Vultures, Hemorrhages, and Zionism: A Sociohistorical Investigation of a Franz Kafka Parable

By Martin Wasserman

Using a sociohistorical perspective, this work argues that Franz Kafkas parable, The Vulture, specifically depicts the plight of victimized European Jews as they encountered acts of anti-Semitism early in the twentieth century. Kafkas parable demonstrates that it would only be through adhering to a philosophy of cultural Zionism that European Jewry might ultimately survive the brutalities of anti-Semitic behavior.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524543730

Martin Wasserman

Martin Wasserman, the creator of this book, is a Professor Emeritus at SUNY Adirondack, a college in the State University of New York system where he taught for thirty-six years. During his career he published over thirty journal articles and three books. One of those works, Kafka Kaleidoscope, was chosen as a “Best Book” by the Small Press Review in 1999. Professor Wasserman’s two most recent works are an original poetry piece entitled Kafka, Rilke, Nadel: Three German Writers Pulling Me Toward the East and a poetry translation called What There Is, As It Is: The Epigrammatic Poems of Ludwig Feuerbach.

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Copyright © 2016 by Martin Wasserman.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016915459

ISBN:      Softcover         978-1-5245-4374-7

                eBook             978-1-5245-4373-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 09/19/2016

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CONTENTS

Kafka and Anti-Semitism

Kafka and Cultural Zionism

Ahad Ha-Am’s Cultural Zionism

Cultural Zionism and The Vulture

Endnotes

Bibliography

O N JANUARY 16, 1922, Franz Kafka wrote a dramatic passage in his diary about the motivating force which inspired his work. He declared that if Zionism had not intervened, it might easily have developed into a new secret doctrine, a Kabbalah ( Diaries 399). This article will demonstrate that it is in Kafka’s parable, The Vulture, written a mere fourteen months earlier, in November of 1920, where his diary passage was to find its justification since the decisive force shaping this work is the philosophy of Zionism.

In order to verify this point, The Vulture will be analyzed through the use of a sociohistorical approach. This method calls for a careful examination of the pertinent events that were taking place in Kafka’s life at the time he was writing a specific story or novel. Fortunately, due to the fact that during the last thirty years most of Kafka’s autobiographical writings have become available, it is now possible to interpret his work based on the beliefs he had concerning the world around him at the same time as he was producing his literature. In a discussion of this matter, Anderson has stated that any thoughtful piece of criticism which analyzes Kafka’s work from a sociohistorical context is making a contribution to Kafka scholarship, since it challenges the conventional image of Kafka as the isolated, alienated, ‘negative’ genius of the modern age, seeking instead to map out the historical context of his isolation: Prague at the turn of the century (Reading Kafka 3).

By adopting a sociohistorical perspective, this essay will argue that Kafka’s parable, The Vulture, specifically depicts the plight of the victimized European Jew as he encountered acts of anti-Semitism early in the twentieth century. Furthermore, Kafka’s parable demonstrates that it is only through adhering to a philosophy of cultural Zionism that European Jewry will be able to survive the brutalities of anti-Semitic behavior.

The story line of The Vulture is at the same time quite simple and quite terrifying. A vulture is hacking at the narrator’s feet. A gentleman comes up to the narrator and asks why he does not defend himself against this attack. The narrator replies that he indeed has defended himself, even trying to choke the vulture, but nothing