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2011 Just Business?: Economic Reasoning and Its Effect on Family and Law in Lessing, Kleist and Kafka Christel Inacker

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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

JUST BUSINESS? ECONOMIC REASONING AND ITS EFFECT

ON FAMILY AND LAW IN LESSING, KLEIST AND KAFKA

By

CHRISTEL INACKER

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011

The members of the committee approve the thesis of Christel Inacker defended on March 28, 2011.

______Christian Weber Professor Directing Thesis

______Birgit Maier-Katkin Committee Member

______Raymond Fleming Committee Member

Approved:

______Dr. William Cloonan, Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.

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I dedicate this work to everyone who supported me and attempted to keep me sane through the entire writing process. I thank my colleagues for being so understanding and forgiving of me while I was working on this project. I would like to especially thank Chris Joyner for his love and patience, David Kent for always making me feel like I could do anything, and my mom, Michaela Sykes, for telling me to “suck it up” at all the right moments.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Weber for all the guidance and support he gave me, and all the time he put into helping me complete this project. He is without doubt the most influential professor I have ever had the pleasure of studying with, and I will always look up to him as a mentor. He constantly challenged me to do my best work, not just on this thesis but in the courses I took with him as well. I am eternally grateful for the wealth of knowledge I gained from him during this process and from all he has taught me over the course of my graduate work in German Literature. I would also like to thank Dr. Maier-Katkin, for having as much faith in me as she did and for encouraging me to continue my studies. I am grateful to her for introducing me to the literature she discussed in her courses, as it was usually out of my comfort zone, but very enjoyable and interesting. The themes she covered in her courses, specifically the „other‟, minority literature and German-Turkish identity, are all themes that I look forward to studying further in my career.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... vi INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1. TRADE AND MODERN MAN IN LESSING‟S “NATHAN DER WEISE” ...... 4 2. MOTIVES AND JUSTICE IN KLEIST‟S “DER FINDLING” ...... 14 3. THE SUBJECTIVE LAW AND WARPED JUSTICE OF KAFKA‟S “DAS URTEIL” ....25 CONCLUSION ...... 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 40 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 42

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this work is to show the interplay between trade, law and family in Lessing‟s “Nathan der Weise,” Kleist‟s “Der Findling,” and Kafka‟s “Das Urteil,” and to show how these texts are related through that interplay. It will also be shown how these texts can be seen as works of modernity because of their inclusion of the abovementioned aspects and the way they challenge the traditional canon of their respective literary epochs. In the first chapter, it is discussed how Lessing‟s “Nathan der Weise” is the cornerstone for the movement towards modernity through the character of Nathan and his interactions with the other characters, as well as the influence of his profession on his sense of moral that affects his interactions. The second chapter discusses the different types of justice that can be seen in Kleist‟s “Findling” and how the process of justice and the family are influenced by trade and the psychology of the characters Nicolo and Piachi. In the third chapter, it is shown how the relationship and conflict between Georg and his father, as well as their professions as businessmen, in Kafka‟s “Urteil” affect the process of law, and how the law is shown as something subjective. In addition, the three works are compared to show how they are thematically interrelated and negotiate crucial topics between each other.

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INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of what we today call the age of modernity, basic concepts such as the family, law, and justice became flexible due to new philosophical ideas and socio-political changes that came into existence following the Enlightenment. Consequently, these concepts required redefinition, which most notably occurred in the field of literature. It is in the literary works of authors such as Lessing, Kleist, and Kafka that the interplay between family and law is negotiated according to the logic of economic reasoning and trade. I will examine three stories by these particular authors in order to show how the process of redefining the family, law and justice progresses in the series of these stories, ranging from the Enlightenment (Lessing‟s “Nathan der Weise”) to Romanticism (Kleist‟s “Der Findling”) and early Modernism (Kafka‟s “Das Urteil”). I argue that it is precisely this specific interplay that defines these stories as works of modern fiction. Agnes Heller writes in an article entitled “Rights, Modernity, Democracy” that the “modern world is frequently described as non-traditional, in contrast with the traditional, pre-modern world” and continues to argue: Modernity has been simultaneously moving toward establishing its own traditions. Modernity appears as the executioner of all traditions only where one equates tradition with the natural artifice of pre-modernity. Whenever cultural modals have been disentangled from their original socio-political settings, moderns eagerly rush to reinterpret and assimilate them into their new, and still unnatural, alternative socio-political arrangements.1 Because these texts challenged the traditional ideals of society and law through the relationships between the abovementioned aspects, and encouraged the continued depictions of these interactions, they can be argued to be texts of modernity. The three texts I have chosen to analyze for this project all display this interplay between law, trade and family. The purpose of this project is to identify and analyze that interplay in each of the three texts and to show in the end how the three texts themselves, although from different literary epochs, are interrelated and how they can all be considered works of modernity. I will

1 Agnes Heller, „Rights, Modernity, Democracy“ in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 347-348 1 compare the three texts to explore the roles of the merchant and trade in the law and justice process, as all three of the main characters in the texts share similar professions dealing with trade and the economy. The influence of trade on the family will also be discussed, mainly through the presence of a father-child conflict and the role of the adopted (and often replacement) child, and how this influences the law process in the stories as well. The evolution and progression of these themes will be assessed in how they have changed to fit each time period and each work, but also how they have remained consistent in their existence throughout time. This will mainly be shown in how each subsequent author seems to call back to his predecessors and their ideas and attitudes towards the themes of law, family and trade, and their representations of modernity. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing‟s Enlightenment drama “Nathan der Weise” is the foundation for this movement towards modernity through his depiction of a society that embraces the ideas of tolerance and a non-traditional patchwork family because of the influence of trade and economy on the characters and their sense of morality and judgment. Lessing‟s main character, the merchant Nathan, is the center of the relationships between trade, family and law through his connections with the other characters. He is the embodiment of modernity through his constant movement forward throughout the drama and his negotiation of trade, family and law with the other characters. In the drama, the characters of the Tempelherr and Saladin strive to become more like Nathan and men of modernity themselves, by breaking from their traditional roles and moving forward toward tolerance and open-mindedness. Heinrich von Kleist‟s Romantic novella “Der Findling” challenges Lessing‟s positive attitude and displays a much more negative side of the unnatural family and how the family system is disturbed by merchant profession and the justice system of a Catholic city-state. The focus of this analysis is more on the various types of justice and the characters‟ guilt, and how they influence family and the progression of the story. Trade also plays an important role in its influence on the sense of morality of the main character, Piachi, and his relationships with the other characters in the story. Franz Kafka‟s Modernist short story “Das Urteil” calls back to both Lessing and Kleist in his portrayal of a family again disturbed by trade and through his depiction of the father as the judge or wise man. Justice is again a main theme, but unlike in Kleist‟s text it is not a question of the type of justice, but rather the objectiveness of justice. The father-son conflict here is directly

2 influenced by the characters‟ professions as salesmen and their attitudes that have been shaped by that profession. Because of the difficulties between them, the psychology of both figures, though mostly that of the father, plays into the manifestation of law through the father‟s judgment of the son. In this project, I will show how in each story, law and justice are questioned and often redefined by the main character to suit the situations at hand. I will show how the idea of the traditional family is also questioned and changed because of the influence of trade and economy, and how this renegotiation of family values affects the process of law and justice in each text.

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CHAPTER 1

TRADE AND MODERN MAN IN LESSING’S “NATHAN DER WEISE”

Since the Enlightenment, many writers have been preoccupied with the idea of movement towards modernity, characterized by an increased interest in rationalism, capitalism and industry. The drama “Nathan der Weise,” published in 1779 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, negotiates the interplay of three major concepts that form the foundation of the human existence and that have become increasingly unstable as a result of processes of modernization. Trading is the driving force of this process, and its impact on the status of the family and the law, as the essential pillars that provide stability in life, can be still seen in later literary epochs in the works of Heinrich von Kleist and Franz Kafka. How these aspects of modernity play out in Lessing‟s drama and how they affect each other can be analyzed in terms of the characters and their relationships, as well as the plot of the drama itself. In his drama, Lessing shows the connections between trade, law and family primarily through his main character Nathan, as the modern man, and his interactions and conversations with the other characters, although connections can be seen through the interactions between the other characters as well. Throughout the drama, family plays a role as something that is not entirely static, that is warped and inconsistent and negotiable, but Nathan seems to always be at the center of familial relations. The traditional model of family, that includes the mother, father and blood offspring of that partnership, is not represented at all in the drama, but is rather replaced by the idea of a patchwork family. At the very beginning of the play, the reader learns that Nathan has a daughter, Recha, who was the daughter of a friend of Nathan‟s. Recha is being taken care of and has been raised by a Christian woman named Daja. Nathan is not Recha‟s natural father, and Daja is by no means Recha‟s natural mother, but the two of them together create for Recha the semblance of a solid, real family. For both Nathan and Recha, the natural family has been replaced, or traded, for a non-biological family. In a conversation between Nathan and the monk, the reader learns that Recha was brought to Nathan when her biological father had to leave for Gaza, just days after Nathan had lost all of his own family, his wife and children, in a fire set by

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Christians.2 Nathan replaced his own family with Recha, and likewise Recha‟s biological father is being replaced by Nathan. Nathan‟s role as a father and family man are complemented by his role as a salesman and merchant, and in some instances the reader may find the line between those two roles indistinguishable. Not only did Nathan „trade‟ his original biological children, who are now dead, for Recha, but he also treats Recha as though she were a possession by repeatedly calling her “meine Recha,” “mein Kind,” and explaining to Daja about Recha: “Alles, was ich sonst besitze, hat Natur und Glück mir zugetheilt. Dieß Eigenthum allein dank‟ ich der Tugend.”3 That he uses the term Eigentum to describe his daughter, as a material possession, emphasizes the influence of his profession on his role as a family man. It is interesting to note here as well that the reason that Nathan‟s original family was killed while he was away on a business trip, and was not there to protect him. This is one of the negative results of Nathan‟s profession; that he is constantly moving and must be away from his family. Shortly after, when Nathan learns that his dear Recha nearly died in a fire, again when he was away on business, but was rescued by the Tempelherr, he makes the comment: “Ihr gabt ihm doch vors erste, das an Schätzen ich euch gelassen hatte? gabt ihm alles? verpracht ihm mehr? weit mehr?”4 He shows that the act of saving Recha‟s life, and therefore Recha‟s life by proxy, can be purchased and paid for with material wealth, just like any other business transaction. Similarly, Nathan attempts to quiet Daja‟s disturbed conscience and change the subject of conversation using the merchandise he has brought back with him from Babylon, showing the importance of material goods to him.5 Nietzsche describes how trade is the oldest form of interaction between people, saying that “buying and selling, together with their psychological appurtenances, are older than even the beginnings of any kind of social forms of organization and alliances.”6 One could use this as an explanation as to why Nathan is so inclined to use material goods to negotiate through various situations, because it has become innate in human nature. In his article, Mark Lehrer writes on Lessing‟s „economic‟ comedy and identifies that “Lessing‟s comedies

2 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” Frankfurt, Ullstein Verlag, 1966, Act IV, Scene 7, lines 600-670 3 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” I, 1, 33-35 4 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” I, 1, 94-96 5 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” I, 1, 42-53 6 Friedrich Nietzsche, „Genealogy of Morals“ in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, New York, Modern Library, 2000, p. 506 5 undeniably point to a society that is becoming increasingly governed by money and exchange.”7 This can be applied to Nathan on a smaller scale, in that he governs his family and his house with money and exchange. Daja‟s role in Recha‟s life is like that of a mother, since she is the one who has raised the girl since she was very little. Just as Nathan is a replacement father for Recha, so is Daja a replacement for Recha‟s mother. She is aware of the situation involving Nathan‟s adoption of Recha, but disproves of a Christian child being raised by a Jew (without Christian ideals). Daja attempts to impose her own beliefs on Recha and hints to the girl that she is not among her own people in Jerusalem, such as with her comment, “Mein Wunsch, dich in Europa, dich in Händen zu wissen, welche deiner würdig sind.”8 She appears to be of the belief that she is doing what she knows is best for the child, given the circumstances. She expresses her feelings of guilt and her disturbed conscience to Nathan, and finds it difficult to continue keeping the secret of Recha‟s origin from her, which causes conflict between herself and Nathan. She is convinced that Recha should be again among her people, and resolves to make things right by telling Recha everything. It is also indicated that Daja exposes Nathan‟s deed to the Tempelherr during one of their conversations. Although this conversation is not shown at all in the drama, the Tempelherr refers to it during one of his monologues, after discussing the situation with the Patriarch, saying to himself: “Wenn vollends mir Daja nur was vorgeplaudert hätte, was schwerlich zu erweisen stünde?”9 Susan Gustafson makes the comment that this conflict between mother and father figures are common among Lessing‟s dramas. She writes that “the mother or mother surrogate is the principle source of calamity and familial dissolution” and “the expected collision between the father and mother over the daughter‟s imagination occurs.”10 Daja, being the mother surrogate, is the source of a major conflict in the drama because she wishes to take Recha out of Nathan‟s hands and place her in the care of the Tempelherr, therefore dissolving the family. Both Nathan and Daja try to persuade Recha and the Tempelherr to find attraction and favor in the other, hoping for a marriage, but for different reasons. As mentioned earlier, Daja merely wants Recha to be among Christians again, whereas Nathan seems to believe that they would be a suitable match, even more so because the Tempelherr saved Recha‟s life. It is almost

7 Mark Lehrer, “Lessing‟s Economic Comedy” in Seminar, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1984, p. 94. 8 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” III, 1, 20-23 9 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” V, 3, 122-124 10 Susan Gustafson, Absent Mothers and Orphaned Fathers, Detroit, Wayne State UP, p. 217 6 as though Nathan wishes to propose marriage as payment for the act of saving Recha‟s life. This persuasion is extremely successful on both ends, although the Tempelherr is at first reluctant to think anything positive of the daughter of a Jew. Here again the topic of family takes the stage and the family situation becomes more complicated than it already was through this business-like marriage arrangement. Nathan begins to entertain the idea of acquiring a new son-in-law through this deal, but mentions that he would first like to know more about the Tempelherr and his family, where he comes from, because he notices a physical resemblance to his friend and Recha‟s biological father, and recognizes a connection between the Tempelherr‟s name, von Stauffen, and his friend‟s name, von Filnek.11 The Tempelherr, on the other hand, is more than ready to accept the offer of marriage, but only after meeting with Recha in person, and tries to call Nathan “mein Vater” and insists that Nathan call him “Sohn” rather than merely a friend, showing his eagerness and willingness to expand his family to include Nathan as his father.12 It is interesting to note here that the Tempelherr is so quick to take on Nathan as a father figure, considering that his own family situation is already extremely confusing and arguably the most complex of all the characters in the drama. To begin with, he is a Templar by profession, and therefore has taken the church as his family: the monk as his brother, whom he seeks for shelter and conversation, and the Patriarch as a father, whom he asks for advice and guidance when he needs it and who also instructs him and gives him orders. The Tempelherr discloses to Nathan that he was raised by his uncle Curd von Stauffen, whom he refers to as his father and not his “Oheim” or uncle.13 His family situation becomes even more confusing when the sultan summons him to the palace and insists that he is his brother, Assad, merely because he resembles Assad‟s physical appearance: “Du bist mit Seele und Leib mein Assad”.14 It was this appearance though, that saved him from being executed as a prisoner of war earlier in the drama. It is no coincidence that the Tempelherr resembles both Assad and Wolf von Filnek, and Nathan takes special interest in this, putting his plans for a marriage between Recha and the Tempelherr on hold momentarily until he can become more informed. Nathan‟s stalling is well justified, as he discovers from the monk more about Recha‟s family and origins, that her mother was a von Stauffen, who had a brother

11 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” II, 7, 603-613 12 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” III, 9, 662-671 13 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” II, 7, 592 14 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” IV, 4, 286-287 7 matching the description of the Tempelherr‟s „father‟.15 In the final scene of the drama, Nathan reveals that the Tempelherr is actually the son of Wolf von Filnek and brother to Recha, and mentions that Wolf was not German by birth, only in name. Saladin, seeing the handwriting in the breviary, confirms that Wolf is in reality his own brother, Assad, making the Tempelherr and Recha nephew and niece to the sultan and Sittah, who welcome their new „children‟ with open arms and tears.16 The parental figures at the beginning of the drama are entirely different from the ones at the conclusion of the drama. Nathan loses his place as father figure to Recha and is replaced by Saladin, a blood relative. Sittah, who comfortingly requested that Recha refer to her as her “Schwester” and “Mütterchen,” actually becomes for Recha a mother-like figure.17 The Tempelherr remains with blood relatives, but gains yet another father figure in Saladin. Helmut Schneider writes in his analysis of the drama: Die Blutsfamilie kann nur deshalb sich zum Schluß als Menschheitsfamilie wiederfinden, weil sie sich früh verloren hat, weil sie bereits im Ursprung auseinandergerissen wurde. Aber auch im Schlußbild ist sie keineswegs vollständig versammelt. Es fehlen die leiblichen Eltern...18 The natural parents that were missing at the beginning of the drama for both Recha and the Tempelherr are still missing at the end, however these characters find themselves slightly closer to natural family now than at the beginning. The idea of natural family is perhaps better represented in this drama through the idea of a symbolic family, as family is such an inconsistent concept in this drama. Schneider continues in his analysis to say of family: “Sie beruhte auf der engen Gefühlsbindung zwischen den Eltern und Kindern und erzog die letzteren zu selbstständigen Subjekten für eine nicht mehr statisch durch Abstammung und Geburt, sondern durch Leistung bestimmte dynamische Gesellschaft.“19 The familial relationships in the drama are based less on blood relation and birth, and more on the actual feelings and sense of caring between the characters, an idea that Lessing appears to embrace since it is so common throughout the drama. The patchwork family is the family of modernity, of the future, and exceeds the bonds of blood literally to expand the family.

15 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” IV, 7, 720-722 16 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” V, 8, 680-695 17 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” V, 6, 372-373 18 Helmut Schneider, “Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Nathan der Weise“ in Interpretationen. Dramen vom Barock bis zur Aufklärung, Stuttgart, Reclam, p. 311 19 Schneider, “Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Nathan der Weise,“ p. 312 8

The psychological aspects of many of the characters also play a major role in the confusion regarding familial relationships throughout the drama. Recha, for example, idealizes her relationship with Nathan as a father, which may be contributed to the fact the she is unaware that she is adopted and belongs to an entirely different bloodline. When she begins to realize Daja‟s plan to separate her from her dear father, she panics and refuses to let him go, despite the fact that he is not her biological father. She explains to Sittah and Saladin that she desires to keep her father, she does not want to know who else could lay claim to her as a daughter, and asks them: “Aber macht denn nur das Blut den Vater? nur das Blut?”20 Again the idea of natural family versus symbolic family is called into question. Recha appears to be almost in denial that she could have any father other than Nathan. Schneider discusses this denial of birth origin, and writes: “Die Familie, der traditionelle Ort der biologischen Reproduktion, wird jetzt geradezu zum Ort der symbolischen Geburtsverleugnung.”21 Likewise, the Tempelherr denies his birth parents and therefore his birth origin by referring to his uncle Curd von Stauffen as his actual father. The psychology of the Tempelherr can be analyzed using Freud and his ideas of psychoanalysis. He appears to exhibit minor signs of an Oedipus complex, after already mentally considering himself to be Nathan‟s son, through his desire to seek revenge on Nathan for his deed against Recha and his desire to take Nathan‟s place as Recha‟s caretaker. Here the Oedipal desires are slightly warped, because rather than killing the father and sleeping with the mother, the Tempelherr desires to be with his sister, though he is unaware that she is his sister. Freud offers, however, an explanation for the confusion of the Tempelherr‟s love for Recha by clarifying that in many general cases: People give the name „love‟ to the relation between a man and a woman whose genital needs have led them to found a family; but they also give the name „love‟ to the positive feelings between parents and children, and between the brothers and sisters of a family, although we are obliged to describe this as „aim-inhibited love‟ or „affection‟.22 It is easy to see, based on Freud‟s ideas, how the Tempelherr might have confused his affection for Recha for sexual love and attraction, considering that he did not know at the time that she

20 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” V, 7, 502-503 21 Schneider, “Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Nathan der Weise,“ p. 313 22 Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, New York, Norton, 1961, p. 49 9 was his sister. It is also very possible that he instinctively or unconsciously knew that Recha was his sister, which could account for his reluctance to find attraction to her to begin with. Since any idea of attraction to Recha seems to be dissolved at the end of the play, that is to say the Nathan‟s refusal to let the Tempelherr marry Recha is no longer an issue, one could argue that any notion of incestuous desire, if there was really any to begin with, is also dissolved, as the Tempelherr embraces Recha as his sister and nothing more.23 Yet another central theme in this drama that defines it as a drama of modernity is trade, and its influence on justice and law. The interplay of trade and economy and law and justice is maintained by Nathan‟s relationship with the sultan. Lehrer writes of this relationship: “Romantic love yields to universal love in Nathan der Weise, in which questions of money abound and the Sultan‟s lack of funds constitutes a major plot element.”24 Saladin‟s financial needs open a door for a friendship, or at least a business transaction, between the Muslim ruler and the wealthy Jew. The Dervish, Al-Hafi, is the mediator between Saladin and Nathan at first, because of the friendship that already exists between him and Nathan. He is asked to request money from whomever he can think of, and Sittah makes the suggestion that he ask his friend. Lehrer writes that many of the relationships in Lessing‟s dramas are disturbed in some fashion by economic means, and that they often “have to contend with the potential impersonality of financial transactions.”25 Al-Hafi appears to suspect that asking money of Nathan may pose a slight threat to and disturb their friendship, and expresses his reluctance to do so, using Nathan‟s religious affiliation and tendencies to indicate that Nathan would not be willing to lend money to the sultan: “Er ist aufs Geben Euch so eifersüchtig, so neidisch! Jedes Lohn von Gott, das in der Welt gesagt wird, zog‟ er lieber ganz allein. Nur darum eben leiht er keinem, damit er stets zu geben habe.”26 The act of loaning money between two parties recalls Neitzsche‟s words on the oldest and most primitive of relationships, that of the creditor and debtor, which he says “is as old as the idea of „legal subjects‟ and in turn points back to the fundamental forms of buying, selling, barter, trade, and traffic.”27 Nietzsche here makes the connection between the law and trade, in that the debtor was legally bound to the creditor through a contract and “pledged that if

23 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” V, 8, 652-655 24 Lehrer, “Lessing‟s Economic Comedy,” p. 82 25 Lehrer, “Lessing‟s Economic Comedy,” p. 84 26 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” II, 2, 290-294 27 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 499 10 he should fail to repay he would substitute something else that he „possessed‟.”28 In the case of “Nathan der Weise,” it is not so serious, since the sultan, a ruler, is understood to be honest and willing to repay his debts without saying so. When Nathan is summoned to the palace to meet with Saladin, the law comes back into play through the seeking of truth. Truth can be considered to be closely related to law in that justice is most often carried out through the truth. Saladin, rather than asking for money, poses to Nathan a question regarding truth and law: “Was für ein Glaube, was für ein Gesetz hat dir am meisten eingeleuchtet?”29 Lehrer points out that in many of Lessing‟s plays money “has no intrinsic value, serving only for purchase (in small quantities) and for personal security (in larger quantities),” indicating that Saladin, although lacking funds, may not necessarily need the money that Nathan is to loan him, except for his own security, which is why he chooses to ask Nathan not about money, but about law.30 Saladin‟s reason for asking this question is arguably his desire for the title “Verbesserer der Welt und des Gesetzes,” which he tells Nathan he hopes to soon obtain.31 As a response, Nathan tells the story of a ring, which was said to make the wearer agreeable to God and man and which was passed down to the favorite son through the generations. One father, who could not pick a favorite son and promised the ring to all three of his sons, made two identical copies of the ring, and each son received a ring upon his death. The rings are meant to represent the three religions in question, that the real ring is as indistinguishable as the true religion.32 A judge determines that the father could no longer deal with just one ring deciding who was ruler of the house, and that there should not be any rivalry between brothers, just as the three religions should not rival one another. Parallels can be drawn from the judge to both Nathan and Saladin. Nathan is like the judge because he has already been determined to be an open-minded and tolerant man, and Saladin becomes like Nathan and the judge after accepting this story as the answer to his question. Through this ring parable, it is further shown that Nathan is a modern figure because he, with Saladin‟s help, implements a new law of equality and tolerance between the three religions. For Nathan‟s delivery of truth, Saladin becomes the debtor, Nathan the creditor. In addition, Nathan loans Saladin a substantial sum of

28 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 500 29 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” III, 5, 324-325 30 Lehrer, “Lessing‟s Economic Comedy,” p. 89 31 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” III, 7, 385-387 32 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” III, 7, 449-475 11 money, creating a second debt that Saladin is obligated to repay. Jörg Schönert writes in his mercantilist analysis of the drama on the role of the ring parable in relation to the rest of the play: “In Nathan‟s Worten werden Materielles und Ideelles, der Austausch von Zahlungsmitteln und die Suche nach Wahrheit im Zuge eines Austauschs von Ideen verschränkt.“33 Not only does this refer to the connection of the rings to the religions, the material to the idea or faith, but it can also be applied to the exchange of wealth and knowledge between Nathan and Saladin. Saladin can be viewed as an agent of law and justice throughout the play through his mediation of the conflict between Nathan and the Tempelherr regarding the marriage proposal with Recha and Nathan‟s supposed evil act against her. Nietzsche explains that justice can be defined as “the good will among parties of approximately equal power to come to terms with one another, to reach an „understanding‟ by means of a settlement—and to compel parties of lesser power to reach a settlement among themselves.”34 Saladin takes the initiative to begin the negotiations between Nathan and the Tempelherr by requesting that they both be present at the palace, and suggests to his sister that she occupy Recha at the same time.35 Nathan and the Tempelherr are both people of lesser power than Saladin, showing that Saladin is the one compelling the two of them, as Nietzsche says, to come to an agreement regarding this situation. Nathan can however also be described as an agent of justice, by Nietzsche‟s definition, for his actions in creating equality and tolerance between the three religions through his ring parable, as he explained it to Saladin. He, being a Jew, created understanding with a Muslim, who then welcomed the Christian Tempelherr with equality. Through the analysis of the characters and their relationships with one another, the connections and interactions between family, law and justice, and trade have been determined. Through his role in the drama and his influence in the aforementioned interactions, Nathan can easily be seen as a character of modernity, who creates situations in the drama that give it an altogether attitude of modernity. Lessing shows his approval of the extraordinary familial situations and symbolic nature of the family relationships in this drama through his optimistic tone throughout the drama and through his arguably happy end. He indicates the emergence of a new humanity and push towards modernity through Nathan‟s display of tolerance and clarity in

33 Jörg Schönert, “Der Kaufmann von Jerusalem: Zum Handel mit Kapitalien und Ideen in Lessings Nathan der Weise“ in Scientia Poetica, Vol. 12, 2008, p. 89 34 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 506-507 35 Lessing, “Nathan der Weise,” IV, 4, 436-443 12 all situations he encounters in the drama. Through all of this he creates a drama that is centered on family and social interactions that are heavily reliant on trade and economy, and situations that require the interaction of law and trade in order to be resolved.

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CHAPTER 2

MOTIVES AND JUSTICE IN KLEIST’S “DER FINDLING”

In literature, the questions of motive, guilt and justice can be analyzed through the deeds performed and the characteristics displayed by the figures in the story. Motives and feelings of guilt are based on the psychological state of the characters and the feelings they display before, during and after the deed has been performed. Justice can be explained in three different ways: from a natural standpoint, what one innately knows is morally right; from a societal standpoint, what the authority or people of the society dictate is law; and from a religious standpoint, what religious leaders and texts describe as right or what will grant one entry to paradise. In the Romantic novella “Der Findling” Heinrich von Kleist presents the case of an unusual family tragedy that is riddled with warped motives and justice. The acts carried out by the characters in this story can be analyzed based on the three types of justice mentioned above, and through this analysis one can determine which characters are in the wrong and should feel guilty for the deeds done. In addition, psychoanalysis can help to verify the feeling or lack of feeling of guilt and the motives that drove the characters to committing those acts, to better understand the characters themselves and also to determine if justice is indeed served. Similar to Lessing‟s “Nathan der Weise,” Kleist‟s novella displays the symptoms of modernity through the characters and their interactions. Although the focus here is on justice, family and trade play a significant role in the novella and contribute to the attitude of modernity displayed in this story. In contrast to Lessing, however, Kleist uses the interplay of justice, family, and trade to almost argue against Lessing‟s optimism towards the symbolic, patchwork family and the sense of morality and tolerance that Nathan displays, influenced by his profession as a merchant. The humanity that is displayed in Lessing‟s drama is lacking in Kleist‟s novella, replaced by selfishness, egotism and corruption. That is not to say that Kleist supports the traditional family. It is quite the contrary. Silke-Maria Weineck explains that Kleist does not necessarily “endorse traditional paternity” or family, but rather warns against the possible repercussions of the symbolic family.36 The patchwork family that functions so well in Lessing‟s “Nathan der Weise”

36 Silke-Maria Weineck, „Kleist and the Ressurection of the Father,“ in Eighteenth Century Studies, 2003, 37/1, p. 85 14 is something entirely different from what Kleist displays in this work, which is a symbolic family that is disrupted by both trade and the law. The two main characters in this story, a salesman named Antonio Piachi and his adopted son Nicolo, both have questionable senses of moral and guilt that are displayed throughout the course of the story. From the beginning, Nicolo performs acts that are of questionable honesty. Piachi first encounters Nicolo as he is running away from the guards of Ragusa, a town contaminated by the plague. Although fleeing from the law, becoming a criminal in this sense, Nicolo is described by the narrator of the story as innocent. Nicolo explains to Piachi that he was in fact infected with the plague and meant to be brought back to the hospital where his parents both died, and did not want to go back to that place.37 What is interesting about this encounter is Piachi‟s reaction. At the very beginning of the story the narrator explains how protective Piachi is of his eleven year-old son, Paolo, and he decided to return home to avoid exposing the boy to the plague: “Doch da er hörte, dass das Übel von Tage zu Tage bedenklicher werde…so überwand die Sorge für seinen Sohn alle kaufmännischen Interessen: er nahm Pferde und reisete wieder ab.”38 Regardless of this concern for the safety of his son, Piachi takes Nicolo in the coach with them, and the boy infects the party, which ultimately leads to the death of young Paolo. Because of this encounter, one can place the blame for Paolo‟s death on both Nicolo and Piachi; Nicolo for trying to flee from the authority (going against the law of society), and Piachi for going against his natural fatherly instincts to protect his only son and heir, his blood. If Nicolo had obeyed the law, and if Piachi had respected this law and followed his instincts, Paolo would have arguably lived on without being infected. While Nicolo‟s motives for his attempted escape are understandable and one can easily sympathize with him, as Piachi does, they are not necessarily honorable. Contrary to this, however, the narrator and the nun at the hospital lead the reader to believe that Nicolo has no fault in this matter, that he is in fact as innocent as first described, by referring to the child as “Gottes Sohn.”39 Piachi‟s motives for taking the child in, on the other hand, are slightly more honorable because he sympathized with him and wanted to help. There is clearly no ill-will in Piachi‟s actions at this time. The motives behind Piachi‟s next decision, however, are of questionable honor and seemingly selfish. Piachi, immediately after the death of his biological son, resolves to take

37 Heinrich von Kleist, “Der Findling,” Stuttgart, Reclam, 1984, p. 229 38 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 229 39 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 230 15

Nicolo home with him to Rome, and the reader discovers that Nicolo takes the place of Paolo entirely, as Paolo is never again mentioned in the story. It is interesting to note that this replacement of Paolo by Nicolo is like a business transaction, and when Piachi‟s profession as a businessman is taken into account, along with the notion that he was out on a business trip during this time, this idea does not seem so far-fetched. It shows the influence of trade and Piachi‟s profession on his life and his decisions regarding things other than work. It is as though Piachi uses this opportunity to „trade‟ his dead son for a live boy, a son-replacement. Shortly after his arrival in Rome, although a definite time span is not mentioned, Nicolo is sent to school and given a proper education, all funded by Piachi, and then adopted legally by Piachi “als seinen Sohn.”40 That Piachi is so quick to replace his son shows perhaps an emptiness inside him that he feels needs to be filled by any person that fits the part. Paolo passes, and Nicolo wins the part labeled „son‟ in Piachi‟s life. In this case, Sigmund Freud‟s discussion of the „ego‟, „id‟ and „superego‟ could be used to help clarify Piachi‟s motives. The „ego‟ can be defined as “a coherent organization of mental processes” and “controls the approaches to motility—that is to the discharge of excitations into the external world; it is the mental agency which supervises all its own constituent processes.” The „id‟ can be described as an entity “which behaves as though it were unconscious” and is controlled “unrestrictedly” by the “pleasure principle.” Freud continues, “The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions.” The „superego‟ can be described most simply as “the form of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt.”41 One could claim that Piachi‟s „id‟ overcomes his „super-ego,‟ in that he has an overwhelming desire to fill that emptiness, and his „ego‟ decides that the most realistic manner in which to accomplish this is to take Nicolo as a replacement.42 While no crime or anything against the law of society is committed here, Piachi‟s need to replace his son could be considered an act against the laws of nature. Blood should not be so easily replaced. Through the course of Nicolo‟s upbringing, one sees how the term „innocent,‟ used in the beginning to describe him, is no longer an accurate description. As a young man, he displays two characteristics that are less than noble, one of which is strongly opposed by Piachi, and both are direct causes of events that occur later in the story and to which Nicolo‟s motives can easily be

40 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 231 41 Freud, The Ego and the Id, New York, Norton, 1962. p. 7, p. 13-15, p. 25 42 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 230 16 attributed: bigotry and an abnormal addiction to the fairer sex.43 To begin with, these characteristics are based in Freud‟s concept of the „id‟, the part of the mind that is based on the “pleasure principle” and knows no judgment of value, moral, good or evil; it acts entirely on what it desires and finding means to attain it.44 Although a tendency towards women is not necessarily always a bad thing, it appears to be so in the way that Nicolo displays it and how the narrator tells it. The narrator appears to have a subjective view of Nicolo here and helps to influence the opinions of the reader with regards to Nicolo‟s „unhealthy‟ attraction to females, as well as at other points in the text where the narrator judges both Nicolo‟s and Piachi‟s actions and gives commentary that includes his own opinion. Nicolo finds himself drawn to the seductive Xaviera Tartini, a sort of concubine to the bishop of Rome, but this relationship is immediately disapproved by Piachi and his wife, Elvire. Instead, Nicolo is made to marry his adoptive mother‟s niece, Constanza, and Piachi forces him to cut his ties to Xaviera. This is however impossible for Nicolo, because of his uncontrollable desire to be with Xaviera. Again, his „id‟ is the driving force behind his actions and his motive for breaking both laws of society and religion by continuing his affair with Xaviera after he has been married to Constanza and she legally becomes his wife. He goes against the societal standard of marriage through his lack of respect for the institution of marriage, and against the Catholic Church, which stands as the religious authority in Rome, by committing adultery and breaking his marriage vows. The narrator describes an occasion in which Nicolo blatantly betrays his wife and his adoptive father by meeting with Xaviera: “Erstmals war Nicolo, mit jener Xaviera Tartini, mit welcher er, trotz des Verbots des Vaters, die Verbindung nie ganz aufgegeben hatte, heimlich, und ohne Vorwissen seiner Gemahlin, unter der Vorspiegelung, dass er bei einem Freund eingeladen sei, auf dem Karneval gewesen...“45 It would appear here that Nicolo has no sense of moral or honesty, because he feels no guilt for what he is doing. With that said, one could argue that Nicolo functions solely through the „id‟, as there seems to be no repression of his desires and no attempts to control them or find more realistic means to satisfy his lust. He lacks the ability to control himself, leading to the belief that the „ego‟ and „superego‟ play no role in Nicolo‟s decision making process.

43 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 231-232 44 Freud, The Ego and the Id, p. 12 45 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 234 17

Nicolo‟s actions following the death of his wife also support this notion that Nicolo lacks a functioning „ego‟ and „superego‟, in that he displays no sorrow or grief at the fact that he just lost his wife. His „ego‟ cannot repress the desires of his „id‟, and as Nicolo shows no sign of guilt or conscience, it becomes certain that his „superego‟ has no power at all. Instead of going to his wife‟s funeral, he wishes to meet with Xaviera, and only shows emotion when Piachi tricks him into coming to the church and makes him think that Xaviera is the one being buried at this ceremony. Although it was Piachi‟s trick, Nicolo places the blame on Elvire because she saw him with Xaviera‟s lady-in-waiting, and begins to develop a sort of Oedipus complex as a result of the encounter. He cannot get over the Elvire‟s physical appearance as she discovers him with the maiden: “Zugleich war ihm Elvire niemals schöner vorgekommen, als in dem Augenblick, da sie, zu seiner Vernichtung, das Zimmer, in welchem sich das Mädchen befand, öffnete und wieder schloß.“46 His obsession with Elvire‟s appearance turns into a desire to have her entirely because of his narcissistic nature. After he discovers the painting in her bedroom and Xaviera‟s daughter remarks how alike he and the subject of the painting appear, he becomes certain that he is the object of her erotic and ritualistic attention. His ideas are only further fueled when he realizes that the names Colino and Nicolo contain the same letters, and he resolves to take advantage of this situation to satisfy his „id‟—his desire for Elvire. It is also important that Nicolo is not only driven by an Oedipal attraction to Elvire, but also by a desire for revenge for the humiliation she caused him. Psychologist J. C. Flugel writes that “jealousy is an essential component of the famous Oedipus complex,” and explains that an “examination of jealousy in its psychological aspects seems to show that it can be split up into a number of paired opposites,” a number of which are displayed by Nicolo throughout this whole episode, the first of which being “the feelings of inferiority caused by wounded self-esteem.”47 He resolves to catch her in a similar act as that, for which he was punished, and his narcissism blinds him into believing that she secretly desires him as well.48 Nicolo, in pursuit of satisfaction of his „id‟, disguises himself as Elvire‟s dear Colino and stands in place of the painting, hoping to gain the chance accomplish his goal of seducing her and causing her the same humiliation as he felt. Here Nicolo displays two more of Flugel‟s jealousy aspects: “hostility may be directed to the loved object herself,”

46 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 237 47 J. C. Flugel, “Some Problems of Jealousy,” in Men and their Motives, New York, International Universities Press, 1947, p. 102-104 48 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 238 18 shown by his desire to humiliate Elvire and get revenge for his loss of self-esteem; and “hostility towards the person who has caused it,” displayed by his actions towards both Elvire and soon Piachi for causing him psychological anguish.49 His Oedipus complex also takes hold of him here, as he is discovered by Piachi and forces the old man to leave his own home because he did not have the right to be there.50 In this moment, one gains a clearer understanding of Nicolo‟s psychology and it becomes apparent that Nicolo‟s mind is controlled entirely by his „id‟ and lacks the functioning „ego‟ and „superego‟. As Freud explains it, the „superego‟ comes into existence through the Oedipus complex, in that it “had the task of repressing the Oedipus complex; indeed it is to that revolutionary event that it owes its existence.”51 The „superego‟ forms by resisting and countering the most extreme aspects of the complex, when the son aims to seduce the mother and replace the father. Nicolo does not show any resistance to these ideas, and there is no repression of his Oedipal desires whatsoever. Instead he completes the actions and allows his „id‟ to succeed. Nicolo‟s actions can also be viewed in terms of the various types of justice and law explained earlier. Nicolo did not break any laws by forcing Piachi out of his home; he was actually in the right and legally justified in his actions because Piachi had already completed the task of leaving his property and fortune to Nicolo and it was all properly documented under the law.52 In the sense of nature, one could argue that the feelings and intentions that Nicolo harbored for his mother were unnatural and even evil because they were taken to an extreme. One should never lust after one‟s family members, regardless of the fact that they may not be related by blood; they are still family. Although he breaks no law that would be punishable by a court, Nicolo appears to lack a conscience and a conscious sense of moral and is therefore arguably a perfect personification of Freud‟s concept of the „id‟. Perhaps Nicolo‟s actions can be justified through the consideration of the implications of his familial situation and relationships. Nicolo is orphaned because of the sudden death of his parents from the plague and taken in by a complete stranger immediately following the death of the stranger‟s own son. From this very moment Nicolo‟s psychological state could have been altered, if he indeed felt that his adoption was the result of Piachi‟s twisted sense of sympathy

49 Flugel, “Some Problems of Jealousy,” p. 103 50 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 246 51 Freud, The Ego and the Id, p. 24 52 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 232 19 and his business mentality. It is also not difficult to imagine that life would be more difficult for an adopted child in a foreign home than in his original home, especially when the new home is surrounded in secrets and replacement family members as Piachi‟s is, for Nicolo is not the first person to replace another in Piachi‟s life. Piachi‟s very young wife, Elvire, is not his first wife, but his second, whom he took after the death of his first wife and Paolo‟s mother. So it is interesting to note that Elvire first replaced Paolo‟s mother, and then became a replacement mother for Nicolo, as well as being the replacement wife for Piachi. Here too, Piachi replaced for Elvire the knight Colino, who saved her from the fire, and would have arguably become her husband had he lived. Jürgen Schröder writes in his analysis of the novella that Nicolo may not be as guilty or bad as he may first seem, simply because of this complicated family system. He poses the question: Ist es ein Wunder, dass schon der Junge sich in seinen beiden verbotenen „Leidenschaften“ Ersatz für das sucht, was er in dieser unnatürlichen Familie nicht erhält, einen Vater- und Glaubensersatz in der „Bigotterie“, einen Mutter- und Liebesersatz in seinem „Hang für das weibliche Geschlecht“, dass er im Karmeliterkloster auch die fehlende Familiengemeinschaft sucht?53 With Piachi‟s family history considered, one can easily reply to Schröder‟s question that it is no wonder that Nicolo developed into such a psychologically disturbed person. One can see how traumatic an upbringing in such an environment could be, and how it could lend itself to Nicolo‟s future psychological issues, such as his Oedipus complex. Schröder continues in his analysis to clarify the possible origins of this complex: Nicolo ist nicht Kaufmannsdiener, sondern der zur Dankbarkeit verpflichtete Stiefsohn des Prinzipals und seiner über dreißig Jahre jüngeren Frau. Dadurch bekommt die Dreiecksgeschichte zusätzliche Ödipusqualitäten. Der junge Liebhaber und die potentielle junge Liebhaberin werden durch den möglichen Mutterinzest zugleich abgelenkt und gereizt.54 If this were in fact the case, it would be easier to understand Nicolo‟s actions and consider him to be less guilty. It is possible then, as Schröder claims, that Nicolo had no control over his feelings

53 Jürgen Schröder, “Kleist‟s Novella „Der Findling‟: Ein Plädoyer für Nicolo,” in Kleist-Jahrbuch, MLA International Bibliography, 1985, p. 114 54 Schröder, “Kleist‟s Novella „Der Findling‟: Ein Plädoyer für Nicolo,” p. 116 20 towards Elvire (which could also be attributed to the strength of his ego) and was merely the product of his environment and familial situation. When considering Nicolo‟s guilt, the role of the narrator should also be taken into account. From the beginning of the story, the narrator appears to have a very subjective view of the incidents that occur, and this view is usually not in favor of Nicolo. The reader has to take what the narrator tells at face-value, since the narrator is the one telling the story, not Nicolo, Piachi, Elvire or any other character. The reader is thus forced to believe what the narrator says, because there is no alternative to the story. There is only the one account of what happens. J. Hillis Miller writes that the act of both telling and reading the story, as with many Kleist‟s stories, can often lead to disaster and misjudgments about the characters. Miller clarifies that the information given in these stories “can be put together this way or that way, and there is a disastrous tendency for the data to be put together erroneously, through malice, by accident, or just by application of normal assumptions about probability.”55 The reader does not know where the narrator got his information in order to tell the story, but is forced to believe the things he says and how he says them. Piachi on the other hand, is not controlled entirely by his „id‟, although he may sometimes succumb to its desires as earlier described. He appears instead to have a balance between the three parts of the mind and makes decisions through all three rather than letting one overpower the other. This can be seen through an analysis of his motives for the actions he performs throughout the story. While his motives for adopting Nicolo may have been selfish and leaning in favor of the „id‟, Piachi‟s decision to bequeath everything he owned to Nicolo appears to have no other motive than Piachi‟s desire to be a good father and provide Nicolo, whom he sees as his son, with everything that he might need. That Nicolo is required to marry Constanza before he is allowed to have this inheritance shows the coordination between Piachi‟s „ego‟ and „superego‟. He wished the boy to be good and honorable, an ideal situation founded in the „superego‟, and comes to an agreement that if he marries Constanza, he will become more honorable, a logical and realistic idea founded in the „ego‟. The same can be said for Piachi‟s motives for tricking Nicolo after Constanza‟s death. Piachi, as a father, only wanted his son to be the best person possible, and sought to teach Nicolo a lesson for his poor sense of honor and

55 J. Hillis Miller, “Laying Down the Law in Literature” in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 308 21 moral. Here Piachi‟s „ego‟ mediated between the „id‟, perhaps a strong desire to punish in a more extreme fashion, and the „superego‟ to carry out a plan that was not extreme by any means, and was not performed with any ill intention, and got the point across is a very realistic fashion. It may have been slightly cruel, but no one was physically harmed through this act. Nicolo was meant to make himself a better person from his feelings of humiliation. Like Nicolo, Piachi does not break any laws through these acts, and one could even argue that Piachi was fighting on the side of the law by trying to make Nicolo a better, more honest person. In terms of Piachi‟s relationship to Nicolo, Piachi is himself like a „super-ego‟ to Nicolo in that he is constantly attempting to mold Nicolo into the best person he can be. The control that he tries to exert over Nicolo throughout his upbringing is part of Piachi‟s role as a father, and functions for Nicolo as a „super-ego‟ would, but is often neglected by Nicolo. Towards the end of the story, however, one sees a distinct change in Piachi‟s psychology. Piachi attempts to remain balanced between the „id‟, „ego‟ and „superego‟ as he seeks help in this case against himself and his wife, who died because of the stress of the situation, but when he discovers that the law of society is on Nicolo‟s side, his „id‟ takes over and allows his desire for revenge to overcome him. In this moment, Piachi becomes what Friedrich Nietzsche would call a „reactive‟ man or a man of „ressentiment‟ because he decides to take the law into his own hands, he attempts to “sanctify revenge under the name of justice.”56 He believes that he deserves justice for the humiliation he faced and for the death of his wife and becomes a sort of vigilante. Nicolo can arguably be considered the counterpart to Piachi, as the “active, aggressive, arrogant man,” because the law is on his side and as Nietzsche describes “is still a hundred steps closer to justice than the reactive man; for he has absolutely no need to take a false and prejudiced view of the object before him in the way the reactive man does and is bound to do.”57 It can also be argued that Piachi feels himself partially responsible for the death of his wife, because he let the situation get to this point and made poor judgments in regards to Nicolo in the past, and his feelings of guilt and „bad conscience‟ cause him to commit murder. It is interesting to note that normally the „id‟ (his desire for revenge) and the „superego‟ (his conscience) contradict one another, however here they appear to complement each other in the sense that his conscience helps to fuel his desire for revenge and provide the motive for murdering Nicolo. Piachi‟s desire

56 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals” in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, New York, Modern Library, 2000, p. 509 57 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 511 22 for revenge and his submission to the „id‟ can also be explained through a psycho-analytic model for how man reacts towards law-breakers and criminals and how they operate. In this case, the model can be used to understand Piachi‟s mental processes when planning his revenge for the “crimes” that were committed against him. Flugel suggests a three-part explanation for this model, claiming that first “the criminal provides an outlet for our (moralized) aggression,” second “the criminal by his flouting of law and moral rule constitutes a temptation to the id” as has been previously mentioned, and finally there is “the danger with which our whole notion of justice is threatened when we observe that a criminal has gone unpunished.”58 In Piachi‟s mind, Nicolo has committed severe crimes against him and is the real criminal here, and therefore seeks justice for himself. Flugel offers an explanation as to why people seek to punish others without the help of the law, why people tend to search for some form of self-justice, which can be applied to the case of Piachi when he murders Nicolo: With each blow that we inflict upon the guilty party we feel that our own conscience is lightened; in our „righteous indignation‟ we satisfy at one and the same time our primitive aggressiveness, the disapproval of our super-ego (now, however, no longer directed against ourselves), and our sadism (which finds itself free in this situation to indulge in its peculiar satisfaction without incurring censure).59 Piachi releases his own guilt upon Nicolo, who is also undoubtedly guilty of causing Piachi so much pain, and in this moment, he becomes the only person in the entire story to commit an actual crime. He is the only criminal in the eyes of the law because he committed murder. This act goes against every form of law, even though Piachi was trying to find justice for himself. Kleist‟s interests in law are easily seen in this work, through the conflict between the different types of justice and law that have been described here. Miller describes how Kleist was “fascinated by the possibility of conflicts among various jurisdictions, the conflict, for example, between divine and human law,” which is so prominent in this story60. There is constantly a conflict between Piachi‟s sense of moral law and justice and the law put in place by the Catholic Church. Kleist‟s own ideas of law and justice, as explained by Theodore Ziolkowski, are shown through the conclusion of this story, in that the law does not always function exactly as it is

58 J. C. Flugel, Man, Morals and Society, Edinburgh, Riverside Press, 1945, p. 169 59 Flugel, Man, Morals and Society, p. 164-165 60 J. Hillis Miller, “Laying Down the Law in Literature,” p. 308 23 supposed to, and that “it is not the law itself but its human administrators who are at fault.”61 He continues to say that with many of Kleist‟s works “the representatives of the church take first place among the corrupters of the law,” and this is exactly the case in “Der Findling.”62 The Carmelite monks and the bishop take the side of Nicolo through the whole affair, denying Piachi any chance of finding real justice, and the church official who allows Piachi to be hanged without first having absolution breaks the Catholic city-state‟s law in doing so. Miller explains that in Kleist‟s text, the legal system is in a sense saved by this action, saying that “the Pope breaks a knot in the law by breaking the law, in order to preserve the legal system.”63 In order for the justice system of the Church to continue functioning in the future, a rule had to be broken. In the end one can make the argument that justice is served for both Nicolo and Piachi. Piachi avenges Elvire‟s death and finds his own self justice by murdering Nicolo and Nicolo‟s finds justice after his own death with Piachi‟s execution. For Piachi, the motives for his actions generally justify what he accomplishes throughout the story, with the exception of the murder he commits for his own satisfaction and his need for justice. Piachi displays a sense of guilt for his actions up until the point of the murder, but does not feel as though he did anything wrong in murdering Nicolo, as one can see during his trial as he refuses absolution from the Catholic church and only wishes to continue to pursue Nicolo in Hell.64 The reader sympathizes with Piachi though, because he tried for so long to give everything and more to Nicolo, but only saw it all backfire on him. Although he committed a crime, the reader generally does not find Piachi to be the guilty figure. In Nicolo‟s case, however, the motives never appear to be reasonable or honorable, as he is always searching for a means by which he can satisfy his „id‟. He shows no guilt, no conscience, and therefore becomes the guiltiest character in the story in the eyes of the reader.

61 Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice, Princeton, Princeton UP, 1997, p. 211 62 Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice, p. 211 63 J. Hillis Miller, “Laying Down the Law in Literature,” p. 308 64 Kleist, “Der Findling,” p. 247 24

CHAPTER 3

THE SUBJECTIVE LAW AND WARPED JUSTICE OF KAFKA’S “DAS URTEIL”

In the stories of Modernist Franz Kafka, one can see distinct traces of his studies of and intense interest in law and justice, although they may be present in various manners. In his short story “Das Urteil” the manifestation of law and justice can be seen through the actions of the protagonist Georg Bendemann and the relationship between Georg and his father, through their family dynamic. The story itself can be viewed as a court case, in that the reader is first provided with a case profile of a subject, Georg Bendemann, and then witnesses his trial and judgment. The father‟s bedchamber becomes the courtroom in the story, where Georg is the defendant in the case of his life and his father takes on the role of the judge, prosecutor and ultimately executioner. The Law in this case is based on the psychological state of the father and on the implications of the relationship between Georg and his father, causing the law to be something that is not entirely objective. The textual evidence regarding both characters and their actions can be used to examine exactly how justice and the law function in this story. Kleist‟s representation of the interplay between trade, family and law appears to be revisited in Kafka‟s story, through his portrayal of a family relationship that is entirely disturbed by the idea of trade and economy which ultimately results in subjective law. Without any hesitation Kafka introduces Georg Bendemann into the story. Georg, a successful salesman not unlike Lessing‟s Nathan and Kleist‟s Piachi, sits at his desk in his private room looking out the window at the bridge, just after writing a letter to his long-time friend is St. Petersburg about recent events in his life and town. Within the first few pages of the story, the reader gains a vast knowledge of Georg‟s current life and situation, allowing for the creation of a complete character profile. The reader gets the impression first that Georg is a kind man who is genuinely concerned with the friend‟s well-being, because of the way in which the narrator explains the situation of the letter-writing. It is explained that the friend decided to move to Russia in order to become a more successful businessman, but that attempt had apparently failed for the most part, and the friend had no real connections with anyone in St. Petersburg, but

25 rather lived a life of bachelorhood and solitude.65 After exhausting all the possibilities of things that Georg could write to the friend, the narrator makes a suggestion regarding this process to the reader: “Aus diesen Gründen konnte man ihm, wenn man noch überhaupt die briefliche Verbindung aufrecht erhalten wollte, keine eigentlichen Mitteilungen machen, wie man ohne Scheu auch den entferntesten Bekannten machen würde.“66 Being that this man has been a friend of Georg‟s since childhood Georg wishes to tell him the news of his own successes, but he goes about it in an unconventional manner. Georg‟s way to avoid the possibility of causing his friend any harmful feelings (since his own life appears to be rather unhappy and futile) is by tip-toeing around the subject and making it seem as though the life he leads is someone else‟s entirely. He tells the friend in previous letters that someone else has become engaged, and waits until the most recent letter to actually own up to being engaged himself. He also leaves out any information regarding the success of his business, remarking that it is entirely odd to write on that subject at all. According to Nietzsche, this type of thinking goes back to the earliest civilizations, that man in his earliest thinking, focused on human pride and a “feeling of superiority in relation to other animals.”67 Georg fits Nietzsche‟s criteria for this type of man, not only because he is self-absorbed and too proud of his successes to tell his friend, but because he is also a businessman. Nietzsche shows in his “Genealogy of Morals“ that the oldest relationship between people was the relationship of business, of creditors and debtors, so it seems fitting that Georg, a businessman, would have characteristics consistent with Nietzsche‟s ideas of man.68 The narrator offers however a less selfish explanation of Georg‟s rationale for doing so: “Er wollte nichts anderes, als die Vorstellung ungestört lassen, die sich der Freund von der Heimatstadt in der langen Zwischenzeit wohl gemacht und mit welcher er sich abgefunden hatte.“69 One can arguably say that this is an action of compassion on Georg‟s part, that he is genuinely trying to do what is in the best interest of the friend, but this notion is shattered by what follows in the next paragraph of the story. The reader learns more about how Georg feels, and more importantly the truth about his feelings, and about the friend in Russia through his conversation with his fiancée, Fräulein Frieda

65 Franz Kafka, “Das Urteil,” Stuttgart, Reclam, 1995, p. 51 66 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 52 67 Friedrich Nietzsche, „Genealogy of Morals“ in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, New York, Modern Library, 2000, p. 506 68 Nietzsche, „Genealogy of Morals,“ p. 499 69 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 53 26

Brandenfeld. Frieda wishes to meet all of Georg‟s friends and seems concerned that this particular friend will not be attending their wedding. Georg‟s immediate response is somewhat concerning to the reader, because it lacks any feeling of emotion from Georg. He simply states: “Ich will ihn nicht stören.” He then goes on to clarify in a long and somewhat drawn out statement: “Er würde wahrscheinlich kommen, wenigstens glaube ich es, aber er würde sich gezwungen und geschädigt fühlen, vielleicht mich beneiden und sicher unzufrieden und unfähig, diese Unzufriedenheit jemals zu beseitigen...“70 What at first seemed like concern for the friend from Georg now becomes a somewhat selfish attempt at avoiding an awkward situation with the friend. Georg realizes that the friend‟s lot in life is less fortunate than his own, and hopes that by not mentioning to the friend that he is engaged he will avoid any sort of conflict that would change their „besondere Korrespondenzverhältnis.‟ Here again Nietzsche is called to mind through Georg‟s actions. By admitting that he believes his friend would be quite possibly jealous of Georg‟s successes, he is comparing himself with his friend, becoming more like a man Nietzsche would describe, who “designated himself as the creature that measures values, evaluates and measures” as a means of gaining self-satisfaction.71 Although he may not say it directly, one could argue that Georg finds satisfaction in the thought that he has been so well off and so much more fortunate than his friend in Russia, because he continues to remark on his own happiness and success and the failure and misery of his friend. After all of this meditation on the possible outcomes of telling the friend or the friend finding out by some other means about the engagement, Georg decided to conclude his letter with the good news, along with an ambivalent invitation to the wedding, if one can even call it an invitation. Georg writes, appearing to be sympathetic to the friend‟s current situation as a businessman in Russia: “Ich weiß, es hält Dich vielerei von einem Besuch bei uns zurück, wäre aber nicht gerade meine Hochzeit die richtige Gelegenheit, einmal alle Hindernisse über den Haufen zu werfen? Aber wie dies auch sein mag, handle ohne alle Rücksicht und nur nach Deiner Wohlmeinung.“72 He does not say that he wishes or wants or desires the friend to come to the wedding, but rather acknowledges that a friend‟s wedding is the type of situation in which one would make an effort to attend, regardless of the difficulties in travel. He leaves the decision to the friend‟s judgment, and says no more on the subject. Georg is pre-judging his friend based

70 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 54 71 Nietzsche, „Genealogy of Morals,“ p. 506 72 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 55 27 on his own assumptions that really have no ground whatsoever other than in Georg‟s imagination. He does not know exactly what his friend will think or say on the matter, but he convinces himself that he does based on his knowledge of his friend and his situation. One could argue that this ambiguous way of inviting the friend, coupled with Georg‟s previous statements to his fiancée regarding the friend coming to the wedding, shows that Georg really has no interest in the friend attending the wedding at all. It appears as though he might be better off without the friend‟s presence than with, as he would have less to worry about if the friend stayed in Russia. Richard Lawson writes that this letter writing episode has a negative effect on Georg‟s character, in that it shows him to be a less than admirable man, that “the principal source for this negative feeling lies in the tone of his letter and of his past letters…less than straightforward, when not downright dishonest, the present letter is fundamentally manipulative.”73 With that said, one could see how Georg‟s words might suggest an invitation to the wedding, but his tone and way of extending that invitation say the exact opposite. Through this we have a portrait of Georg, a selfish man who keeps his own agenda, although appearing to have his friends‟ interests in mind first. It is perhaps because he feels a slight sensation of guilt, an unconscious notion even, for his actions towards and thoughts about the friend that he then seeks out approval for this most recent letter from his father, a figure that he has treated with similar neglect. The reader can begin to better see Georg as a guilty and insincere character once the interaction with his father begins. From Kafka‟s description of Georg it has been made known that he has taken over the family business and that he has been very busy pushing the business to be as successful as it has become in the recent years past, so busy that he has been neglecting his own father. The narrator describes how Georg, after finishing his letter goes to visit his father: “Endlich steckte er den Brief in die Tasche und ging aus seinem Zimmer quer durch einen kleinen Gang in das Zimmer seines Vaters, in dem er schon seit Monaten nicht gewesen war.”74 It is interesting to note that in Georg‟s opinion, there had not been a need to visit his father‟s room because they interacted at work, but in the hours of free time the interactions between them appear to be minimal, with little if any conversation at all: “…das Mittagessen nahmen sie gleichzeitig in einem Speisehaus ein, abends versorgte sich zwar jeder nach Belieben, doch saßen sie dann meistens, wenn

73 Richard Lawson, Franz Kafka, New York, Ungar, 1987, p. 24 74 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 55 28

nicht Georg, wie es am häufigsten geschah, mit Freunden beisammen war oder jetzt seine Braut besuchte, noch ein Weilchen, jeder mit seiner Zeitung, im gemeinsamen Wohnzimmer.”75 Although this description shows that when they are not working, Georg and his father spend a good amount of time in the same room, it does not necessarily mean that they are spending that time together. They eat in the same restaurant, but it is unknown if they dine at the same table, and when they sit together in the living room they each have a newspaper, and are arguably not paying attention to one another, but instead reading to themselves. The relationship they share at this point does not really appear to be a warm father-son relationship, but rather a business partnership. It is as though their professional attitudes as salesmen have caused them to become alienated from personal relationships, unlike Lessing‟s Nathan who embraced all people and his relationships with the people he encountered through his work. Georg remarks that his father still appears to be like a giant to him, as though he has not seen him in a very long time, and continues by stating that at work his father seems to be a completely different person (not like a father at all perhaps), which supports the notion that their relationship is not very familial.76 Georg has been too preoccupied with his own successes in life to pay attention to his father outside of their work relationship. He notices that his father‟s health has not been the same since the death of Georg‟s mother, and his father is becoming increasingly reclusive as a result of old age and sorrow. The father himself makes the comment to Georg that: “Seit dem Tode unserer teueren Mutter sind gewisse unschöne Dinge vorgegangen. Vielleicht kommt auch für sie die Zeit und vielleicht kommt sie früher, als wir denken.”77 This could be read as the father indicating that he has seen how self-centered Georg has become recently, and foreshadows that there will be consequences for these „unpleasant things‟. It is also interesting how Georg‟s father uses the word “teuer” to describe the mother. This establishes a connection between economic value and family, which shows more of the influence of the merchant profession on their lives. Georg begins to blame his father for not keeping up with his own health, for not eating properly and for keeping his room so dark, accusing him of not taking care of himself, and attempts to offer suggestions for bettering his lifestyle, which in reality appear to be more like attempts by Georg to take control of his father just as he has taken control of the

75 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 55 76 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 56 77 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 57 29 family business.78 This accusation is shortly thereafter presumably withdrawn, as Georg notices his father‟s soiled undergarments and the extent of his neglect comes to light: “Beim Anblick der nicht besonders reinen Wäsche machte er sich Vorwürfe, den Vater vernachlässigt zu haben. Es wäre sicherlich auch seine Pflicht gewesen, über den Wäschewechsel seines Vaters zu wachen.“79 That he could not even pay enough attention to his father to make certain that the man‟s hygiene and cleanliness were attended to shows that he truly is preoccupied with himself, and takes nothing of the outside world in, unless it pertains immediately to him. In this Georg is very much like Nicolo in Kleist‟s “Findling.” They are both self-centered characters who have records of only committing actions that will gain them instant gratification, and have also been given everything they have from their fathers who have tried to shape them as functional human beings. Because of the episode regarding the friend in St. Petersburg, it is clear that Georg has a sort of moral dilemma stemming from his selfishness. J. P. Stern argues that Georg‟s egocentricity is one of the main contributing factors to his moral dilemma, causing him to neglect the people that he should be close with. He writes that “all Georg‟s acts and thoughts have in common his exclusive preoccupation with himself; that he measures everything around him in terms of his own hopes and fears. It is more than egocentricity, it is a kind of moral solipsism.”80 It begins with the friend, and continues to spread into his relationship with his father. This egocentricity shows Georg to be a character of less than admirable moral fiber, which is why he finds himself in such a conflict with his father later in the story. Stern comments that “Das Urteil“ is a story “characteristic of a preoccupation central to the overwhelming majority of his [Kafka‟s] writings and patent in their titles—his preoccupation with guilt, punishment, and the law according to which these are connected and assessed.”81 It is at the point of the story, where Georg and his father begin to clash, that the courtroom scene opens and begins. Theodore Ziolkowski has also made a connection between Kafka‟s stories and his obsession with law, stating that “it has been shown that in many of his works Kafka displays a fondness for scenes built around courtlike interrogations,” and that is exactly how this story

78 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 57 79 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 59 80 J. P. Stern, “Franz Kafka‟s Das Urteil: An Interpretation,“ The German Quarterly, 1972, 45/1, p. 126 81 Stern, “Franz Kafka‟s Das Urteil: An Interpretation,“ p. 114 30 plays out.82 Georg‟s father begins to make accusations against Georg, based on his actions towards the friend in St. Petersburg, which are at first quite comical because he asks Georg, “Hast du wirklich diesen Freund in Petersburg?”83 At first glance, this could be read as the father questioning Georg‟s belief in the existence of this man in St. Petersburg, making it difficult to decipher if the father is being serious, or read as the father asking Georg if this man in St. Petersburg is actually a true friend, which the reader later discovers is the correct reading. This question is a valid one, because based on the character profile of Georg, he does not seem to treat this man as a friend normally would. Stern writes that “this suspicion is the first more or less clear indication of the hostility between the two of them” and continues to say that because of these hostile feelings the reader should “add the accusation that since the mother‟s death the son has been intent on overpowering the father.”84 In time it appears as though Georg‟s father catches on to this idea, because his own suspicions grow and the accusations continue as Georg tries to cover his father up in bed, presumably to make sure that he keeps warm, although Georg had made the remark earlier in their conversation that it was quite warm outside. The father cries out his next claim almost violently: “Du wolltest mich zudecken, daß weiß ich, mein Früchtchen, aber zugedeckt bin ich noch nicht. Und es ist auch die letzte Kraft, genug für dich, zuviel für dich.“85 The father uses Georg‟s earlier comments and thoughts, as well as his own suspicions, to turn this ambivalent gesture into a metaphor for Georg‟s attempt to rid himself of his father and take control of his life entirely. Lawson suggests that this interpretation of action by the father can be explained by an “unresolved Oedipal relationship” between Georg and his father and writes that “the father had held the upper hand, the weight of power, psychological power, as well as power in the family firm, for as long as his wife, Georg‟s mother, lived, that is, until two years ago.”86 It is possible that this change in relationship is one of the things Georg‟s father was referring to when he mentioned „unpleasant things‟, and allows him to easily justify his own suspicions of Georg.

82 Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice, Princeton, Princeton UP, 1997, p. 226 83 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 57 84 Stern, „Das Urteil: An Interpretation,“ p. 124 85 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 60 86 Lawson, Franz Kafka, p. 22 31

Georg is taking his father‟s place quite literally in some aspects, as the father mentions Georg closing deals in the business that he himself had set up earlier in life.87 Nietzsche writes that “the feeling of guilt, of personal obligation, had its origin, as we saw, in the oldest and most primitive personal relationship, that between buyer and seller, creditor and debtor: it was here that one person first encountered another person, that one person first measured himself against another.”88 It is not difficult to see a connection to Georg and his father, as they are both businessmen by profession. They could be seen as the physical representations of Nietzsche‟s most primitive personal relationship, since they clearly do not act like father and son, and since Georg has, since the beginning of the story, been measuring himself with his friend and his father, sometimes quite literally. He comments on how giant-like his father looks, and compares the success of the business now since he has taken over to how it was beforehand. Georg‟s father questions Georg‟s sense of morality and honor, an action arguably justified by his accusations against Georg for attempting to “cover him up” and take his place. He charges Georg for being morally unsound and disgracing his family through his relationship with Fräulein Brandenfeld, claiming that Georg only wishes to marry her to fulfill his carnal desires: “Weil sie die Röcke so und so und so gehoben hat, hast du dich an sie herangemacht, und damit du an ihr ohne Störung dich befriedigen kannst, hast du unserer Mutter Andenken geschändet, den Freund verraten und deinen Vater ins Bett gesteckt, damit er sich nicht rühren kann.”89 Sigmund Freud writes that in the case of the totemic system, “sexual need does not unite men; it separates them,” and although here the conflict is not a rivalry between brothers over a woman as is usually the case in totemism, it still shows a familial conflict caused by a woman.90 It is Georg‟s sexual desires for Fräulein Brandenfeld that are contributing to his neglect of his father and his desire to replace him as the alpha male of the family. What is interesting is that Georg does not even try to dispute his father‟s accusations. He merely stands there and takes it all in. One could argue that the father becomes stronger throughout this entire trial because Georg cannot defend himself, arguably because he feels, if even unconsciously, guilty for the things that his father is accusing him of. Stern argues that

87 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 61 88 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 506 89 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 61 90 Sigmund Freud, “Totem and Taboo” in The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, New York, Modern Library, 1938, p. 917 32

Georg‟s feelings of guilt are not necessarily founded in an objective manner, although there are some concrete facts for which Georg is guilty.91 He is guilty of neglecting and somewhat manipulating his friend in Russia, and also for neglecting his father and his health, but the father appears to use those two facts and pit them against Georg to make him feel guilty for so much more than that. Stern continues to say that Kafka‟s writing “establishes a kind of spider‟s web of insinuations by uniting the objective and subjective strands of guilt,” where the father instills his opinions of Georg in his mind through his accusations and causes him to feel guilty for those opinions as well.92 The father feeds off of Georg‟s feelings of guilt and his lack of defense in order to take charge of the situation and become a figure of authority. The father can only become strong again if the other party in this argument, Georg, becomes weaker, and he makes sure that this happens by feeding Georg‟s guilty conscience. Stern clarifies this struggle for authority: “The structure of this authoritative situation—indeed of any authoritative situation— is based on the acknowledgment of authority by one side, by him who obeys.”93 Georg relinquishes his power of authority by not standing up to his father and not defending himself against the accusations against his character; he again becomes the one who obeys. One could also argue that by acknowledging his father as a larger-than-life figure earlier in the text, he sets himself up to be the weaker of the two. The father becomes again the alpha male in the family, even if only in a mental sense. Here he appears similar to the totemic father based in Freud‟s writing, represented by a mythical creature, the giant, as Georg continues to describe him, rather than the traditional sacred animal. The fact that Georg aimed to take the place of his father shows, as Freud writes, one of the fundamental taboos of totemism, the murdering of the father or the father‟s totem animal.94 As Georg‟s father regains strength and authority, he becomes also the icon of law and justice in the reader‟s eyes, because although the guilt he has assigned to Georg is not entirely objective, he has made the reader believe that Georg is in fact guilty and worthy of punishment. According to Nietzsche, the administration of the law lies in the hands of the “active, strong, spontaneous, aggressive” man, a man such as Georg‟s father, because Georg, with his feelings of

91 Stern, „Das Urteil: An Interpretation,“ p. 122 92 Stern, „Das Urteil: An Interpretation,“ p. 123 93 Stern, „Das Urteil: An Interpretation,“ p. 119 94 Freud, “Totem and Taboo,” p. 917 33 guilt, is the weaker man.95 Georg can also be described as a “man of ressentiment” as Nietzsche describes him, because he begins to feel bitter towards his father and indirectly seeks revenge for putting him in the position he is now in, by wishing that his father would lean forward and thinks to himself “wenn er fiele und zerschmetterte!.”96 Nietzsche argues that “wherever justice is practiced and maintained one sees a stronger power seeking a means of putting an end to the senseless raging of ressentiment among the weaker powers that stand under it.”97 The father succeeds in this by punishing Georg with a sentence that in his mind, by rule of his subjective law, is fitting of the „crimes‟ committed. Freud writes that “psychoanalytic investigation of the individual teaches with especial emphasis that god is in every case modeled after the father and that our personal relation to god is dependent upon our relation to our physical father.”98 It can be argued that Georg‟s father, as he takes on the role of judge for Georg, also takes on the role of god, imposing his final judgment on Georg for his deeds. It can also see here how Kafka‟s training in criminal law comes to play. Ziolkowski describes in his book the system for determining the guilt of the accused according to Austrian law, with which Kafka was familiar. He clarifies: “The absence of any deed whose facts correspond to the criminal code (Tatbestand) or whose illegality (Rechtswidrigkeit) can be determined, the procedure is perforce restricted to the third of the analytical criteria, the determination of guilt (Schuld) and of the evil intent (böser Vorsatz) of the accused. This shift in emphasis, in turn, reflects the typical “subjectivism” of Austrian criminal law…”99 This explains the subjectivism in the judgment of Georg by his father; it is not just part of his character, but also the reflection of Kafka‟s training and knowledge on the subject. For neglecting the friend, neglecting his father, being a man of questionable honor, and for being once innocent but now “ein teuflischer Mensch,” Georg‟s father shouts out his judgment: “Ich verurteile dich jetzt zum Tode des Ertrinkens!”100 Although the sentence in the reader‟s eye is not very befitting of the crimes, due to the grey area of Georg‟s subjective guilt, Georg finds it appropriate enough to carry out himself. He “fühlte sich aus dem Zimmer gejagt,” if by the force of his father‟s authority or by his own guilt

95 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 511 96 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 62 97 Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals,” p. 511 98 Freud, “Totem and Taboo,” p. 919 99 Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice, p. 238-239 100 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 63 34 one cannot surely determine, but the force was there nonetheless.101 Georg‟s last words (“Liebe Eltern, ich habe euch doch immer geliebt.”) can also attest to his own feelings of guilt, as though he were apologizing to his parents for everything he has done in his life.102 By carrying out his sentence himself he shows his agreement with his father in that the sentence is just. Freud explains that the “sacrifice of one‟s own life brings about a reconciliation with god, the father,” and continues to say that “the suicidal impulses of our neurotics regularly prove to be self- punishments for death wishes directed against others.”103 With that said, it can be argued that not only did Georg find his own sentence fitting, but that he wished to also make amends with his father, the god-figure, for his ill-wishes against him and for attempting to take his place, as his thoughts and comments, as well as his Oedipal tendencies, indicated throughout the story. As it has been shown, Kafka‟s short story “Das Urteil” was heavily influenced by his training in law, in that the story itself reflects the process of law through its courtroom-like setting and trial-like plot. Kafka‟s fixation on the crisis that occurs within the law when it is not entirely subjective or when the law is implemented by a person, who is not judging in an entirely objective manner, is clearly shown in this work as well. The law itself is manifested by the father, through his role as judge and prosecutor and Georg‟s role as the accused. Georg‟s feelings of guilt „prove‟ him to be the criminal that his father believes him to be, and he is ultimately condemned for his actions and thoughts.

101 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 63 102 Kafka, “Das Urteil,” p. 64 103 Freud, “Totem and Taboo,” p. 925 35

CONCLUSION

Lessing, Kleist and Kafka all present works of modernity because they examine the interactions of trade, law and family in their reactions to one another and in the results thereof. Through their depictions of this the authors redefine society and how it can be viewed when these three aspects are taken into account. It is interesting to note exactly how much these works have in common. To begin with, each of the three texts is centered around a main character in the merchant or salesman profession, who is usually the father figure in the story as well, and whose sense of morality and thinking is heavily influenced by his profession. In the case of “Nathan der Weise,” Nathan represents a modern character through his tolerance and ever-moving actions. He is constantly moving towards something or someone and negotiating something with everyone he encounters, such as he does with Daja at the beginning of the drama, with the Tempelherr about Recha and his own family, the monk, Al-Hafi the Dervish and with Saladin about truth and law. Nathan‟s exposure to the world because of his profession arguably makes him a more tolerant person, because he encounters people of all types and religions. It is this tolerance that allows him to raise his daughter Recha the way he does, accepting of all religions. This tolerance also has an effect on how he becomes friends so easily with people like the Tempelherr and Saladin, who both believe at the beginning that their religion is the true religion. In contrast to Lessing‟s Nathan, Kleist‟s Piachi is less tolerant, as he tries throughout the whole story to control Nicolo and his actions. From the moment he picks Nicolo up and takes him back to Rome, he attempts to shape the boy and raise him based on his own morals. Piachi can however also be seen as a figure of modernity in that the story is initiated by the business trip, the movement, of Piachi at the beginning of the novella. This movement defines Piachi and Nicolo‟s future, good or bad. The situation in Kafka‟s “Urteil” is slightly different from that in Lessing and Kleist because both the father and son are businessmen, men who have defined their attitudes and behavior on their profession. The relationship between Georg and his father is not very warm, which is perhaps because of their profession as businessmen. They display more formality towards one another as they would during a business transaction or deal, rather than acting as a loving father and son. In comparison to Nathan and Piachi, these businessmen are entirely

36 immobile. They merely imagine and assume what the other party does or believes, rather than attempting to move and communicate with one another. This lack of movement and communication characterizes Georg‟s relationship with both his friend and his father. The familial relationships in each text are also interesting to note because they challenge the traditional notion of family, the family of the pre-modern world. None of the familial relationships in any of the three texts are static. In “Nathan der Weise” the natural parents of both Recha and the Tempelherr are absent and replaced several times over by other characters in the drama. The two siblings shift from being raised by adoptive parents to being taken in by the siblings of their natural parents. Lessing shows his approval of such a patchwork family through the optimistic tone throughout the drama regarding the relationship between all of the characters. At the end of the drama, all of the characters act as though they are related, because they are in a sense through their love and feelings of caring towards one another. They are all brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, regardless of their religious affiliation or birth. This acceptance and tolerance of others is arguably the result of Nathan‟s influence, because he himself is influenced by his profession as a merchant. Kleist, on the other hand, disputes Lessing‟s optimism by showing the possible negative repercussions of a patchwork family. While Nathan‟s profession positively affects his morals and his relationships with the other characters, the opposite can be said of Piachi. Piachi‟s profession as a merchant is what disturbs his family to begin with, and changes the family dynamic in the story. The business trip that Piachi takes, in which he acquires Nicolo, is the catalyst for the disruption of the stable family relationship. Because of this trip, Piachi loses his only son and adopts a new son as a replacement, who ultimately leads to Piachi‟s downfall and the destruction of the family. The son is not the only figure that is traded and replaced though. Wives and mothers are constantly changing, showing again that the notion of a traditional family is not necessarily what is most common anymore. New members are constantly being added to the family, which causes the nucleus of the family to constantly change. As was stated earlier, the familial relationship between Georg and his father is heavily reliant on their profession. They speak to each other as though they are discussing a business deal, and Georg speaks in the same manner to his fiancée and to his friend in the letter. Family in this story is not warm and comfortable, as it is thought of traditionally, but rather formal and calculated. In this work, as in Lessing and Kleist, family is constantly changing. Here it is more

37 the dynamic of the family that changes, as the role of leader of the family switches from the father to Georg and back to the father. There are however aspects of replacement that should be noted, that add to the appearance of a non-traditional family. Georg‟s fiancée could be viewed as a replacement for his mother, since she is the only female figure in the story and would be taking the place of the woman in Georg‟s life who takes care of him. The father remarking too that the friend in Russia is more of a son to him than Georg shows the negotiation of family members that is present in all of the works. By the end of each work, the original family that was present at the start has been completely dissolved, either through the expansion of the family as shown in Lessing, or through death and replacement as shown in Kleist and Kafka. In each of the three works one can clearly see the emergence of modernity through the depiction of law and justice. There does not appear to be a distinct line between right and wrong, guilty and innocent anymore, and the rules of law are redefined by the characters in each work. Lessing‟s characters Nathan and Saladin represent the law, though in different fashions. Saladin, being the ruler of Jerusalem, represents the political law and the justice of the state, whereas Nathan represents more of a moral or natural law that is influenced by his profession, where his notion of right and wrong dictates what should be done in a given situation. Nathan‟s tolerance of other people leads him to influence Saladin‟s idea of truth and law in his acceptance of all people as equal, where there is no one true religion. Piachi is like Nathan in that he tries to judge what is right or wrong based on his sense of morality, but his sense of morality becomes somewhat warped by his desire for revenge. He shows his ideas of right and wrong through how he raises Nicolo, and how he attempts to punish Nicolo for his neglect of his wife and his relationship with Xaviera. Piachi turns to vigilantism to punish Nicolo for his wrongdoings, since he cannot find the support he needs from the Church. The Catholic Church in Kleist‟s novella represents the political or religious law, as it is the final judge for everyone‟s actions based on the Catholic ideals of what is right and wrong. Although Nicolo‟s actions against Piachi might have been morally wrong, it was sanctioned by the law and documented. Piachi‟s retaliation against Nicolo was against the law in every sense, although he was searching for the justice that the Church would not give him. In Kafka‟s story, the law is decided by the father, who acts as judge throughout the entire story. It is his ideas of innocence and guilt that determine how Georg is judged at the end of the story. The father does not base his judgment on anything other than his own opinions and

38 assumptions about Georg and the relationship between them, which shows that the law can often be subjective and unfair to one party or another. This depiction of subjective law shows how Kafka challenges the idea of traditional objective law. It is not always fair, it is not always necessarily just, and it depends entirely on who is acting as judge in the situation. All of these texts show the negotiation between trade, family and law through the characters and situations in each work and thereby show the authors‟ ideas that challenged the traditional ideas of the time, making them modern thinkers and writers. Lessing, Kleist and Kafka provide a new literature, that of modernity, through their depictions of the interactions between those aspects of modernity. Their defiance of the canon of Enlightenment, Romantic and Modernist literature encouraged the trend of movement towards modernity that other writers could follow and that changed the way in which society was viewed. They challenged the tradition, the standard, and set the stage for a new type of literary movement.

39

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Christel Inacker was born on December 2, 1986 in Oceanside, California. In high school, she was awarded the Palmetto Fellows Achievement Scholarship to study in South Carolina, but declined it to study instead at Florida State University. After studying Chemistry and English for several semesters, Christel found her calling in the German program at Florida State and received her Bachelor‟s degree in German Studies with minors in Psychology and Humanities in the spring of 2009. She continued her studies in German Literature at Florida State University, and began the Master‟s program there in the fall of 2009 and was awarded a Teaching Assistantship. She quickly discovered a passion for teaching and through her coursework she gained an interest in the literature of modernity, as well as minority and ethnic literature. During the spring of 2011 Christel began teaching German to children in the preschool and kindergarten age group at the German School of Tallahassee. Her love of teaching and education led her to apply for a position with the Teach for America 2011 Corps, which she hopes to join in the fall of 2011.

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