot,for he is the cause of Bartlebyts death, So agah things are not as Vney ap~ear. In -The Trial the Court 1s f'inslly 2oseph 1;. s salvation, for it frees him from his existence as dank clerk,wh:ich is mslo.gou to the position of +,he Izwyer fn "Bartleby," for both positions demmd the exploi- *batisa of those beneath them. In the stories, howeoe~,the

PJ~~ZI.OIP,~is nuch closer, i'or both Joseph I<. ad the limyer are

Bwkleb;r a16

GOUF~ .md Btrrtleby is taken to prison. In both cases tkey pin

his s.t::dy, tne scrivener is modeled after a 11.'-ndu llSr?nia..aal'' '7 whose csceticism frees him from the cares of the world,

'?'he s.itv.at ion again is metaphoric a1 rather Cnan f act1l.cll'y

ratl~arthm thrwp;~ their denotation, tad this constant activ: "VY is brou&t about by the shapin~of tlra activit~~by the nw)rztor8. In other ;;or-is, the story gains life th~oughtho sevelatory roml

5-t Is i:ivsr~, as the ~i~xmatorattempts to e::plain the ine;rplic6ble, initially attempts to explain the appalling &tkp%&t$.curr white whale, but then is himself caught up in the larg@;r-ait;$empL of Ahab to kill the rrhale. In each case the pure ac8ivity o$

the content of the story, zs it exists -in the constant shifting throiqll which meanin:; is rn~de,takes ti?e story out of the range of ratiomi sgsteemdization and consequent fixation. In Kafica, 4. . the nurator is lc!entical with the prot.agoniot, so that Joseph

K. himself shapes his own story, thereby revealing his whole world oi' cr:ti~~~t;~~..In the em3 he not orrL:~ gains freedom from the co;~i'lninc;pLysica1 world of tae bank, but he axso gains free-

st~bic,b~ entering,the ongoing activity of metaphorical hlor~-

Lornbc?3.clo, .ti.zlcis through the progressicn of his own book:

>her, Lox.br"sd.o set a.buu-t his work, he hew not idlut ii; wo;.tl.?- become. 5e did n~itbuild himself in with

glans; he wrote ri&C OF; * and so doing, got d.eeper and deeper into himself; like, a resolute traveler, pbmging through bafFling wooik, at, lest was roii~ded for ills toils. "In good time," saith he, in his auto- bioiyrs7hy, liZ came out into a serene, sumy ravishir-ig regior;.; Pit1 of sweet scents, si-nging birds, wild platn'cs , rog~isklau~hs, prophetic voi-ces. Here 1-10 are ~t last, the, " he cried; "7: have created the crc ~tbe. '' B;r setting up the consta~tbattle of opposites they 80 through

.t;tm i;ur'bt?lonce of the conflict and reach the calm where the mtagonistie forces create the stillness by cancelling ecch otnor out, It is as if the full wkight of neaning is held aloft by time, especially trj.th references to the contrwhs cW-

I md sea, wh-ich are basic to I4oby-Dick. The theme appears as the basis sf 14elv.i'Lle's theory at the end of Pierre, where it is forced. into the context of the narrower imagery of this more overt novel:

Oh, seems to me, there should be two ceaseloss steads for a bold man to ride,--the Lend 2nd the S~Z.;+~like circus-men we shou1.d never dismount, but only be steadied znd rested! by leaping from one to the otl~er,while still, side by side, they both race round the sun. (~:-CTII.1) MelvElle propounds th2.s as his aesthetic theory in a poem, "Art.'i In placid hours well plezsed we dream Of qany a brave unbodied scheme. But fom to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate. A f1.m~)to melt--a wind to freeze; Sad patience--joyous enerqies; Humility-yet pride and scorn; Insttnct and study; love and hate; Audacity--reverence. T3ese ast mate, hdf'nse with Jacob's rystic he rt, To wrestle with the angel--Art. 9 This balancing of contraries is also a chief concexm in

Kafkals art; it is his way of "breaking the frozen sea." His goal is to ascend to an arbitrating position over the antagonistic forces, as he describes in a small sketch which is quoted by

9e has two opponents. The first one harries him from the resr and has been doing so ever since the very bs2inning. The second blocks his passage forward. ire battles with botn. kctunlly the first one assists him in his battle with the second one, for he wants to p?z.sh him forw~~d;and, likewise, the second one assists him in his battle with the first one, For he, of course, is t'tirusting nim back, Eht it is only . theoretically that way. For, aftor all, not only the two onpononts are there, but he himself is there too; and who really knows what hi.s intentions are? Yet, all tl~esame, it is his drc:un that 8.t some time, at rn unguarded moment-that of course requires a blacker night than nas ever yet existed--he will leap forth out of the fighting line and because of his combat experience will bo elevated to the position of judge over his opponents who are battleing with one motiler. 10

The a~tistis th5.s arbitrator, he judges over the life forces which hold man in tnrall. Thus Titorelli is presented as the redeencr of J'oseph K. in the deleted. vision from the unfinished v chapter, !'The House. '! Art is the harnessing, through f om, or' the contraries in order to ' created the creative."

And art which achieves this union is metaphoric, for where objects are static in therr denotation, there cm be r no force wiil.cl.1 generates n~saningout of a shifting reality whtcn is constantly beins created anew. 3ence the concern with death in P?al.ville and Kaflra. %a-th itself becorms a necessity for affirmation, for where nothing dissolves there can be no

I-ifs. Ikls is M.ialville1s argument against the old world =is- tee racy at the beginning of -.Pierre. -. - In contrast to the old

~O>J.S~Soi. Brrope, families in harica s democracy correspond to che trwth of nature, "for the most mighty of nature Is laws is this, that out of Wath she blqings life. " This is true in arCv as we31 as in nature, Repeating the assertions made in the first zhxpter of this essay, we see that in metaphorical writing wox~3slove their denotative meaning as they fall into relationships witn sther words in order to create a meaning which is fcrlmed 'Z;'J the total cor-yruence which is larger than the sum of the parts anc'r which cexuzot be .~ie~lysed.by examining the denota- tfons of the individual words. j:r the works of' K~r"?iaand Nilslville then, the bnsic 166 metaphorical structure proviaes for the conception of moan-ing through a process that extends from individual word8 right through to the content of experience that tranecends the individual works. Thus the sinking of .the Pequod is an affirmation of life, a tmth presented by the image of the coffin of / Queeyueg. shooting up to become Ishmael Is salvation. Similarly 'I I tho dwh of Joseph K. in the fragment "A Dream1' permits his transcendace as the artist is freed to transcribe his name onto , the stone with flourishing s.t;rol:es, This ia the affirmation that iielville makes at the

conclus$cm or' Clarel, the long poem in which he attempts to reveal

the t~isdomthat he has gxlnsd hi life. Here he affirms the heart over the head once asain, L'or it is the heart which enters the sqmrionce of the indestructibility cf mm, as opposed to the ksrd t~iiLchcircumscribes man's existence in the fixed eystems of rational thought. Thenkeep Suhg heart, though yet but ill--resi.gned-- Clarel, :hy heart, the issues there but micd; '-3iat like the crocus budding thrpugn the sr~otg-- Plat like a snimmr rising from the deep- Tb.at like a burning secret which dot11 go Evon from the bosom that would hoard and keep; B~ie~;';athou mayat from the last whelming sea, hdpralre thzt d~athbut routs life into victory. 11 FOOTNOTES \ 1911. Usener , --08: ternonen. Versnch einer Lehre von der -religi5sen Begriffsbildung (Bonn, lt)96), pp. 279-281ff. '' '' 'O~aseirer, pp. 17-18.

24~arfield restricts "true" metaphor to the conscious reflective and creative process of man overcoming rational reality. Since the prirnitiva "metaphor" arose out of an unconrrcious process, it cannot be termed "metaphor."

-. .._ 25~aseirer,pp. 95-96.

34~assirer,pp. 25-26.

37~p.96-99. Ny emphasis. This is a central concern in my (1 thesi-s. :'or Ktifkals end ltelvillels protagonists this world of I metnphor.ica.1. conception is not an illusion; it is the hard reality oC their lives. End that reality which modern mon dism~sses as "illusioc ond fantasy" was also concretely present in the lives of the mthors themseives.

30~xsmneLanger, Feeling and Porn (Bew York, 1953), p. 186. '&And in so far ss science is bssed on cz~eativehypotheses, it holds to the tmth of the conceptu-nl symbol as well. i'ernaps nothing illustrates the va1id.i.t~of Snslleyfs dichm Chat "pouts are the v.nacknowled.gerl legislators of the world'' as well as the modern scientist, who, in conceiving a certain reality, is truly a poet--and even more truly ii le9;islstor oi' the world, for he literally does create the world of the laymmls perception.

4s k reading of four of Martin Eeideyger 1 s essqrs on fi8Lcierlins poetry in Erl.!!uterun~en zn i!Bl ?erlins 15 chttm:l; ( ~anl:furthbf.lain, 1951), shows conclusively how cnrnustly d6ldeTlin took tne rc~.l- ity o? his poetry.

521*oss , pp. 61-62. rational. For both Foss and Barfield that which is the product of mason and self-consciousness, rather than the active, non-reflective assertion of life, is a denial of man's hurnaniby.

r 68~eidelson, p. 63. This statement points to Feidelsonfs thesis t5at rezlity consists wholly in language: "To consider the liter~rywork as a piece of lmguage is to regar6 it ES ci syrabol, autonomous in the sense that it is quite distinct hot:: from the 2ersonr.lit7 o" its author ,and from any r~o-rldo: p--?re objests, enc'c crecttve 'i~the sense thstt it bpi.nys ir,i;o e::i ste:-.ce its own me~r?_in,r~~(?. 43). Though this conf'licts with the viex that is basic to this thesis, namely thab literature is a neFFx or" conceiving as reclity that which the author experiences nnconsciou.sly ( the view held by Melville), Peidelsonfs book kes been a gre~.thelp to me.

"~bove, pp. 26-27. 70tftl?mt is this then, that you are doinz, as if you ware resi? Do yort wt:nt; to make me believe that I am unreal?''

71-,17 .L I t, is true, '! he says, l1you still have an aciv=tage over me, bat only .then, when I leme you alone. "

72'1~treoelly seems now that it does you little good if om reflects upen you; you decrecrse in courage and healt_i.' 2ct21:a.' 2 interchm:;inp of Y~berlegenwith naciidexliken.- is significant. Lffer1;~" del~otes'uot~to?eflectn and to ha-:o sn advar,tnr:e over, " or "to be superior". As long as the nw.-ttor leaves 3heuobjects at rest/alone, i.e., as long as he does cot reflect upon them, they retein their superiority--they are 5berl.evn- - -- over their object. As soon as he begins to reflect ~nn&c;~clenlce:~/i::I'r>erler-en). -- --;------L he yains the snpcriority. This shows Koflcn's consciousness or" language-- and it may also show how the development of lnlz(zage reflects the growth of rztional thou&%. The popession of the armcdote then would foll~wthe growth of lcmp.age from mythical conception to rational perception. 71kQ.otudby Csssirer, An Essay on Man: An Sn$r~duqtioq to a Philosophy of 'lumen CILlture (3ew Haven, 19m). 'fie quotation Is from .teire;~t s ---.-3--perlerzcs an2 i?al.vre- (Chicago, 1925), p. 96.

77~oss,pp. 61-62.

r - * 32D@;;rest :Tather: Stories md , tr. Ernst K~iser ---- -7. m3 Ei t!-me 11 3.kin-Tr2, 19f;i-r.) p .

I bsii ovo %l-lr.t one should f'in;l.:12y read only ~itchbooks an bico rLxci: yricli one. If -Lns boo!; that we me reaiiing does not a.~,--.lccn:is with tile thud oJ" a fist on our brain, wily do tie iv nd the book? So i.t trill xake us happy, as you write: 727 Goci, ?re ;rot!lci bc happy as rrell if we had 110 books,

pi;:ch. 3~twe neoil those books which affect trs like ~1,tr0mrlsr c -L> -,I w!iicll p2ins t1.s deenly, like %he dec-cth of one whom we prefer to ourselves, ?-s j-2 Ire vero cF.s-l; m.r;ay into forests, re-noveci from all ~mn,like a suicide, a boolc mst be the c:e which bj-saks Kks frozen sen in 11s. This I believe. '~ranz Kafka: A Critical Study of FIis Writings, trans., Sheema Zeben Buehne (New York, 19681, p. 20. 2Ernat; Haecltel, author of the radical, materialistic Ricidles of the Universe. '~mrich, pp. 26-27.

4~artinGreenberg, The Terror of Art: Franz Kafka and #o2ern Literature (New York, 1965), p. L- 36

6~rz &lungen, pp. 48 -49. "You ;:re going away again, you rascal?" he zsked, resting upon his legs spread wide over two steps. .. "'What am I to do?" I said, "Now I have had a ghost in my roon. "You mention that with the same irritation as if you had. found a h:!ir in your soup. ' "You're joking, But note this yourself, a ghost is a ghost." "Vory trixc. But how about if one doesn't even believe in ghosts?" "l.le1.l.. then do YOU think I believe in ghosts? But what 2oes the refukal to believe help me?':

'~tmBruii, --Ironz Kafke: A Biogreohy, 2nd ed., trans., G. Bumphrey Roberts ~ndfiichard Winston (Gew York, 1960)~p. 23~.

Fraa?z Iir;Tka is the only writer of our century who has crit;-sdi:- recc~ni-zedand prese~todin a clear picture tne imminent 1s.x~~f om- aociai :md personal rerlity, Thus he is the most probierl- abZLc2nd shoc?:ing m2it;er for cll those who are more or less ur,czi_;- SC~GUI:~.~GY non-critically enmeshed in these laws, or even icent:. - -':; themselves ~?lththem. These people must experience the unw0-i.a- able shoclr t%at Yrmz Iiaflra rcveals the truth of' rea.litg, tze i' trtrth tli;,t j.s nevertheless so unbearable that their oonscious~ess must tar itself against it 2nd crowd it into the dungeon of the forbidden, the gtmstly, the horrible, the irrationzl or oven the perversely decadent.

'2~1el, The Disinherited Mind (Xew York, 1957). p. 2C6. 13~ranzKneka, The Trial, trans. , 1dilla and Edwin Muir (New Yorlc, 15156)~p, 3. Unloss stated, all quotations will be taken from this edition.

I? '4hr Proxess , ed., 14ax Brod (1958; paperback, 9rankfurt/l.lzin, 1960Tp711. Ily translation ( "Sie werden es eu mhlen belrornmen") . ''~he connotation is even &re pronounced in the Germvl where the word Gurgel is used. In the final scene of the book, one of R.'s executioners grasps K.'s Gwgel while the other stzbs him. \r

'"~eerest Pnther: Stories nnd Otber Uritin - s, tmns. Ernst itais~rand Bithne Uilkins (Uew Yorlr, 1b45. Reflection 92.

1911~es,but that is the fear that is beside the point. The actual fear is the fear of the cause of the appearance. And 't;his fear remains. Exactly this fear fills me most awfully."

'O~er Prozess, pp. 132-133. 1.19 translation. 31. " ?marent Father, p. 39, Reflection 5LpX- t

.- .- - 24~e~irest- Pcther, p. 39. Reflection 54. 25~oss, p. 56.

26~ru2Rj-arreand Wth, pp. 91-92. P'i~oss,pp. 85-86.

28~bid.,p. 87.

'~a-y Leyde, The Melville Log, I1 (New York, 1.951)~529.

9 L-rje-,.:n,?r Xelville, Pierre or, The .!mb-iyui ties, ad., Henry A. ~BI.TT~~(Xew Uo~k,1949) , p. 399. Since most of 14elville s tref.1.-:mu:an novels rxe available in many editions 7: will prcvl.de ' Roo:c 2,nd Section notation rather tharl the pagination of my b1erman Kslville, Selectad Tales snd Po.ems, ed., Richard Chase - - - (paper6~ck,!4sw York, l95O), p. 213. ~ploby-~)ick,ch. hvi.

he Hl~koof the Gods: Melville 1 s 14ytholog~( Stanford, 1963), pp. 11'B=rIT XF 8~heradical shifts from extreme to extreme in Pierre follow the pattern of mythical thought, which operates in totalities of experience, as Cassirer shows (Language and Myth, pp. 57-58). When Kmt defined "reelity" as any content of empirical intuition which follows general laws and thus takes its place in the "context of experience," lie gave an exhaustive I definition of the concept of reality in the ca~ionsof'. discursive thought. Rut mythic ideation znd primitive I i verbal conception recognized no such "context of exper- I ience. " . . . The process or apprehension aims not at an I; expansion, &xtension, universalizing of the content, b-at rather at its highest inte~sification.'. * XLl othm i.. all I things are lost to mind thus ent3rnlled; bridges P between the concrete datum and the sgs teniat i zed totality of' experience :Ire broken; only the present reality, as mythic or linguistic conception stresses and shapes it, fiZls the entire subjective realm. So this one content of experience must reign over practically the experiential world. There is nothing beside or beyond it whereby it c~~t1.dbe measured or to which it could be compared; its mere presence is the sum of all Being.

9i~~schel'' is a variant of 'I Jezebel, I' the wicked, idolatrous wife of King Jhab in the Eible 1OTh.v story appcxred as a re-publication in the May, 1651 edition r> f 'he Dollm ila~azlne. 1.Zelville wrote Iia7dt;norne at the be;;l.nning of dune, :+3j ths nay, in the last lDolla~Fla&azinet I rand TTLc T,rr;pardonable Sin. He was a sad fellow thst Ethan Brand, f 'tl~~vono doubt you are by t'nis time responsible for many a s.'iake mC tremor of the tribe of' general readers.!' -.."~--Tne 1~elvil3.eLo.:, 1, 411-412. %~mz-- Knfka: A Biogr~tphy, p. 1-78. 2~ri?rnnzKeflrit: Parable and Paradox_, 2nd. ed., (Ithaoa, 1466), p. 1. 3~rintcdin DescrLption of a Stmg~le,p. 201. ht shoul-d nm be clear that this is not the sme as the difference betv~eon"ideal' and "real1', for here both aspects arc red. The problem is much deeper, md all I hove been able to do -in this paper is to present part of it, hoping that it may lead to furthe~slxdy. 5"8ertleby the Scrivener," -Selected Tales mind Poems,.- p. 116. 176

BIBLI OGRAPKY

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