Building Walls and Jumping over Them: Constructions in Franz Kafka's "Beim Bau der
chinesischen Mauer"
Author(s): John M. Kopper
Source: MLN, Vol. 98, No. 3, German Issue (Apr., 1983), pp. 351-365
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2906014
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over
BuildingWalls and Jumping
in FranzKafka's
Them: Constructions
Mauer"
"BeimBau der chinesischen
JohnM. Kopper
Franz Kafka's work has always seduced us into metaphor. Always
partlyanchored in our notion of the real, always simultaneously
inscribedin a mentality"beyond," his novels and storiesinvitean
interpretativeactivitythatwill explain the fantasticin termsof the
real. Hence the frequencywithwhichwe ask of an image in Kafka,
or of an entire text,"What does it mean?" "Why the cockroach?"
forexample. In responding to the question, we constructa second
world,parallelto the text,whichaccountsas fullyas possibleforany
troublesomemysterywhichthe textintroduces.Our goal is demystification,and our assumptionis thatthe textis parable, a symbolic
systemwhose termstransfigureliteralrepresentation.
Most criticismof the short story"Beim Bau der chinesischen
Mauer," writtenin 1917, makes thisassumption.Typically,it asks,
"What is the wall?" Herbert Tauber is not unusual in his assertion:
"The wall is the expressionof a willto create the kingdomof God, a
will to earthlyperfection."' Clement Greenberg, though he cautionsagainsta monological reading of the Great Wall, nevertheless
believes that it should be interpreted symbolically,whether as
JewishLaw, or, in a wider sense, as culture itself.2
1 Herbert Tauber, Franz Kafka: An
ofHis Works(Port Washington,
Interpretation
N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1968), pp. 125-126.
2 Clement
Greenberg, "At the Building of the Great Wall of China," in Franz
Kafka Today,ed. Angel Flores and Homer Swander (Madison: Universityof Wisconsin Press, 1958), pp. 77-81.
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352
JOHNM. KOPPER
In recentyears,however,criticshave startedto pay attentionto
Kafka's preoccupation with the nature of literature, with the
structureof a literarytextand itsplace in the world. "Beim bau der
chinesischenMauer" especiallydemands considerationin thislight.
Like Kafka's two great novels,it positsa protagonistwho essentially
must engage in an interpretativeact. The historianof the story
writesabout the Chinese, but is also their "reader," a scribe who
both recordsand explicatesthe activityof his people. Moreover,he
is writing,as few have noted, less about a wall than about the
construction
of a wall. ChristianGoodden, alone among criticsof the
story,has been sensitiveto this fact.3
Like Goodden's, myown reading of the storywillconcentrateon
"constructions." My concern, however, will always be Kafka's
meditationon the complex relationshipsgoverningauthor,reader,
and text. I will advance both psychologicaland philosophical argumentsto account forthese relationships.If problemsof perception, representation,and projection are indeed foregrounded in
"Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer" then psychology and
philosophy must have ancillary functions in an interpretation.
Having examined in some detail the qualityof the narrator'svoice,
the nature of his subject,and his attitudetowardthissubject,I will
tryto account for that specificallyKafkan textualitythat both encourages and underminesmetaphoricalinterpretation.Above all I
will scrutinizethe mechanismby which the storyof a construction
becomes the constructionof a story.
The narratordistinguisheshimselfearly in the storyas one of
"wir, die Erbauer." Like any personal pronoun, "we" implies an
exclusion. Who are the "not-we"? In the course of the story,the
narrator's"we" receives definitionthrough a series of excluding
gestures,which refinethe pronoun and separate it froma "they."
"Ich stammeaus dem sudostlichenChina. Kein Nordvolkkann uns
dort bedrohen."4
. . . Wir Chinesen gewisse volkliche und staat-
3 ChristianGoodden, "'The Great Wall of China': The Elaboration of an Intellectual Dilemma," in On Kafka: Semi-Centenary
ed. Franz Kuna (London:
Perspectives,
Elek Books, 1976), pp. 128-145. Beyond focusing on the
historyof the wall as
historyof a process, Goodden identifiesthe constructionas an existential and
psychologicalquest. "The building of the wall, like the mechanism of the quest,
embodies that process wherebythe creativesubject pointsto himselfand identifies
himselfin termsof somethingoutside himself' (p. 135). Goodden's article
represents a reading of the story'sexistentialquestions: how the issues of choice, critical
consciousness,fraudulentliving,and self-definition
are raised by the construction
of the wall and by reflectionon the construction.
4Franz Kafka, Sdmtliche
Erzihlungen,ed. Paul Raabe (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1970), p. 293.
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licheEinrichtungen... besitzen,"and "Frage die Fuhrerschaft.Sie
kenntuns" (p. 294). The "we" successivelydesignatesthe people of
southeastChina, the Chinese, and Chinese subjects.Such a floatin
pronominalreferenceputs the narratorin an ambiguous position,
for he redefines himself against changing backgrounds. These
contextualshiftsmake the narrator'svoice move slightlybut powerfullyas it tells the story,so that the authorityof the narrator,
inherentin his claim to use a "we," is reinforcedby its elusiveness.
At no time does the narratorintroduce sufficientstabilityinto his
role to allow the reader to circumscribehim. "Wir-ich rede hier
wohl im Namen vieler-haben eigentlich erst im Nachbuchstabierender Anordnungen der obersten Fuhrerschaftuns selbst
kennengelernt.. ." (p. 292).
Self-appointedspokesperson for an undefined many, the narrator assumes the functionof the historian,who assimilatesand
meditatesupon the experience of others. The "I" which persists
throughoutthe text is always a disclaiming center, which draws
attentionaway from itselfby means of self-effacementand displacement of focus: "Hier kann ich allerdings wieder nur von
meiner Heimat sprechen" (p. 295); "Und wenn ich mir einen solchen Gedanken iiber die Fuhrerschafterlauben darf, so muB ich
sagen .. ." (p. 294). The historian'stool of researchis inquiries;that
is,whathe tellsus is simplywhatis thereto be found forthe asking.
And when he ventures into the realm of opinion, the narrator
assertshis rightto speak by excluding himselffromthose groups
forwhomhe does not speak: those fromother provinces,everyone
but himself,etc. The claim to veracityis implicitin the presentation
of pure "facts" by a scrupulous, self-consciousresearcher. But
workingpersistently
against thisclaim is the inabilityof the textto
from
the
narrator's
voice. Even-and one might say,
escape
narrator's
displaysof self-abnegationdo not allow
particularly-the
a point of circumvention,and the reader remains imprisoned in
a mind whichincludes everythingeven as it excludes.
Furthermore,the narrator, while including the reader in his
monograph by making him the object of address, excludes him
from the source of the monograph, the legends, parables, and
documentsthathave been the object of his research.These data, in
turn,have been selected by the narrator as relevant to his case.
Hence simplyby virtue of his role as medium, the narrator is a
barrierbetween his subject matterand his audience, and in selecting certain material for presentation,he operates once again as
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354
JOHNM. KOPPER
obstacle, preventing the reader's access to anythingexcept the
chosen information.
The narrator alternatelyimpedes access to the source of discourse and functionsas the wandering source of that discourse.
Accordingto eitherdynamic,it is impossibleforthe reader to enter
the storyexcept on the margin.And itis on margins,of course,that
most activityin "Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer" takes place.
The narrator'speople, the southerners,dwell on the border of the
Tibetan Highlands, while the Chinese Wall is being constructedon
the northernmostfrontier.Only one point can be located withany
certaintyin between, the imperial cityof Peking.Just as it is difficultto say for whom the narratorspeaks, or what controlhe is
exerting over the subject at hand, so it is hard to discover what
Peking stands for,and how much power it holds over the Chinese.
The problemof shiftingmarginsis raised again in the wall itself,
the topic which constitutesthe historian's"raison d'ecrire." The
storyof a wall remindsone of certainrecurrentthemesin Kafka's
oeuvre: constructionsin general (cf. Das Schlofi,"Der Bau," "In
der Strafkolonie""Ein Besuch im Berkwerk"),and the Tower of
Babel in particular(cf. "Das Stadtwappen,"and Aphorism 18 from
"Betrachtungen uber Siinde, Leid, Hoffnung, und den wahren
Weg"). Construction implies plenitude, for it involves a filling
of emptyspace, and continuity,in thattheedificeerectedmustexist
in time,forhowevershorta duration. Therefore a structure,even
when incomplete,concretizesspace and time: it divides space into
the unstructuredand the structured,and time into before and
afterthe construction'sbeginning.The English"construction"and
"building,"referringboth to an edifice and to the erectionof an
edifice,contain this sense of structureas an active and persistent
of space and time. But as such, a constructioncreates a
occupying
discontinuityin space-timeat the point where its presence leaves
offand itslack begins. A distinction-making
vehicle,then,the construction(Bau) plays with those concepts which Kant considered
necessaryformsof thought,and which Freud located in the Conscious and Pre-Conscious.5The preservationand elucidationof any
structurewould be, froma psychoanalyticperspective,an assertion
of the Conscious over the Unconscious, and an avoidance of that
domain where man's most fundamentalcategories collapse. Constructionsreflectthe space-timeconception which structuresour
5
des Lustprinzips,
in Gesammelte
Sigmund Freud, Jenseits
Werke,Vol. 13 (London:
Imago, 1940), pp. 27-28.
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experience,and the true functionof the constructionthenbecomes
a witnessingto the continued life of the subject in the face of
annihilationfromthe Unconscious,or of death. If one were to read
"Der Bau" in such terms,then the networkof tunnelswould not be
the unconscious mind,but a symptom,operatingas an elaboration
in space and time,of the conservationof consciousness.Hence one
of the cardinal occupations of Kafka's characters is repairs-the
officerof "In der Strafkolonie,"the rodent of "Der Bau," and the
engineers in "Ein Besuch im Bergwerk"are concerned withmaintainingthe constructionin space and timeagainst failureor a lapse
in articulation.
Moreover, in its fundamentalrole as event-indeed a "coming
out of'-the constructionby itsveryexistenceimpliesparticipation
in a causal system.By explicatinga structure'srelationshipto surrounding phenomena in space and time, one can affirmthe causalitywhich Kant saw as an a prioriconcept of the mind. To put an
object in context-a preeminent functionof the historian-is to
give it meaning. The Great Wall of China is an event to the selfappointed historianof the text. He triesto fixthe wall withreferences to coordinates in time and space, and to a frameworkof
causality.The wall was started when the narrator was twenty;a
northernsalienthas just been completed bythejoining of twowalls
converging from the south; the wall protects against "die
Nordvolker."
But such concrete declarationsare subject to immediatedisintegration.News fromPeking not onlycan take immeasurablylong in
transmission,but may sometimesfailto reach the south altogether.
More interestingly,
the narratornever specifieswhich side of the
wall "die Nordvolker"are on. In a fragmentof the storypublished
by Schocken,the infideltribesassemble before the imperial palace
and shoottheirarrowsat the Emperor.6Yet the narratoralso refers
to "die glanzende und doch dunkle Menge des HofstaatesBosheit und Feindschaftim Kleid der Diener und Freunde-, das
Gegengewicht des Kaisertums, immer bemuht, mit vergifteten
Pfeilen den Kaiser von seiner Waagschale abzuschieBen" (p. 295).
The provenance of the assaultsis displaced, and thenthe veryterm
"enemy" is displaced by its opposite: the enemies of the Emperor
are those that look like his friends.
Preoccupied at firstwithcompletinga precise descriptionof the
6 Franz Kafka, The
CompleteStories,ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken
Books, 1976), pp. 248-249.
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JOHNM. KOPPER
building of the wall, the narratormoves to investigateits "wherefore." In a typicallyKafkan progression of raising and rejecting
hypotheses,he refutesthe notion that the wall is intended for defense at all:
Vielmehrbestand die Fuhrerschaftwohl seitjeher und der BeschluB des
Mauerbaues gleichfalls. Unschuldige Nordvolker, die glaubten, ihn
verursachtzu haben, verehrungswurdiger,unschuldiger Kaiser, der
glaubte, er hatte ihn angeordnet.
(p. 294)
By a similar examination of alternatives,the narrator concludes
that the wall's piecemeal constructionfliesin the face of good defense strategyand is motivated by considerations of workers'
morale. Hence the need for such a wall as exists has littleif anythingto do withitsannounced purpose. Later we willsee that-the
wall aside-conceptions of continua of time, space, and logic do
not hold between Peking and the south,or even between points in
the south. The dismissalof the wall fromthe storyand the shiftin
emphasis to patternsof communicationwithinthe Empire signal
the wall's failureof coherence. The remainderof the storyunravels
and pursues into paradox some patternsof thinkingthat the narrator initiallydisplays in discoursingon the wall.
I have increasinglycast the narrator of Kafka's storyas a debunker of received wisdom. Carryingarguments to their logical
conclusions,he comes upon contradictionaftercontradictionin his
culture's beliefs. Yet at the same time,the narratoris himselfthe
collator and publicistof myths,and his text is a composite of the
legends, parables, and storieswhichhe uses to supplementhis own
meditations.The narrator'sactivity,then,containsa paradox, aptly
described by Peter Beicken in his analysisof the story.
Uber die historischeFaktizitathinaus bieteter eine philosophischeAnthropologie,die am Strukturmodelldes Mauerbaues und der notigen
gesellschaftlichenOrganisation zur metaphysischen Spekulation erweitertwird,wobei aber der durchaus bemerkbareZug des skeptischen
Rationalismuseine gewisse Balance schafft,die allerdingsdie Aussagen
zu paradoxen verklausuliert.Die Ambivalenz zwischen Aufgeklartheit
und obrigkeitsgetreuer
UnterwirfigkeitlaBtden Chronistensich in den
Zirkel seines begrenzten Verstandnissesfangen.7
For our purposes, however, the vocabulary of Roland Barthes
7 Peter Beicken,Franz
in dieForschung(Frankfurt:
Einfiihrung
Kafka: Eine kritische
Athenaion, 1974), p. 312.
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provides termswhich are more useful than "historischeFaktizitat"
and "philosophische Anthropologie." In SIZ, Roland Barthes describesfivecodes of textualsignifiers,threeof which,includingthe
symbolic,"establishpermutable,reversibleconnections,outside the
the symbolicbelongsto a register
constantof time."8Put differently,
of substitutionand replacement.Barthes' two remainingcodes, the
hermeneuticand proairetic,describe respectivelythe text'sposing
of "answerable"enigmas and itsstructuringof logical sequences of
human behavior (a wall to be built must have a purpose, builders, etc.).
As history,then, the narrativeof "Beim Bau der chinesischen
Mauer" deals with irreversibility,
with the determinismof time,
and
with
cause,
space,
uniqueness and specificity.As a gesture in
a
parable-as
parabolic gesture-its activitytranscendsspecificity.
The narratormoves into symbol,the functionthat can be applied
promiscuouslyand reversibly,i.e. withoutreferenceto a metonymy
of time,space, and cause.
The firstparable introduced by the narrator,the parable of the
river,is included in the text through exclusion. The narratordenies that the parable, which cautions against too close scrutinyof
the high command's decrees, should stillbe heeded, but of course
itsimpactis not therebyvitiated.Indeed it is doubly heightened,as
the parable is valorized both forits potency"in those days," and by
itsverypresence in the text.In otherwords,byresortingto parable
to define the importance of his detectivework, the narrator endorses it as a vehicle of communication,howevermuch he simultaneously minimizesits content.
The second parable, "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft,"is also implicitlyaccepted by the narrator as an appropriate means of expression,and here he does not dispute the relevance of its subject
matter.Because the parable deals specificallywith the Emperor
and empire, however, one questions in what sense "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft"is parable and not part of the narrator's direct
address. The essence of the parable would appear to be thatnews
rftheEmperor'sdeathcannotreachthefringesof theempire,but the
possible points of emphasis are many: news cannot even leave the
palace precincts,hence the southernorsare no more "out of it"
:han if they lived in Peking itself;the Emperors are mortal and
ndividual (theycan even want to send a message to one of their
8 Roland Barthes,S/Z, trans. Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974),
p. 30.
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JOHNM. KOPPER
subjects),but it is impossible to see them as such; if he could, the
Emperor would personally speak to each subject, and so forth.
A firstreading of the parable reduces it to a rationalizationthat
explains the relationshipeach subject wantswithhis Emperor and
why he cannot have it. Thus at firstglance, the parable would
appear to be attempting to make the incomprehensible comprehensible (explaining why,for example, no one gets a message
fromthe Emperor).
But a second reading of the text suggeststhat the parable preserves the transcendenceof the Emperor by questioningit only in
parable. The mythologyof the Emperor beyond space and time,
and withoutconnectionwithhis people-the affirmationof an inaccessible beyond-is asserted by being denied in parable. Hence
not the contentsof the parable, but the movementitselfinto parable may representthe people's desire to relegate the possibilityof a
mortal Emperor to the realm of fable. According to this reading,
the Chinese people do not desire a real Emperor, in touch withhis
people, who in death is succeeded by a new Emperor. Instead they
opt for one who never dies, whose rites theycan fulfillover and
over again; theychoose the repeatable symbol.And the wish the
parable realizes is that the messenger never leave the court at all.
Interpretationis complicated by the narrator'sdemythologizing
activity,which surrounds the parable. Immediatelybefore it begins,he describeshow "Der lebendige Kaiser aber, ein Mensch wie
wir,liegt ahnlich wie wir auf einem Ruhebett." Then a littlelater
we hear that"Der einzelne Kaiser falltund sturztab . . ." (p. 295).
And shortlyafter the end of the parable, the narrator remarks,
"Langst verstorbeneKaiser werden in unseren Dorfern auf den
Thron gesetzt"(p. 296). The ambiguityof our positionas readers is
thus heightened by the fact that the Emperor is made mortal in
both temporal reality, the historian-narrator'saccount, and in
parable, a genre set over against the temporal. Our inabilityto
distinguishthe parable as substantiallydifferentfromthe rest of
the text threatensthe parable withdestruction,and it becomes in
our interest,as long as the storyis labeled "parable,"to maintainitas
separate.Justas the narratormustreckonwiththe factthatthe wall
fails to cohere, so we must confrontthe story'simminentdisintegration.
We have arrived at a set of paired opposites, reality/parable,
which will have broad application in this discussion of the story.
The importanceof the two in Kafka's literaryaestheticshas been
discussed by Charles Bernheimer in his recent article on the text
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Brod entitled"Von den Gleichnissen."9By pursuing the connotations of each term in the pair, he is able to build new oppositions
thatbear on Kafka's attitudetoward language and writing.For my
own purposes, it is importantto note the homologyof reality/parable with metonomy/metaphor,terms which match well with
Barthes' conception of the irreversibleand reversiblecodes. Metonomysubsumes the connotationsof "reality"as a realm of contiguitiesin time, space, and causality,while metaphor shares with
"parable" the sense of atemporality,reversibility,
and repeatability.
As the historian'sappeal to parable is a gesturebeyond the historicityof his narrative,so the Chinese people's use of parable is an
option for a world outside the constraintof time,hence a longing
forthe repeatable. The Chinese love of ritualembodies thismovementto escape the march of time. More particularly,love of ritual
is a choice against life.
Such a mentalitymotivatesthe "piecemeal construction"of the
Great Wall. The people develop a sense of completion as a
people-a unity-from staging provisional and local completions
of the wall in segments of 1000 yards. The piecemeal wall is a
manifestationof the need forcompletion.Furthermore,according
to the narrator,it assuages the impatienceof the workers.As Kafka
statesin one of his aphorisms: "Alle menschlichenFehler sind Ungeduld, ein vorzeitigesAbbrechen des Methodischen,ein scheinbares Einpfahlen der scheinbaren Sache."10 The workers delude
themselvesinto thinkingthat they have indeed created an inside
and an outside withtheirwall.
And indeed the more one scrutinizesthe Chinese universe,the
more iteludes visualizationat all. This failureis typifiedbythe fate
of messengers in the story. They are the ultimate emblems of
coherence in the text,for in traversingdistance and connectinga
source witha receiver,theyincarnate the concepts of space, time,
and causality. They are like constructions,except they have the
propertyof motion. Messengers,however,never arrive. In reality,
theyare rejected; in parable, theynever leave the source. In reality,
Peking is only a dot lost in the vastnessof the empire; in parable,
9 Charles Bernheimer,"Crossing Over: Kafka's Metatextual Parable," MLN, 95
(1980), 1254-1268. My debt to Charles Bernheimeris greater than I can acknowledge in one note. This essay owes its inspiration,and manyof its theoreticalpremises, to Mr. Bernheimer'sseminar on Kafka, given at the Universityof California,
Berkeley,in the fall of 1980.
10Franz Kafka, Hochzeitsvorbereitungen
auf demLande und andereProsa aus dem
Nachlafi(New York: Fischer, 1953), p. 39, Aphorism 2.
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JOHNM. KOPPER
the palace in Peking is itselfa universe. Hence the
relationshipof
places withinChina is subjectto infiniteexpansion and contraction;
news crosses uncertaindistances and takes generationsto arrive.
The most blatant failure of coherence in the
topography of
China is the Tower of Babel. Out of the plain of China, covered
withvillages and scored withthe routes of messengers,it rises not
as a building, but as the idea of a building. A scholar "in den
Anfangszeitendes Baues" proposed thatthe wall be the foundation
for a new Tower. The firstTower, argued the scholar, failed
"keineswegsaus den allgemeinbehauptetenUrsachen" but because
of a weak foundation.The narratorrebutsthisthesisas an
example
of the "Verwirrungder Kopfe damals":
Die Mauer,die doch nichteinmaleinen Kreis,sondernnur eine Art
Viertel-oder Halbkreisbildete,solltedas Fundamenteines Turmes
Hinsichtgemeintsein.Aber
abgeben?Das konntedochnurin geistiger
wozudann die Mauer,die doch etwasTatsachliches
war,Ergebnisder
Muhe und des Lebensvon Hunderttausenden?
(p. 292)
In other words, the scholar rejects a theological
interpretationof
the fallof the Tower in favorof an engineeringone; the narrator,
in turn,findsthe engineeringsolutionto be
unfeasible
structurally
(and, the reader willadd, impossibleto visualize!),and assumes that
a spiritualinterpretationcannot be intended,since the wall is concrete. He therebybegs the question of why,if the Tower is conceived in a spiritual sense, it need be built at all. The
passage is
typicallyKafkan, for the two antagonists in the debate misunderstandeach otherover the literalizationof metaphor;both take it
for granted that the Tower of Babel exists not in
parable but in
reality.
The failureof contiguitybetweenthe wall and the towerleads us
to view the latter as a realization of
metaphoricity,of the world
which cannot be joined to actuality.Earlier, in the discussion of
"Eine kaiserlicheBotschaft,"we saw that this world
represented a
principle operating against life. Indeed one finds that in Kafka's
writingsthe Tower of Babel is usually associated withdeath.
The idea crops up in "Das Stadtwappen."
"Solange es Menschen
gibt,wird auch der starke Wunsch da sein, den Turm [Tower of
Babel] zu Ende zu bauen" (p. 306), but the citizenssquabble over
the pace of constructionand slow theirlabors,on the
grounds that
no one generation can complete it. Nationalitiesfall into
bloody
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conflict and construction is postponed until peace is restored;
meanwhilethe cityis "embellished."The cityis like the Great Wall,
and both functionin opposition to the metaphoricaldeath of the
Tower. Work on the cityor wall brings unity;constructionof the
Tower causes discord. The scholar, the narrator,and the citizens
alike are unable to escape their desire for a Tower, but the later
generations-the narratorof"Beim Bau der chinesischenMauer"
and the second and thirdgenerationsof the city-cannot skirtthe
implicationsof completion,and theyrationalizethe postponement
of constructionthrough a literalizationof metaphor. In parable,
the Tower can be built. In reality,constructionis senseless. The
conclusion of "Das Stadtwappen" now falls into place. The city's
body of legends and songs "ist erfulltvon der Sehnsucht nach
einem prophezeiten Tag, an welchem die Stadt ... zerschmettert
werden wird" (p. 307). The death wish is successfullyreturned to
the regimeof parable. "Wenn es moglichgewesen ware, den Turm
von Babel zu erbauen, ohne ihn zu erklettern,es ware erlaubt
worden," writesKafka in another aphorism.l1Seeing in the constructionof the Tower a choice againstlife,we mightinterpretthis
aphorism as meaning: "If it were possible to cross over into death
withoutdying,everyone would do it."
At this point,it is unreasonable to postpone recourse to Freud's
discussionof the life and death instinctsinjenseitsdes Lustprinzips.
His identificationof a life-preservingand a life-destroying
principle, Eros and Thanatos respectively,bears analogy with our terminology of metonymyand metaphor, concepts which we have
come increasinglyto perceive as referringto registersof the living
and the non-living.Eros stands forunity,fullness,and life in time,
Thanatos for disjunction,discreteness,and existenceoutside time.
If one accepts the Freudian dichotomy,the resultof Chinese ritual
seems no accident: the villagers'xenophobia reflectsan eagerness
"die Gegenwart auszuloschen," and "Langst verstorbene Kaiser
werden ...
auf den Thron gesetzt."
The text establishesin many places the thematiccoexistence of
Eros and Thanatos. Earlier in the discussion, I proposed that in
challenging all news from the "outside," the people of the narrator's village seal themselves off from temporality,and choose
death over life.Their need to repeat is, in Freud's terms,the avatar
of the death instinct,a compulsion in the animate substance to
cancel itselfout.
11 Hochzeitsvorbereitungen,
p. 41,
Aphorism 18.
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JOHNM. KOPPER
362
Ein Triebwdrealso ein dembelebten
Drang zur
Organischeninnewohnender
Zustandes,welchendies Belebte unterdem
einesfriiheren
Wiederherstellung
EinflusseauBererStorungskrafte
aufgebenmuBte,eine Art von orwenn
man
oder
will,die AuBerungder Tragheit
ganischerElastizitat,
Leben.12(italicsFreud's)
im organischen
Adjustmentto the news of an Emperor's death is paradoxicallya
movementback into life,the place where organic death, as distinct
frominstinctualThanatos, exists.But the people refusethismove.
On the other hand, in seeing that labor on the wall is a rallying
point forthe Chinese, I have moved toward identifyinghorizontal
constructionwith Eros and metonymy.And the wall, pieced togetheron the principleof contiguity,is itselfthe perfectmetaphor
for thismetonymy,for the Chinese choice of completionover dissolution.The wall's constructionis so engineered thateverycitizen
in his lifetimewill have the opportunityof workingtoward and
achievingat least one moment of completion.
Use of the parable/reality
dichotomybecomes increasinglycomthe
wall
a "perfectmetaphor" is to say someTo
that
is
say
plex.
nor the otherChinese could say. For
that
neither
the
narrator
thing
them,the importantthingis thatthe wall existin reality... forthe
reader, thatit metaphoricallydepict an option forreality.Thus the
wall both is literalityand signifiesthisliterality.The special Kafkan
gesture is to work with metaphors which signifythe absence of
metaphor.
The tensionsof Eros and Thanatos whichexist withinthe story,
therefore,move out to surround the reader-interpreter.For the
narrator,at firstthe arbiter of texts,the separator of fact from
fictionalizing,himself embraces parable. He introduces "Eine
kaiserlicheBotschaft"withoutqualm, and argues about the Tower
of Babel as if it were real. With the narrator collapsed into the
literal,the reader makes thatmovementwhichwe discussed earlier
in a differentcontext-the effortto distinguishthe literalfromthe
metaphorical.The reader becomes historian.He must"distinguish
the Tower of Babel fromthe Great Wall," so to speak, and understand that the narrator'sperplexities,engendered by an effortto
visualize the meeting point of the "wall" and the "tower," are
symptomaticnot so much of the totaldisjunctionof the two terms,
as of the violence that occurs when the narratorfails to interpret
them.The storyof the constructionof a wall becomes the storyof a
12
Freud, p. 38.
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M LN
363
constructionof history,and now, finally,the storyof the construction of a reading.
In order to escape the narrator'saporia, we engage in our own
interpretativeactivity.Let us follow,for a moment,the line of one
reading to what Kafka would call a "restingplace." In doing so, we
mustourselvesmetaphorizethe Great Wall, again startingwiththe
premise that the problem of physicalconstructionsfiguresa difficultyof certain mental constructs.The Chinese people, through
theirconstruction,align themselveson the side of Eros and unity.
But both the narratorand the people know the unityof the wall to
be fictional-the workers see the great gaps in the wall on their
journeys to and from the constructionsite. If the people really
desired a unified wall, they would build outward from one
point-instead theybuild the veryprincipleof holes into theirwall
of defense. The infidel tribes,because they are not decidedly on
one side of the wall or the other,would seem to symbolizeprojections of the people's own neuroses outside their ego shell, where
they can be defended against. As Freud writes in Jenseitsdes
Lustprinzips,
... Eine Richtungdes Verhaltens[is adopted]gegensolcheinnereErEs wird
herbeifiihren.
welcheallzugroBeUnlustvermehrung
regungen,
sich die Neigungergeben,sie so zu behandeln,als ob sie nichtvon
des
um die Abwehrmittel
innen,sondernvon auBen her einwirkten,
Reizschutzes
gegensie in Anwendungbringenzu konnen.13
But an explanation of the people's desire to maintainholes in their
defense escapes this particularlevel of interpretation,for it would
have to justifywhy the people preserve in principle a weak egoboundary.Again and again in reading "Beim Bau der chinesischen
Mauer," one reaches the point where the storydenies itselfas parable and demands a returnto the literalityof the narrative.The text
consistentlyforces the reader to take to heart the import of the
riverparable.
into
Earlier I discussed the "collapse" of the narrator-historian
the literal. Indeed his association with a literalityof narrative is
enforcedfrequently,both in his contextualizingof parables, and in
that metonymic act, generalization, upon which he tentatively
ventures. In his persistenteffortto reason through events and
assert the need for a continuum in space, time, and causalityby
verbalizingits loss, the narrator chooses Eros. And his text pro13
Freud, p. 29
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JOHNM. KOPPER
364
longs itselfthrough metonymy.It does not conformto a pattern
imposed by the narratorfroma transcendentdimension,but exists
in the flat,and moves by a process of association. Even the sentences move in a startlinglymetonymicalmanner:
... Meiner Meinung nach bestand die Fiihrerschaftschon friiher,kam
nicht zusammen, wie etwa hohe Mandarinen, durch einen sch6nen
Morgentraum angeregt, eiligst eine sitzung einberufen, eiligst beschlieBen,und schon am Abend die Bevolkerungaus den Bettentrommeln lassen, um die Beschlisse auszufiihren,sei es auch nur um eine
Illuminationzu Ehren eines Gotteszu veranstalten,der sich gesternden
Herren giinstiggezeigt hat, um sie morgen, kaum sind die Lampions
verloscht,in einem dunkeln Winkel zu verpriigeln.
(p. 294)
"Eiligst" is elaborated by the clause beginning "und schon am
Abend," whose later words, "die Beschlfisseauszufiihren,"in turn
move the sentence toward "Illumination."The textextends itself,
indeed comes into existence, by posing itself questions. These
questions, furthermore,correspond to the "sich maBgebende
auBere Einfliisse" of the following passage from Jenseitsdes
Lustprinzips.
... sichmaBgebendeauBereEinfliisseso anderten,daB sie die noch
uiberlebendeSubstanz zu immer groBeren Ablenkungen vom
ursprunglichen
Lebenswegund zu immerkomplizierteren
Umwegen
biszurErreichung
des Todeszielesnotigten.
Diese UmwegezumTode,
vonden konservativen
Triebengetreulich
botenunsheute
festgehalten,
das Bild der Lebenserscheinungen.14
The textis the livingsubstance,whichis preventedfromreaching
its end by the posing of questions, answers to which delay its conclusion. The storyis finishednot when the narratoranswersall his
questions,but when he decides not to ask any more.
In its swervingthe text comes into existence. Looked at differently,the textby meandering takes up and incorporatesthe many
textsI have noted: parables, documents,the book on the Tower of
Babel, etc. These discrete texts,like grains of sand entering an
oyster,are the irritantsthat bring into existence the pearl of the
text.The storyis an effortto surround and explain (perhaps render harmless,at least locate according to the Kantian mental concepts) discreteexperience.
14
Freud, pp. 40-41.
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M L N
365
By, reading "Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer" in various
metaphoricalways,I have assumed the Kafkan textto be parable,
an assumption I admitted at the outset to be provisional. But the
intentionis well "motivated."As we saw at the beginning,the narrator escapes circumscription,and we approach the text both to
contain him and to contain the text.Our own hermeneuticexpedition thus becomes a pearl-makingevent. Where the narratorcloses
gaps in his semantichorizons,the reader continuouslyopens more.
He makes the text disjoint in order to cement its fragments,and
thus preserveshis interpretativeact by inventingswervesfromany
univalentreading. The storymay be a parable for the criticalprocess in its twofoldenactmentof building: the building of the wall
and the narrator'sattemptat the building of an explanation.
I have discussed the story/text
in termsof interpretativeprocess,
as if talk about the process itselfwould give the discussion priority
over other readings-for example Clement Greenberg's interpretationof the storyas a metaphorforcontemporaryJudaism. Hence
our verycareer as critics,notjust of one text,but of all the textswe
encounter,is a realizationof the ground where Eros and Thanatos
meet. We admit, and surviveupon, the multiplicity
of interpretationsthatbringour own reflectionsinto being as commentary.But
we all secretlystrivefor the metacommentthat will kill off debate
by circumscribingeverything.Every act of inclusionlike our own,
however,is presumptuous.Our admissionof the validityof Greenberg's approach no more containshis articlethan our discussionof
"Beim Bau der chinesischenMauer" silences the story'sappeal to
be reread.
In Aphorism 94, Kafka names our two "life" tasks as critics:
"Deinen Kreis immer mehr einschranken und immer wieder
nachprufen,ob du dich nichtirgendwo auBerhalb deines Kreises
versteckthaltst."15
University
ofCalifornia,Berkeley
5 Hochzeitsvorbereitungen,
p. 51.
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