Breaks in Perspective in Franz Kafka's Der Prozess Author(s): Keith Leopold Reviewed work(s): Source: The German Quarterly,

Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 1963), pp. 31-38 Published by: Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/402180 . Accessed: 23/11/2012 00:11
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BREAKS IN PERSPECTIVE IN FRANZ KAFKA'S DER PROZESS Keith Leopold In Der ProzeB, as in Kafka's other novels and stories, one of the most striking and individual features of the author's technique is that he attempts to maintain a single, limited perspective.' If it were merely a question of the maintenance of a single perspective, there would be nothing particularly unusual about Kafka's technique: ever since Henry James wrote The Ambassadorsand later discussed the question of perspective in his preface to the novel, third-person narratives in which everything is seen through the eyes of one character only have become quite common. The unique feature of Kafka's technique is not that he limits himself to telling what Josef K. alone of all the characters experiences, thinks and feels, but rather that he limits himself to telling what Josef K. experiences, thinks and feels while in action, in actual situations. Only very rarely is K. allowed to sit and brood and dream, and then his thoughts do not wander back to his childhood and adolescence or out into the world: instead they are concerned exclusively with the immediate problem of his lawsuit or with problems arising from it, such as the maintenance of his position in the bank. In short, Kafka tries to maintain not only the single perspective of Josef K. but also the limited perspective of Josef K.'s present, a present that is filled to the exclusion of all else with the problems of his lawsuit. Obviously it is extremely difficult to maintain throughout a long work a single and rigidly limited perspective of this kind. Even to maintain a single perspective is not easy: The Ambassadors contains sections that are authorial and not from the point of view of Strether.2 To maintain in addition the limited perspective would seem to be an almost impossible task. Kafka comes very close to achieving the seemingly impossible, but there are a number of passages in Der ProzeB-1 This point is made by almost everybody who has written about
Kafka's narrative technique: e.g. Friedrich Beianer, Der Erzihler Franz Kafka (1952) and Fritz Martini, Das Wagnis der Sprache (1954), pp. 287-335. Cf. Franz Stanzel's discussion of The Ambassadors in Die typischen Erzathlsituationen im Roman (1955), pp. 97-121. 31

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is somevery short--in which the single,limitedperspective not maintained. It is the purposeof this article to list and define the main passagesof this kind, to considerwhether they are likely to have been intentional or unintentional,and, if intentional, to consider brieflythe author'spurpose. The most obviousand easily definablebreaksin perspectiveare those in which we are given direct insight into the thoughts and feelingsof a characterother than Josef K. Such a breakis similarto that which occurs in a first-person novel when the narratortells us what one of the other characters actually thought and felt when it is obviously for the narrator know this. Normallyif Kafka to impossible wishesto give us insight into the thoughtsor feelingsof a character other than Josef K., he maintainsthe perspectiveof Josef K. and says in effect: "K. thought that this characterwas probablythinking . . ." One example, amongstdozens in the book, occurs when K. is addressing man waiting in the corridorof the Law-Court: the "Er glaubteoffenbar,K. mache mit ihm einen Scherz,deshalbhaitte er wahrscheinlich liebsten,aus Furcht,irgendeinen am neuen Fehler zu machen, seine friihereAntwort ganz wiederholt. . ." (p. 74).3 The adverbs "wahrscheinlich", "vielleicht","offenbar",or phrases with "scheinen" "alsob" are inseparable and from this type of insight into characters otherthanJosefK. Occasionally, noneof these however, devices is used to suggest what might have been going on in the mind of the characterand we are told by the author what did go on. This happens mainly with minor characters,particularlywith Frau Grubach,about whom there are six authorialstatements,far more than about any other characterin the novel. The first of the statements occursin the sectionof the first chaptercalled by Kafka mit "Gespraich Frau Grubach",the remainingfive occur when she is telling K. that Fraiulein Montagis movingin with Fraiulein Biirstner: "Sie standauf, weil auch er aufgestanden war, sie war ein wenig befangen,weil ihr nicht alles, was K. gesagt hatte, verstlindlich gewesenwar. InfolgedieserBefangenheit sagtesie aberetwas,was sie gar nicht wollte ..." (p. 30).
3 All page references are to Franz Kafka, Gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von Max Brod, Band III, New York, Schocken Books, 1946.

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"Sie sagte nichts weiter, sondern wartete, wie K. es aufnehmen und ob er ihr gestatten wiirde, weiterzureden." (p. 85). " 'Herr K.', rief Frau Grubach, die nur auf diese Frage gewartet
hatte . . ." (p. 85).

"... es war ihr Ungliick, daB sie, sobald sie sich nur irgendwie freier fiihlte, gleich etwas Ungeschicktes sagte" (p. 86). "Frau Grubach kam sich recht machtlos vor" (p. 87). " 'Ja', sagte Frau Grubach, sie verstand nicht ganz, was K. meinte" (p. 87). Even when these statements are quoted out of context, it is clear that Kafka here has made no attempt to maintain the perspective of Josef K. He writes about Frau Grubach in much the same way as the author of a novel of editorial omniscience might write about any character into whom he wishes to give the reader occasional glimpses. Authorial statements like those about Frau Grubach are also made about the following characters: "Der Mann mit dem Spitzbart" (p. 26, 1. 17), about the tenants in the Law-Court (p. 46, 1. 17), about Bertold (p. 65, 1. 27), about the man waiting in the corridor of the Law-Court (p. 75, 1. 3), about the uncle (p. 109, 1. 20 and p. 112, 1. 29), and about the Advocate (p. 198, 1. 23).4 The question naturally arises: are these breaks in perspective deliberate or are they mere slips made by the author in an unguarded moment and not corrected or deleted? It would seem very likely that the authorial glimpses into minor characters other than Frau Grubach are errors of perspective that Kafka did not bother to correct. He may well have felt that the flash of insight into "der Mann mit dem Spitzbart" or the momentary revelation of what the uncle actually felt in a particular situation were not sufficiently important to warrant alteration or deletion in the early stages of writing the novel. If the work had ever been completed and revised for publication, these errors in perspective would probably have been corrected. On It could be claimed that this passage concerning the lawyer (Wie sich der Advokat vor K. demiitigte!) differs from the others in that it could be interpreted either as an authorial statement or as "Erlebte Rede".There are doubtlessother passages in the book that are on the borderlinebetween the author's point of view and K.'s point of view. I have listed those that seem to me definitely authorial.

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the other hand, the six authorial statements about Frau Grubach certainly suggest intention. She is the only character in the book whom we see several times through eyes other than K.'s. Why she should thus be set apart from the other characters raises questions of interpretation that are beyond the scope of this article. The important thing is that she is set apart from the others-a fact that would seem to warrant special consideration in any interpretation of the novel. More important but less obvious and less easily definable are the breaks in perspective that relate to K.'s present. With these it is not that the author suddenly gives us a brief insight into the real thoughts and feelings of other characters; rather, he moves so far away from the hero's present that we are seeing the hero from a distance through the author's eyes instead of participating directly in the hero's actions, thoughts and feelings. Two examples may make this clearer: 1. "Sie streichelte noch K.'s Hand, sprang auf und lief zum Fenster. Unwillkiirlich haschte noch K. nach ihrer Hand ins Leere. Die Frau verlockte ihn wirklich, er fand trotz allem Nachdenken keinen haltbaren Grund daffir, warum er der Verlockung nicht nachgeben sollte" (p. 66). 2. "Ohne zunaichst eine bestimmte Absicht damit zu verbinden, hatte K. bei verschiedenen Gelegenheiten in Erfahrung zu bringen gesucht, wo das Amt seinen Sitz habe, von welchem aus die erste Anzeige in seiner Sache erfolgt war. Er erfuhr es ohne Schwierigkeiten, sowohl Titorelli als auch Wolfahrt nannten ihm auf die erste Frage hin die genaue Nummer des Hauses" (p. 256, the beginning of the incomplete chapter "Das Haus"). The first example shows the perspective that Kafka obviously aims at maintaining and does in fact maintain throughout almost all the novel: K.'s present seen through K.'s eyes. The second example shows one of the departures from this perspective: we are not experiencing K.'s present with K., instead the author is telling us about what K. did. To put it another way: the "Erzaihldistanz" is very much greater in the second example than in the first: the scenic representation of the first example has become authorial report. For most authors writing a third-person novel with a single perspective there would be nothing incongruous in the two examples: they would quite normally include both scene and report, short and long narrative distance. But for Kafka the second example is a definite break in

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perspective. It is obviously his aim to maintain throughout the limited perspective of K.'s present. To do this he must show K. mainly in action, in "scenes", and avoid anything that approaches the authorial report: for example, he must avoid as far as possible the temporal compression that most novelists quite normally employ in the form of the brief report of what has happened between incidents and the report of repeated action or incidents. Any type of temporal compression must produce an authorial effect. The incomplete chapters appended by Max Brod strongly suggest that one of Kafka's main reasons for not completing a chapter was the realization that he had not achieved or not maintained the limited perspective of Josef K.'s present. The incomplete chapters "Das Haus" and "Kampf mit dem Direktor-Stellvertreter" read for the most part like extracts from a novel of editorial omniscience and seem quite out of keeping with the completed chapters. Although Kafka deleted or did not complete a number of sections that contained obvious breaks in perspective of the kind described above, other sections containing similar breaks are included in the completed chapters. The most telling examples occur at the beginning of chapters. Indeed every chapter begins with a short authorial section setting the scene for the main incident or incidents of that chapter. An opening such as "K. war telephonisch verstaindigt am worden, daBL niichsten Sonntag eine kleine Untersuchung in seiner Angelegenheit stattfinden wiirde" (p. 41) is a manifestly authorial statement, a conveying by the author of necessary basic information.5 The repetition of this device of the authorial chapter opening leaves no doubt that these departures from the limited perspective of K.'s present are intentional. Kafka's concern is to place K. in a situation or series of situations in each chapter and he does not hesitate to become the traditional omniscient author for a few sentences or even a few paragraphsin order to create succinctly the basis of the situation. An opening such as the one quoted above conveys in a few lines information that might well have taken pages to convey if Kafka had
5 Merely the use of a pluperfect tense in a principal clause (K. war

verstaindigtworden) is often a sign of an authorial section with Kafka. As the pluperfect inevitably conveys something that is past in relation to the main character's present, Kafka seems to try to
avoid it as much as possible in principal clauses.

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strictly maintained the perspective of Josef K.'s present.6 There are, however, other passages in the body of the completed chapters that seem definite departures from the limited perspective of K.'s present. I would list as the striking examples: I p. 33-waiting for Friiulein Biirstner, 2 p. 14-K.'s character, 3 p. 43-the trip to the Law-Court, 4 p. 123 to p. 139-K. sits in his room at the bank and broods. The first example warrants only very brief consideration. It is a form of temporal compression, a brief authorial report of how K. fills in the time while waiting for Fraiulein Biirstner's return. It bridges a gap between incidents and thus has the same function as the chapter openings. The second example is much more important. Twice on p. 14 Kafka moves away from K.'s present and makes completely authorial generalizations about his hero's character: "Er neigte stets dazu, alles miglichst leicht zu nehmen, das Schlimmste erst beim Eintritt des Schlimmsten zu glauben, keine Vorsorge fiir die Zukunft zu treffen, selbst wenn alles drohte", and a few lines further on there is the interpolated statement "ohne daB es sonst seine Gewohnheit gewesen wire, aus Erfahrungen zu lernen". These are the only authorial statements about K.'s character in the whole novel. Kafka must have been fully aware that these statements stand out because of their authorial character, and yet he did not alter or delete them. They are unique in the novel and consequently cannot be ignored by anyone concerned with the interpretation of Der ProzeB. The third example, which extends from line 8 on p. 43 to the bottom of the page, seems at first glance to belong with the chapter openings and the waiting for Fraiulein Biirstner. It seems to be a mainly authorial report of how, on this Sunday morning, K. gets from his room to the street in which the Law-Court is situated.
6

In connection with authorial chapter openings, it should be noted that the most striking break in perspective in Der ProzeB occurs in the third sentence of the chapter "Ende" in reference to the two men who take K. away: "Nach einer kleinen F"rmlichkeit bei der Wohnungstiir wegen des ersten Eintretens wiederholte sich die gleiche F*rmlichkeit in grilerem Umfange vor K.'s Tiir." (p. 234). It is the only example in the book of the representation of something that happens outside K.'s range of vision, something that he could not have seen or heard.

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There is, however, much more involved than the bridging of a gap between incidents. The striking feature is that Kafka, quite contrary to his normal practice, gives two authorial explanations of actions that K. performs: we learn from the author why K. has to hurry away without breakfast and without properly collecting his thoughts and we also learn why K. made the journey on foot. The first explanation is merely a statement of fact-K. had been up late because of a "Stammtischfeierlichkeit".The second, however, is an authorial generalization about K.'s attitude to his law-suit. When Kafka writes "es war irgendein Trotz, der K. davon abgehalten hatte, zu fahren, er hatte Abscheu vor jeder, selbst der geringsten Hilfe in dieser seiner Sache . . .", he is clearly making a generalization about K.'s attitude that goes far beyond the explanation of why he walks to the LawCourt. It is one of two authorial statements in the book7 about K.'s attitude to the case and consequently stands out like the authorial statements about K.'s character quoted above. And again it may be safely assumed that the statement stands out because Kafka intended it to stand out. The fourth example differs from all other examples of breaks in perspective quoted here in the matter of length. Whereas the other examples ranged in length from one short sentence to a few paragraphs, we have here a substantial passage of some sixteen pages (p. 123 to p. 139). K. sits in his office at the bank one morning and reflects that he must take his case out of the hands of the Advocate; he also recollects a recent incident with the Deputy Manager. It is the only passage in the novel in which K. simply reflects. Indeed Kafka seems here deliberately not to use the devices he normally employs to maintain the perspective of Josef K.'s present. He does not show K. in action and he allows him to think about what has happened in the recent past and what he will do in the future: i.e. a movement away from K.'s present. He uses two flashbacks-something very rare indeed in Kafka's third-person narratives. And in the account of the visits to the Advocate he gives a report of repeated action, though at the same time the device of giving in full one of the Advocate's speeches takes away from the authorial effect of the report of repeated action. There is no doubt that these sixteen pages
7

The other, which occurs on p. 136, is mentionedbelow in connection with the fourth example.

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come very close stylistically to some of the chapters that Kafka was unable to complete, chapters that failed to maintain the limited perspective of Josef K.'s present. But in this case Kafka did complete not merely this section but the whole chapter "Advokat-FabrikantMaler." There can be no doubt that Kafka was fully aware that he had changed the perspective in this section. And it seems a reasonable assumption that he had a purpose in making this section stand out in this way. One obvious possibility is that he regarded it as a particularly important section. The view could certainly be taken that here is a turning-point in K.'s attitude to his law-suit. It is also the section that contains the second of the author's statements about K.'s attitude to his law-suit: "Die Verachtung, die er friiher fiir den ProzeB gehabt hatte, galt nicht mehr." (p. 136). I have endeavored to show above that, whilst Kafka performs the remarkable feat of maintaining a single limited perspective throughout almost all of Der ProzeB, there are a number of passages, mostly very short, that could be regarded as breaks in perspective. These are of two kinds: departures from the single perspective of Josef K. and departures from the limited perspective of Josef K.'s present. Whether some or all or none were made deliberately by Kafka can never be known with certainty, nor can we know how many would have been removed if Kafka had ever reached the stage of preparing his manuscript for publication. However, it seems to me a reasonable assumption that the flashes of insight into minor characters other than Frau Grubach were accidental breaks in perspective and would have been remedied by Kafka if the manuscript had been further revised. It also seems very probable that the time-bridging chapter openings were a deliberate device of literary economy and would have been allowed to remain in a definitive version. With the remaining breaks in perspective, one cannot discount the possibility that some, if not all, were made deliberately. They certainly warrant special consideration in any interpretation of Der ProzeB, for it may well be that Kafka was here adopting a subtle method of drawing attention to passages that he regarded as particularly important. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

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