Just picked up his complete works the other day and I’m just as lost as you are. Had to reread it to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I didn’t but i was no closer to understanding wtf was going on. Maybe something was lost in translation idk.
ohliamylia on
I just popped off to read it – I’m closely familiar with some of Kafka’s work, but not all of it – so bear in mind these are just my first impressions, but it seems to me like the man in prayer is suffering from anxiety and depression. He’s baffled by the world and the, to him, inexplicable happiness and enjoyment experienced by those around him. He isn’t sad, he has simply ceased to feel anything anymore, and he has turned desperately to religion for answers or assurance against death, and self-inflicted pain as either some sort of ritual mortification of the flesh or just out of the desire to feel something. He seems even somewhat resentful or bitter about situations in which any other person might experience happiness. I think he is also preoccupied with/fears death (and so, perhaps, has an unwilling obsession with it) and the inexorable march of time and doesn’t understand why everyone else seems to live in denial about that fact of life.
… Also bear in mind that I am not a Kafka scholar and that I tend to find mental illness in a lot of Kafka’s works (because I believe he was mentally ill and his writing was driven by that), so my interpretation is biased. When I have more time I’m definitely going to check out the original German text – I’m sure there’s a lot that’s missing in the translation.
HussyGus on
I read this story soon after you posted and I had to think a while.
I think there are several ideas Kafka is exploring at once but mostly the story is about the nature of reality. The supplicant is like a fish that is aware of the water he lives in, where others are not. He sees forces acting upon people, bringing them through their day. And because the Supplicant’s experiences are so disparate from what he believes everyone else experiences, he isn’t sure he is alive in the same sense everyone else is, so getting the attention of others (by flopping around on the floor) is really his only direct interaction with the reality of everyone else.
He enjoys his conversation with the man who pulls him aside but by the end of it, realizes he takes everything for granted too and leaves him by casually complementing him on his clothes and appearance, knowing that he doesn’t understand the nature of reality.
Edit: or, you know, whatever.
kammy_g on
This being the only thread I can find, and almost 10 years later; I can tell you I also don’t understand what I just read 😭😭😭
I like this paper’s notion of the narrator understanding the supplicant – the narrator notes that he has a constantly moving nature about him, the narrator acknowledging the supplicant’s world in which everything assumes some inertia or detached meaning. Then, as he grows more uneasy about the supplicant’s reality and how he may resonate with it, he closes his eyes and stops agreeing with the supplicant. The supplicant grows happier, suggesting he sees the narrator somewhat recognizing his world, but the narrator turns away from it, and, as the paper notes, chooses “to be a rational man” existing in the common world of common meaning, rather than subject himself to the haunting reality the supplicant lives in. Or it could be the constantly-forgetting and detached notions of meaning and interpretation being personified in the narrator’s actions.
Shtoosky on
Just read this, the last sentence, “and admissions became most clear and unequivocal when one withdrew them.”, stumped me for a bit. Given the rest of the text and after rereading it a coupla times, I guess the fact that the narrator dismisses the other guys grass story only proves that people choose (or don’t choose idk) to ignore how bewildering life is by adhering to a sometimes mundane “way” or “truth” or “narrative” whatever you wanna call it. Not even sure if I agree w myself anymore though haha.
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Just picked up his complete works the other day and I’m just as lost as you are. Had to reread it to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I didn’t but i was no closer to understanding wtf was going on. Maybe something was lost in translation idk.
I just popped off to read it – I’m closely familiar with some of Kafka’s work, but not all of it – so bear in mind these are just my first impressions, but it seems to me like the man in prayer is suffering from anxiety and depression. He’s baffled by the world and the, to him, inexplicable happiness and enjoyment experienced by those around him. He isn’t sad, he has simply ceased to feel anything anymore, and he has turned desperately to religion for answers or assurance against death, and self-inflicted pain as either some sort of ritual mortification of the flesh or just out of the desire to feel something. He seems even somewhat resentful or bitter about situations in which any other person might experience happiness. I think he is also preoccupied with/fears death (and so, perhaps, has an unwilling obsession with it) and the inexorable march of time and doesn’t understand why everyone else seems to live in denial about that fact of life.
… Also bear in mind that I am not a Kafka scholar and that I tend to find mental illness in a lot of Kafka’s works (because I believe he was mentally ill and his writing was driven by that), so my interpretation is biased. When I have more time I’m definitely going to check out the original German text – I’m sure there’s a lot that’s missing in the translation.
I read this story soon after you posted and I had to think a while.
I think there are several ideas Kafka is exploring at once but mostly the story is about the nature of reality. The supplicant is like a fish that is aware of the water he lives in, where others are not. He sees forces acting upon people, bringing them through their day. And because the Supplicant’s experiences are so disparate from what he believes everyone else experiences, he isn’t sure he is alive in the same sense everyone else is, so getting the attention of others (by flopping around on the floor) is really his only direct interaction with the reality of everyone else.
He enjoys his conversation with the man who pulls him aside but by the end of it, realizes he takes everything for granted too and leaves him by casually complementing him on his clothes and appearance, knowing that he doesn’t understand the nature of reality.
Edit: or, you know, whatever.
This being the only thread I can find, and almost 10 years later; I can tell you I also don’t understand what I just read 😭😭😭
[https://recordonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nicphilosophy.pdf](https://recordonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nicphilosophy.pdf)
I like this paper’s notion of the narrator understanding the supplicant – the narrator notes that he has a constantly moving nature about him, the narrator acknowledging the supplicant’s world in which everything assumes some inertia or detached meaning. Then, as he grows more uneasy about the supplicant’s reality and how he may resonate with it, he closes his eyes and stops agreeing with the supplicant. The supplicant grows happier, suggesting he sees the narrator somewhat recognizing his world, but the narrator turns away from it, and, as the paper notes, chooses “to be a rational man” existing in the common world of common meaning, rather than subject himself to the haunting reality the supplicant lives in. Or it could be the constantly-forgetting and detached notions of meaning and interpretation being personified in the narrator’s actions.
Just read this, the last sentence, “and admissions became most clear and unequivocal when one withdrew them.”, stumped me for a bit. Given the rest of the text and after rereading it a coupla times, I guess the fact that the narrator dismisses the other guys grass story only proves that people choose (or don’t choose idk) to ignore how bewildering life is by adhering to a sometimes mundane “way” or “truth” or “narrative” whatever you wanna call it. Not even sure if I agree w myself anymore though haha.